Yorktown, Virginia 9/19/1998

The second leg of my journey took me through the middle Atlantic with detours to places I had always hoped to visit, such as the Pennsylvania Dutch country. I had relaxed for a week in North Carolina and had kept a check on the foliage reports for New England. I seemed to be right on schedule.

I managed to make it through Norfolk and Newport News, Virginia but the construction was a nightmare. After traveling the interstate for awhile I exited at 17 and decided to go north to Yorktown.

How peaceful to arrive in the Yorktown National Park and be touring battlefield roads so quickly. I stopped at a Civil War cemetery, toured many battlefields and encampment areas, and then stopped by the visitor's center. I decided to go on down Colonial Parkway Drive which was indeed lovely paralleling the banks of the York River.

This is an old cave down along the water that was used during the Civil War.

After a quick stop at the Williamsburg Visitor's Center I came to my campground to read all the literature and allow the five o'clock traffic to get settled.

The next morning I located historic highway 5, also known as the John Tyler road, that leads towards Richmond. I was on a narrow two lane scenic road in deep lush forests with the trees holding hands above the highway. I crossed the Chickahominy River where a fishing tournament was obviously going to begin at 8. I was plantation hopping along the James River and at the edge of the forest I came to John Tyler's Plantation, the longest frame house in the nation, which is another gated community. The surrounding area appeared to be quite rural and indeed not overdeveloped.

On down the road the land became quite flat and open as I passed plantations with soybeans, cotton, and corn and a few set aside as bed and breakfasts. I then took a peek at Evelynton, the home of Edmund Ruffin who fired the first shot of the Civil War, and on down the road to Berkeley. Berkeley was the site of the first official Thanksgiving in 1619 and the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison. I turned up the bumpy 1/2 mile carriage road towards the house. There were several other old houses at what seemed like a junction. It made me feel like I had indeed gone back in time a couple hundred years. A few miles down a side road let me know I might rattle the van apart so I turned around. I decided to omit the final plantation, Shirley, settled in 1613 and home of the famous Hill-Carter family for 11 generations.

A turn on Greensprings Road led me through nicely developed neighborhoods to Jamestown.