Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness in Joy

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for two people to depart from their beloved island home and to roam and enjoy freely the beauty of this earth, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to leave their friends behind and take on such an endeavor:

Sandra and I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all states are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with a certain unalienable beauty, that exploring them freely in Joy is the very essence of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

If you feel this sounded a little bit too eloquent or melodramatic, I’ll admit that during the first three weeks of our road trip, we might have listened to one too many speeches by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and about five guys named George.

But you get the idea: It was a joyous reunion with Joy in North Carolina. She came out of her hibernation without any serious issues. I can’t really explain why we are always so excited to move into this tiny box on wheels.

The JOYous Reunion

Our main reason for going into downtown Raleigh was to see the North Carolina Capitol. We had not made it there last year. We knew that we’d start this year’s trip in Raleigh, but we did not know that the capitol was going to be closed for renovations. Well, as we tend to say “sometimes it happens that way”. We found other places in Raleigh to entertain ourselves: Museums, historical sites, even President Andrew Johnson's birthplace and a beer garden. Only by chance did we find out about the so-called “Legislative Building”, which is open to the public. Turns out this is where the House of Representatives and Senate of North Carolina actually meets, the
capitol building is mostly ceremonial. Not sure how we are going to count this for our state capitol statistics. I guess we have now been to 31 1/2.

NOT the North Carolina State Capitol

We visited three historical sites on our way from North Carolina to Virginia: First the ‘Bennett Place’ in Durham, an unassuming farm house that really should be as famous as Appomattox Courthouse. Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War did not end with Lee’s surrender in Appomattox Courthouse. Viscous fighting continued. The largest surrender of Confederate forces (90,000) happened here at the Bennett Place, three times as many as the much more famous surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

The room where it happened:
The largest surrender of Confederate troops

We also visited the the Duke Plantation, where the Dukes family made their fortune. This is where they started growing tobacco (of course by leaving the actual physical work to the enslaved workers). They used part of the tobacco money to fund Duke University, which in turn educated the doctors to work at the Duke Medical Center to treat, amongst many others, patients suffering from cancer caused by tobacco…

Tobacco was so important for Virginia's early economy
...and now it is hung out to dry

Our last stop in North Carolina was Halifax. Most NC license plates say either “First in Flight”, referring to the Wright Brothers in Kitty Hawk where we went last year or “First in Freedom”, referring to the “Halifax Resolution”. In this little town on April 12, 1776, North Carolina became the first American Colony to declare their independence from England. Even though our Virginian friend Patrick Henry later pointed out to us that the actual wording of the North Carolina resolution was to declare independence IF someone else were to bring it up first. So the honest version of that license plate slogan should read “North Carolina: First in Freedom…if Virginia is ok with that”.

The building where the Halifax Resolution
was passed is long gone, so here's a picture of
Joy at a distillery where we stayed afterwards.

On our previous visits to Colonial Williamsburg, we always felt that we did not have enough time. So this time, we planned a whole week there. In order to do that, we actually moved out of Joy into a…gulp…hotel. It was a little hard to explain to Joy that we would ditch her so soon after our happy reunion. But we explained to her that there is no good campground close by and we had this “free week” at a hotel next to Colonial Williamsburg. Joy said that if you believe that, she’s got a timeshare on Kauai to sell to you.

Sandra with Patrick Henry
in Colonial Williamsburg
Back at our History Happy Place

As fascinating as we think it all is, I will not bore you with every presentation or every conversation we had with George and Martha Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and so on. Even meeting the ‘regular’ people of the 1770’s was very interesting. But the two people who actually want to read that (you know who you are!) can simply read last year’s blog from Williamsburg (www.bestofbothworldsroadtrip.com/2022/10/hobby-historians). This year was basically the extended version of that. I dare you to ask us about it, if you ever have a free 4-5 hours. 

Chatting with Martha and one of the Georges
on the Palace Green in Williamsburg 

Just to give you an idea how much we enjoyed our time in Williamsburg: You know the Jimmy Buffet song “I don’t know where I wanna go when the volcano blows”? Until last week, our answer was Chattanooga, now it’s Williamsburg. We could see ourselves living and even working in Williamsburg. I’m no geologist, but I think chances are still pretty good we’ll stay on Maui, which is still our favorite place.

