May 2019 Colonial Williamsburg and Newport News, Virginia

Smartyn & H2 resting at Newport News Park

Mary Ann with Thomas J. in Williamsburg

  After an all too brief drive by in Asheville, it was time for the final push east into Virginia. We arrived a few days before our scheduled week in Williamsburg at a really nice timeshare that brother Ed had reserved, The Colonies at Williamsburg (more about that in a minute). We set ourselves up at a very cool RV park nearby in Newport News. It's simply named Newport News Park, and here is how they describe themselves.."One of the largest municipal parks (7,500+ acres) east of the Mississippi River, Newport News Park offers a wide variety of activities, including hiking, biking, mountain biking, picnicking, paddle boating, canoeing, archery and freshwater fishing. Year-round camping is available at 188 campsites." For being located right in a metropolitan area, this truly is one of the best parks we've stayed in anywhere in the country. We liked it so much, we booked ourselves back in to explore more after our week at The Colonies. So back to The Colonies at Williamsburg timeshare property. It's a really conveniently located grouping of apartments, ours was a two bedroom, two bath unit with a large fully equipped kitchen and a nice living area. The units surround a great clubhouse with two pools, indoor and outdoor, game rooms, and a nice coffee bar. It's about a short ten minute drive to historic Williamsburg and even closer to shopping and restaurants. Speaking of that, the restaurant scene here has changed a lot (for the better!) since we last visited the area back in 2004. We found some really good choices this time compared to then, when we actually gave up trying and started using the kitchen more at the timeshare apartment we were staying in at the time. This time, besides a great revisit to one restaurant, we found several new ones that were terrific. The revisit was to The Blue Heron, a French styled bistro that still has great food.

Dining at the bar at The Blue Heron

They have all the traditional menu choices of a good bistro with some of their own signature dishes too. It's still so good, we went back twice! We did manage to try a few other good places during our week with Pat and Ed, and among the most fun was Food For Thought, a unique eatery with sayings and quotes all over the menu and walls of famous and not so famous philosophers. The mostly Southern style cooking was unique too. A top choice of brother, Ed, who loved their ribs! But the best new find for us was Waypoint Seafood and Grill. This upscale lunch and dinner spot tucked back in an unassuming strip center, is a winning choice. We had a quiet lunch there, and would definitely put it on the revisit list too.

Waypoint in Colonial Williamsburg

One other place stands out during that week of exploring the area. One day we decided to take a drive north, across the York River into Gloucester and beyond. Along the route there are historic signs everywhere, the battle of...this Revolutionary War camp or that Civil War event. Near the end of our drive north and east, winding up at The Chesapeake Bay, we found a place called Hole In The Wall on Gwynns Island, a sleepy (in summer anyway) vacation home place. It's your typical waterfront dock your boat for a meal kind of looking restaurant, but this place has a stellar chef! Everything we tried was outstanding, but the piece de resistance was dessert (they don't even list their sweet choices on the menu since the desserts change daily!) This was a Lemon Marscarpone Cake that had the consistency of Tres Leches.  It was out of this world, and even though Mary Ann pushed me to order it, thinking I'd like it, all four of us devoured it like ants on a sugar cube.

Lemon Marscarpone Cake at Hole In The Wall

If you think the Marscarpone sounds weird for a cake like this...think about Tiramisu. It's that popular dessert's key ingredient. Now you still don't think you'd just want to stick the whole thing in your mouth at once?! I'm trying to regain my composure at the keyboard here, just thinking about it.

