Tag: Great Stuff for Kids: Virginia

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50 State Series

Family travel in Virginia

My son in Jamestown VA aboard the Godspeed, with the Susan Constant in the background (photo by Sheila Scarborough)Every Tuesday (this week we’re a day late – sorry!) until we run out of states, I plan to post about family-friendly travel ideas, attractions and events in each one of the US states, taking input mostly from Twitter and Facebook.

We’re going in alphabetical order but started with the end, so our first state for the series was Wyoming, then we investigated Wisconsin , West Virginia , Washington and now we’re moving on to….Virginia!

These guys are HOPPIN’ online  —  you can find their state tourism organization on Twitter at @VisitVirginia plus @VATourismPR, and here is the Virginia travel and tourism Facebook page.

Their state parks folks are on Twitter at @VAStateParks. There is also a Virginia tourism YouTube channel, the Virginia Flickr pool and a whole site for Virginia Green Travel.

When I asked for ideas, here’s what came in….

Twitter Travel Tips for Virginia

From Dwight Silverman via @dsilverman on Twitter  —  [Virginia Beach’s] Capt. George’s Seafood Buffet is good for kids. Huge amounts of good food; my sister calls it “Capt. Gorge”. She lives in VA Beach.

From Nancy Schretter via @KidTravel on Twitter  — Virginia’s my home state. Two of my favorite VA parks for families are Lake Anna and Smith Mountain Lake. They’re fabulous!

From Jenna Schnuer via @JennaSchnuer on Twitter  — Here’s one of my favorites – and definitely a great family travel spot. Link is to my WorldHum piece about [the Clinch Mountain’s Carter Family Fold dance hall, with old-time country and bluegrass music]  The Most Joyous Place in the World.

From @jayne52 on Twitter  — My favorite place: Arlington National Cemetery, so moving, & historical Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Kennedy gravesite esp. at holidays.

From Char Polanosky via @charpolanosky on Twitter  — Williamsburg, Busch Gardens, Great Wolf Lodge, Water Country USA make for a great family vacation in VA.

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USA

Good food in the Shenandoah: Brookside Restaurant in Luray VA

Brookside Restaurant near Skyline Drive in Luray, Virginia (photo by Sheila Scarborough)I’m warning you, the sweet potato fries here are embarrassingly addictive.

We’d just popped off of Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park near Luray, Virginia and were looking for a local restaurant for a late lunch when we passed a group of cabins tucked next to the road under some pretty trees, and a stone building next to them that said “Restaurant.”

Can you say u-turn, with a spray of gravel?

It turned out to be the Brookside Restaurant, a well-known eatery in these parts and perfect for our lunch.

The cuisine was down-home and there were many sandwich and salad options, with homemade veggie sides (I liked the green beans.) Those sticks of sweet potato came with a sweet honey-butter dipping sauce that contrasted divinely with the saltiness of the fries.

Beverage listings at Brookside; note Yuppie beer (photo by Sheila Scarborough)

There’s a food and salad buffet as well, a kid’s menu with the usual chicken tenders suspects and a dessert menu full of pies and fruit cobblers.

I laughed at the beer listings at the bottom of the menu, which included three brews labeled “Imported and Yuppie Beer.” Since Sam Adams is based in Boston and Killians is made by Coors, they must be the Yuppie ones.

Don’t miss the pretty running stream (hence the name “brookside”) just behind the restaurant.

First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia ate here recently during a family trip to nearby Luray Caverns.

I wonder if they ordered the fries?

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Photos USA

Photo of the Week: Fun but icky Colonial medicine at Yorktown

colonial-era-medical-procedures-yorktown-victory-center-bfw-scarborough-photoNothing like a semi-gory discussion of 1700’s battlefield medical procedures to make kids appreciate the simple comforts of a modern FluMist squirt.

