My visit to the past

Mr. G and I went to Virginia this past week to see our new granddaughter and while we were there we did a little sightseeing, we went to Jamestown Settlement.  I would recommend anyone who is in that part of the country to go visit, plan to take at least 3 hours to see everything.  We didn’t get the chance to see all we wanted to so we’ll make another trip back in a few months.

There is very little of the original settlement there due to numerous fires but they are doing archeological digs all over the settlement and trying to recreate some of it.  We talked to a man who is involved with the digs and he said he hopes they don’t recreate all of it because they wanted to keep it as pure as they can in case, somewhere down the road, they come up with new techniques to find relics even deeper than what they can now. 

Also if you’re permanently disabled or senior citizen you can get a free National Park pass to use at all National Parks, apply for it whichever park you visit.

In 1607, 13 years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, a group of 104 English men and boys began a settlement on the banks of Virginia’s James River. They were sponsored by the Virginia Company of London, whose stockholders hoped to make a profit from the resources of the New World. The community suffered terrible hardships in its early years, but managed to endure, earning the distinction of being America’s first permanent English colony.

First up, we took the Jamestown Ferry across the James River to get to Jamestown.

A seagull that landed on the edge of the ferry.

 

Pocahontas

Church where Pocahontas married John Rolfe

Tower of the Church is original but the rest of the Church is rebuilt.

Inside of the Church.  This is the part that was rebuilt, along the sides is the original brick foundation covered with glass.  Gravestone markers are the light colored tiles.

Proof, that even before the founders, the settlers deemed this to be a Christian Nation.

The Ten Commandments as written back then.  The Settlers were the ones who brought about the King James Version.

 

 

I paid to sleep in a crackhouse in Williamsburg, Virginia

Sounds like fun, right?  Here’s the story of how I ended up paying to sleep at a crackhouse.

Mr. G and I went to Virginia this week to visit with our brand new granddaughter and our two other grandchildren, we decided to stay at a motel rather than put our daughter out by having her rearrange rooms having just come home from the hospital.

We, foolishly, picked the Super 8 Historic in Williamsburg.  Being smokers we asked for a smoking room and were sent to the very back, dark corner of the motel, room 158.  There were no vehicles at all, the lights on that end of the lot were out, we noticed there was a light in the room next to the one we were assigned to. We walked into our room, turned on the lights, the floor was littered with trash, someone’s dirty clothes were left in there, the toilet hadn’t been flushed and the smoke detector was dismantled.

We called the desk clerk who immediately came down, she was dismayed, or made the motions of being dismayed and when I remarked that I’m not sure if the bedding was even changed, she replied that she’s sure the bedding was changed.  How did she know the bedding was changed when she didn’t know the rest of the room was in such disarray?

She then tried to put us in the next room.  We told her the light was on, that somebody was in that room, she replied that she hadn’t rented that room.  She and Mr. G looked in the room and, sure enough, the place was a mess and the smoke alarm in that room was also disabled.  She told us that there was a harmless crazy guy that hung around and every now and then rented a room.  I feel so much better now.

She then moved us to the upper end of the strip, the room was okay but was lacking the normal peep hole, a piece of tissue was protruding from it.

Spent the night sleeping with one eye open and my hand on my personal defense contraption.

The next morning we were getting ready to leave and a man came out of the room next to us, we didn’t even know he was there, like I said before, there were no other cars there, we watched as he walked into the woods.  We had paid for 2 nights but decided that we weren’t spending another night there so we got a refund.  I told Mr. G that if she refused the refund to tell her that we had pictures and the Fire Marshall on speed dial but she didn’t hesitate to give us a refund.

So maybe it wasn’t a crackhouse per se but it doesn’t explain how people got into the rooms or how the smoke alarms became disabled.  The clerk also told us that her boss was on vacation in India for 2 weeks.  My guess is that someone let their homey’s stay there while the cat was away.  I don’t think it was night clerk because surely she wouldn’t have rented us a room knowing someone else was in there.

This experience also got me to thinking about how smokers are treated and I had a pissed off post all ready to go, which I still may post.

UPDATE:  Called the Fire Marshall, his response was, “I’m on my way there right now”. 😀

Called the corporate office and relayed our story and got an “I’m sorry” a couple of times and a promise to contact the manager of the motel.   Not sure what, if any, good it did to complain.  The girl sounded a bit dis-interested.