Pat & Ed in Williamsburg

  So, what about the historic part of Colonial Williamsburg. First, almost everyone's familiar with this place, and when we mention it, a lot of reactions are, Oh yeah, we want to go there one day, but we don't get too many, Wow, we've been there! It is so cool! Anyway, it is a place nearly anyone will enjoy. For a person even mildly interested in the history of this country, this is pretty much where it all started. Within a few miles are historic Jamestown, Yorktown, and of course, Colonial Williamsburg. It hasn't always been in the amazingly well preserved  condition it's now in. In fact, in 1926 the buildings were in an advanced state of deteriorating. A local reverend named Goodwin formed a relationship with John D. Rockefeller Jr., and the restoration began. Walking the streets there is as close as you can get to feeling what life was like in this wealthy place in the late sixteen and early seventeen hundreds. Here is something lifted directly from the Williamsburg Foundation website.."In the preservation of the setting of Virginia’s 18th-century capital, Mr. Rockefeller and Dr. Goodwin saw an opportunity to ensure that the courageous ideals of the patriots who helped create the American democratic system live on for future generations". For  more info, you can click here You can simply walk the streets (for free) or buy a ticket and go inside many of the buildings for live demonstrations that detail everyday life here. Of course, the place is filled with museums, shops, and more places to eat (in fact, The Blue Heron is right in the middle of this area). You could spend several days and still not see everything. One thing is sure though. When you are finished, your mind will be filled with a new sense of American history. Our week with Ed and Pat flew by, and they were on their way back to Florida. We relocated back to Newport News Park for what turned out to be over a week's additional visit, especially since Memorial Day had quickly crept up on us, and we don't like having to roll to new places on a big holiday. It was pretty interesting to be here then. The park swells up with mostly local campers (of all types!), and observing many of the weekend amateurs is fascinating..and sometimes funny. They swarm in on Friday, like flies, set up, and begin their urban camping. The tents, tiny trailers, sleeping bags, you name it, roll in, the campfires light, they try to get in line for the over taxed restrooms, trying to get as much in as possible within a limited amount of time. Then, as quickly as they arrived, Monday comes, and they all decide to leave within the same few hours! If your not an RVer and don't know, nearly everyone who has a bathroom, even in their small trailer, has to dump the tanks at the ONE dump in the park here! OMG! At about 11 am on Monday the line to use that one dump station was at least 100 trailers long! We had never seen anything like it. As we headed out of the park in the car, the scene of all those campers trying to leave at the same time is one we will not soon forget. We figured by that evening, the place would calm down..and it finally did. 

  Our visit now concentrated on Newport News. This is a pretty populated greater area, which is made up of it, Norfolk/Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach plus a myriad of smaller communities all around.

A Navy ship being refitted in Newport News

Of course Williamsburg's only just up the road by 15 or so miles too. Newport News and Norfolk are mostly known for ship building, the military, and all things aquatic. There is still a strong sense of what made this place..ships! The shipyards in both Newport and Norfolk are very active these days, and between them and all the military, the economy seems very vibrant.

Entrance to The Maritime Museum

The original turret of the Monitor gets a constant chemical bath

We saw from afar a lot of navy ships getting revamped. One of the most interesting things we did here was to visit The Mariners Museum. Here you'll find the remains of The USS Monitor, one of two Civil War Ironclads that changed modern navel warfare forever and a reenactment of their famous battle. We're not the types who need to visit every museum when we travel, but this one is an exception. There are really interesting neighborhoods here too. One of them is Hilton Village, Mostly built as a planned community for ship workers during World War 1, this small area of unusually designed homes and shops is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historic Hilton Village shops and restaurants

What's there to eat you ask? Our favorite new find in Newport News is Taste. It's a fast casual walk up and order place with amazingly fresh soups, salads, and customized sandwiches, all in a very inviting upscale specialty food store environment. On your way out, you can pick up a bottle of wine, gourmet nuts, fresh baked cookies and other bakery items, gelato and more. It's in a cool lifestyle center with shops, restaurants, apartments, and a big movie complex. We revisited a couple of times,

Taste in City Center at Oyster Point

and enjoyed the food a lot!

Inside Taste

  Another interesting find here is a food store called Lidl. It's another German owned chain making it's entry to the U.S., first along the East Coast. If you're already familiar with Aldi, the store is larger with even more hard goods. Good quality, mostly private label, bare bones pricing, easy in and out seem to be the theme, just like Aldi. They operate about 10,000 stores in Europe and now here, so they're probably going to spread quickly across the country too.

New Lidl store in Newport News

  We spent some time while here at the local Whole Foods stores. In fact, they served as a sort of base camp for getting Amazon shipments, eating at their good local and very fresh food bars and enjoying some good local house coffee, while picking up items to take home to H2's galley. Of the two stores we visited in the area, we spent the most time at the closest, just down the road about ten minutes. If you haven't been to one lately, you might be surprised to notice their pricing seems to be getting way more competitive for comparable items than, say, a year ago, especially if you watch their sales and are a Prime member.

  Well, after the extra ten or so days it's finally time to turn back around and start heading west again, but pretty slowly this time. There's lots to see in this great country, and we feel that as much as we have seen in the ten years we've been RVing, we've only just scratched the surface on the highlights. Our return trip to Arizona was slow and deliberate, and we got to visit a lot of new places we'd not yet been to and a refresher on some old favorites too. We'll share them next time...