At the Yorktown Victory Center in Virginia, there are all sorts of kid-friendly demonstrations like this one on Colonial-era doctoring, and as a bonus, this coming weekend is a special two-day Yorktown Victory Weekend to commemorate the American Revolution’s Battle of Yorktown.

There will be encampments with reenactors, demonstrations and interpretive tours – you can take one of my favorite fall scenic drives, the Colonial Parkway, to get there.

Just keep that scalpel and those tooth-pullers away from me, okay?

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Photos USA

Photo of the Week: Lunchtime in Colonial Williamsburg

Chicken pot pie at the King's Arms Tavern, Colonial Williamsburg VA (photo by Sheila Scarborough)This is the chicken pot pie served at the King’s Arms Tavern restaurant in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

Don’t you want to jump right into it?

Anyone can eat at the taverns in the historic area (you don’t have to buy the admissions pass to the other exhibits, buildings and performances, although I’d certainly recommend that if you have time.)

Try Christiana Campbell’s, Chowning’s and Shields in addition to King’s Arms;  they all have children’s menus (and pssst….Tarpley’s store nearby has old-fashioned candies if you don’t want a tavern dessert.)

If you want to stay in Colonial Williamsburg and truly immerse your kids in Revolutionary history, always check on the Web site for special packages that usually include hotel, breakfast and passes for everyone.

For example, I love the interactive street theater of the Revolutionary City mini-plays that reenactors stage all over the historic area, all day. Your family can participate in them with the Revolutionary City Adventure package.

Mostly, just make an excuse to get ahold of some of that pot pie.

(This post is my contribution to this week’s WanderFood Wednesday on the Wanderlust and Lipstick blog.)

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USA

Getting nautical at Nauticus in Norfolk, Virginia

Nauticus National Maritime Center in Norfolk, VirginiaThe Nauticus National Maritime Center in downtown Norfolk, Virginia is a family-friendly travel destination for anyone who is interested in seafaring.

An interactive history, science and technology center, it features hundred of exhibits, including deep ocean exploration, US Navy history and NOAA’s “Science on a Sphere” weather display.

There is also a shark petting lagoon and a 2000-gallon touch tank (with a new horseshoe crab family!) that is quite a hit with young kids.

A zippy AEGIS Command Center lets visitors see a narrated, simulated engagement using much of the display equipment that is currently installed aboard Navy AEGIS destroyers and cruisers.

The 887-foot-long battleship Wisconsin is permanently docked adjacent to the main Nauticus museum building, and you can climb around on a lot of it, both topside and below decks.

There are often special events and exhibits, and on January 21, 2009 there’s a day of educational programming just for homeschoolers.

The city of Norfolk (adjacent to Virginia Beach – the whole region is called Hampton Roads) has a promotional right now called “Half-Off.”  Family travelers can get 50% off of admission to many popular city attractions (including Nauticus) and some restaurant discounts by booking one night at participating hotels, until January 31, 2009.

I’ll bet you anything that given the current economic client, they’ll either extend that offer or come up with a similar one, so contact the Norfolk CVB at (757) 664-6620 or click here for info on tourist special offers and packages.

Remember that this is a heavily military area, with lots of bases and Department of Defense facilities, so military families may have options available in temporary lodging. For more details, I like the military recreation facility books by retirees Ann and Roy Crawford: Military Living.

Update: I forgot to include a link to this excellent article by Budget Travel on other things to do and see in Norfolk VA.

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Blog Photos USA Video Posts

Video of the week: Colonial Williamsburg

Earlier this year we took a family press trip to Virginia’s “Historic Triangle” (Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown) and our tourguides gave us a disposable digital video camera to play with.

The CVS disposable costs about US$30 and then another US$12-13 to develop, but it did motivate me to film without my usual over-analyzing and artistic angst. Once I show you the good clips from it, I’m going to start using the video mode on my Kodak digital camera, for better video quality.

I’ve never had a video camera, so I made all of the usual newbie mistakes: panning/moving the camera too fast so that the resulting video induces vomiting, simply forgetting that I had the thing in my purse, and then not getting around to getting the clips off of the camera and onto my computer.

