Day 26 – Monday, October 23: New Bern, NC to Williamsburg, VA

New Bern Bears

Bears are a thing here in New Bern.  The painted ones are placed around the city.  We have no idea why.  Here are some of them:

New Bern is not far from the ocean of North Carolina and sits on the Neuse river.  It is a really nice looking town with a “proper” downtown and all the boating and stuff that comes with river/ocean living.  It was worth a walk around in the morning before we get on the road again.  It is also the birthplace of Pepsi Cola which was invented by a local pharmacist as a sweet tasting aid for digestion.  We did not see Coke anywhere.

Here is Glenda’s retirement house she picked out.  Backs right to the river with gardens fully designed and running!!

Okay, the bad news is that there is a contract pending…

We are coming to the end of the trip and have reached the let’s wing it part.  We have some ground to cover to get back to Jers…So sticking with the educational/history theme we began with (think Gettysburg) we decide to aim for Jamestown/Williamsburg,VA.

The First U.S. Colony: J-town

We pick the road less traveled…no highways and off we go for the 4 hours or so to Jamestown.  Rural scenes along the way: the cotton fields; the shacks; the churches; the small towns; did we mention churches?  Yep lots and lots of churches down here.  We think we possibly should have made them a photo theme for the whole trip…but too late.  Never mind.

A word about our navigation…we did have a major meltdown on this leg of the trip.  We use the GPS Garmin unit on the windshield in addition to the GPS on the phone.  You know…belts and suspenders to avoid trouble.  Unfortunately, they almost NEVER agree with each other 100% or even 80%.  Why not?  No idea.  But this time it was the all time worst…the Garmin said go left, the phone said stay straight; Susan drove left.  Glenda screamed (editors note: only because Susan ignored my first request/suggestion/imperative) and we went 6 miles out of our way on the Garmin route before we turned around and got back on the straight and narrow aligned with the phone GPS.  Phew!!  Upon further analysis, it seemed that the Garmin route involved a FERRY.  When is getting on a ferry ever faster than a road under normal traffic conditions?  Like maybe…never??  Discuss amongst yourselves and please report in.

Back to reality.  We swoop in to Jamestown with about 30 minutes to spare.  Yes, people, another stamping!!!!

What they have here is a museum filled with info and artifacts from an ongoing archeological dig here from the original first settlement of 1607.  The dig started in 1994 and they have uncovered a remarkable amount of stuff over the years.  And it’s still going.  Our brains are filling up but we are both loving it.  Glenda, having lived in Bermuda for a few years, is particularly enthralled with the part about a Jamestown-bound ship full of supplies wrecking on Bermuda leaving the poor J-town people without fresh supplies.  By the time the wrecked ship and some of the people get it all sorted and make it to J-town, the town has been decimated by disease, famine, all of it.

We finish up at the Jamestown site and land in Williamsburg, VA for the night.  Colonial people abound. In costume. Fascinating.