With great fanfare, I’d like to announce that in addition to filming a little video clip of me with a laptop camera, I actually drove over to my local CVS pharmacy yesterday and got the contents of the camera onto a DVD. I popped the DVD into my laptop and voila — a whole lot of “OMG, I forgot I filmed that!”

So, here is my first attempt at doing a little travel video work for Family Travel’s Photo/Video of the Week — it’s a short narrated clip from July 2007, taken on Duke of Gloucester Street in front of the King’s Arms Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg.

(1/12/08 – The original video seems to have somehow disappeared, so here is a link to it on YouTube in case it drops out again….)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uAza9uCLKM

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USA

It’s Home Educator Week in Colonial Williamsburg

Colored yarns at the weaver's, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia (Scarborough photo)

For those of my readers who homeschool, next week (September 17-21, 2007) is the designated “Home Educator Week” on site at Colonial Williamsburg, the 1700s living history museum in Virginia that my own family visited earlier this summer.

The Home Educator Week information sheet lists all sorts of places that you can visit and the role that they played in America’s Colonial daily life.

There are tradespeople like weavers and the wheelwrights (who kept carriages and wagons on the move) that you and the kids can watch in action, and the info sheet tells you who’s doing what and on which day.

For example:

“If you make your way back to Duke of Gloucester street you will find the Blacksmith ready to meet your needs Monday through Sunday from 9-5.  Directly across the street, visit the Print Shop in the mornings from 9-1, and the [book] Bindery in the afternoon from 1-5.”

There are also special learning programs this week at the Museums of Colonial Williamsburg. For example:

September 19

** 10:30am – Wee Folk – meet in the museum’s Introductory Gallery. This program is geared to children ages 3-7 and their adult friends. Participants explore the galleries through stories and activities. 45 minutes.

** 3:00pm – Crack the Code – meet in the museums’ Education Gallery. See if you can Crack the Code as we investigate various Secret Codes used during the [American] Revolution. One hour. Geared for ages 8 and older.

If you are there during this event, don’t miss musician Dean Shostak and his glass armonica (invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761.)  He’ll play it and other instruments in concert on Wednesday, September 19th at 11:30am and 1:30pm at Williamsburg’s Kimball Theater.

If you can’t make it to Virginia, there are electronic field trips and other teaching resources available, including a teacher’s e-newsletter.

Related post:

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, homeschooling, Colonial Williamsburg

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USA

Who’s on first in Jamestown?

Commemorative statue of Pocahontas at Historic Jamestowne (Scarborough photo)

Thirteen years before the Pilgrims landed in New England, a small colony of male English settlers arrived at a spot on Virginia’s James River that is now called Historic Jamestowne.  We visited the original 1607 landing site today, plus a larger exhibit called Jamestown Settlement, as a part of our Historic Triangle tour this week (Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown.)

Yesterday we explored the 1770s in Colonial Williamsburg, plus a little roller coaster action at Busch Gardens Europe, but much of today was spent learning about the first permanent English settlement in the New World.

It’s always interesting to see how historians (and tourist organizations) try to capture “firsts” in the United States.  I’m not even going to get into those Vikings, who really got here first.

Way back in my day, we were taught that the Pilgrims were first to come to America.

Then, OK, those guys in Jamestown were really first.

Well, maybe they should be called the first English settlers, since you have to acknowledge that the Spaniards founded the Florida city of St. Augustine even earlier, in 1565.  St. Augustine is now touted as “the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the United States.”

You have to call Jamestown the first permanent English settlement because some earlier English colonists gave it a go just south of here in North Carolina in 1584, but they disappeared around 1590 and are known today as the Lost Colony (visit Fort Raleigh in Manteo NC to learn more.)

Imagine trying to explain all of these “me first” gyrations to a bunch of kids.

Anyway, a visit to Jamestown is well worth your while.  There are two places to see; Historic Jamestowne and Jamestown Settlement.

The original landing site at Historic Jamestowne is managed by the National Park Service and is pretty low-key, with a few indoor exhibits, commemorative statues and some reconstructed buildings.

The big attraction here, for my family at least, was the ongoing work of archaeologists who are still busy excavating the site and bringing up new treasures from the dirt.  Kids can watch work in progress and talk to the scientists and volunteers.  The Archaearium building is carefully constructed over the original foundations of the brick statehouse building that was here from 1660-1698.  Visitors can look through observation ports into the ground below and view numerous artifacts that have been found throughout the Historic Jamestowne site.

My kids really liked the two skeletons that are on display (go figure!) complete with extensive information about the detailed forensic and research processes that scientists and historians use to determine who the people are and why they were important to the Colony.  Even my daughter’s school science classes on DNA came in handy, since that was a large part of the research puzzle.

We also learned the real story of Pocahontas; let’s just say that Disney didn’t quite get it right in the movie.

The second half of our visit was to Jamestown Settlement just down the road, where we found a reconstructed Powatan Indian village, the James Fort and replicas of the three ships that carried the colonists to Virginia, led by Captain Christopher Newport aboard the Susan Constant.

More on that as soon as I can find time in the schedule to write up the post for you.

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Jamestown

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USA

Virginia’s Three-Cornered Hat: History, Water Park, Roller Coaster

You have a friend in the history booksIf you’re looking for a great combination of living U.S. history combined with theme park fun, consider the “Historic Triangle” of Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown in Virginia.

There’s not a better place for one-stop learning about our country’s colonial history, including one of the first European settlements at Jamestown, a colonial world brought to life in Williamsburg and the battlefield at Yorktown where we won our freedom after a decisive defeat of the British forces.

Just because school’s out for the summer doesn’t mean that brain rot has to set in too soon! 🙂

This is Jamestown’s 400th anniversary, so the buzz is on to bring visitors here (even Queen Elizabeth stopped by recently.) The historic sites just launched a brand new website, www.VisitWilliamsburg.com, complete with trip planning tools and interactive features.

Now is a great time to celebrate the nation’s history where it all started. Founded in 1607, Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the U.S., and organizers have pulled out all the stops for a year-long 400th anniversary celebration.

Once you check out the historic places, cool off at the new Water Country USA . The mid-Atlantic’s largest water play park, it has a Fifties and Sixties surf theme and over 30 slides and water rides. Roller coaster fans can check out the Griffon, Busch Gardens Europe’s newest roller coaster. I remember taking my daughter to the park when the Drachen Fire ride first opened (it’s since closed) and now they’ve raised the bar with the tallest floorless dive coaster in the world.

Book any visit with a ticket package and get the official Williamsburg-Jamestown-Yorktown Visitors Guide for free. If you find a lower room rate on another website than what you paid to book your room via VisitWilliamsburg.com, they’ll honor the lower rate you found. If you book participating properties for 4 nights, you’ll receive the 5th night free, or take advantage of the 7-4-1 Flex ticket’s unlimited access for 7 consecutive days to 7 destinations: Busch Gardens Europe, Colonial Williamsburg, Water Country USA, Jamestown Settlement, Historic Jamestown, Yorktown Victory Center and Yorktown Battlefield.

A family of 4 can stay 5 nights and visit all 7 attractions for as little as $899, plus food and incidentals (if you fly in, you’ll need a rental car to most efficiently get around to the sights.) Children 5 and under are free with an adult, and by purchasing 7-4-1 Flex tickets on VisitWilliamsburg.com, you get a discount from the normal purchase price at the gate.

Anyone in the family enjoy golfing? The Williamsburg area also has lovely courses and offers vacation packages as well. The surf’s up in nearby Virginia Beach or on the Outer Banks in North Carolina if you want to pack in some beach time.

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Williamsburg, Jamestown, Virginia