Discussing life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness
with Thomas Jefferson 

Virginia advertises the “Historic Triangle”; consisting of Williamsburg (the colonial capitol of Virginia),  Jamestown (the first successful English settlement) and Yorktown (where the Revolutionary War was won). I think they need to call it a Historic Heptadecagon or some sort of Polygon, since there are at least 17 great historic sites in that area. Here just a few that we visited:

Berkley Plantation - This place has all kinds of historic significances: Home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and of William Harrison, the president who died after serving only 31 days (in bed). It’s also the site where the very first Thanksgiving was held in 1619, a year before the pilgrims even landed in Plymouth… and they have the document to prove it! It’s also the place where ‘Taps’ was composed and first played. Berkley Plantation was so significant to early American history that all of the first 10 presidents came to visit, plus Benedict Arnold came to plunder it.

Berkley Plantation - home of the Harrisons,
birthplace of "Taps" and the site of the very
first Thanksgiving 

Chippokes Plantation - The Jones-Steward Mansion is ‘only’ about 170 years old, but the land has been continuously farmed for over 400 years, almost as long as the Jamestown settlement has been here, so they claim to be the oldest farm in the country.

Bacon’s Castle - built in 1665 by a Mr. Allen, one of the earliest successful plantation owners. It was named Bacon’s Castle purely for marketing reasons after Nathaniel Bacon, the leader of the Bacon Rebellion in 1676. Weirdly, the name was not used until 150 years after the rebellion and we now know that Bacon himself never made it here, only some of his supporters. The name stuck anyway, because as the tour guide rightly pointed out “Would you have come here to see ‘Allen’s Brick House’?”. Maybe not, but I would suggest naming it “America’s Oldest Brick House”, because that’s what it actually is!

Bacon's Castle - America's oldest brick house

Shirley Plantation - not just another plantation home, this is the one from the richest of them all, therefore referred to as “King Carter”. The 12th generation of the family still lives upstairs, but graciously, they open the ground floor of the mansion and the gardens for tourists like us. It’s a spectacular place, but to be honest, we prefer our condo on Maui or our little box on wheels.

The Virginia State Capitol - the capital was moved from Williamsburg to Richmond during the revolution to be more defendable. The original building is designed by no other than Thomas Jefferson himself. We had been here in 2008, but the tour guide made the return visit well worth it. I love it when guides are equal parts historian and entertainer. 

Inside Virginia's State Capitol

Stratford Hall - home of the Lee family. This includes two signers of the Declaration of Independence (who helped founding the United States) and one general (who fought against the United States just 85 years later).

Washington’s Birthplace - Nothing remains of the house in which George Washington was born. Historians are not even sure where it stood exactly, so there is really nothing original to see here, other than an obelisk one tenth the size of the one in DC, a house that was built in the 1930’s pretending to be his birthplace and one of those films so old that it comes with a disclaimer before it starts. BUT this is a National Park Service site and we got our own private tour by a park ranger and that was interesting and intriguing as always.

Our own private National Park Ranger

Gunston Hall - This is the home of George Mason, one of the most important thinkers during the American Revolution. Most of the founding fathers claimed that they’d rather just be a farmer than a general or a president. It is said that George Mason is the only one who meant it, That’s probably why he is not as well known, but you can’t avoid the guy if you spend eight days at Colonial Williamsburg. It was actually George Mason himself telling us about Gunston Hall. We missed him when we got there, but there’s a great little museum and we got another private tour of his home.

I spare you another picture of
another brick building, but
George Mason was a big advocate
 for our Bill of Rights, so
they had this in the museum...

Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighy House - two spectacularly different homes that have nothing in common other than being next to each other and are managed by the National Trust. Woodlawn was the plantation home of Washington’s nephew and granddaughter in law, who received this land as a wedding gift from George Washington. It had a colorful history, including a period when the Quakers owned it and ran it as an experiment to prove that a plantation can be successful without using slave labor. It worked great, but did not catch on, apparently it was still more lucrative to own the workers and not pay them anything.

Next door is the Pope-Leighy House, one of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian homes. Those were meant to affordable, yet stylish and distinctly American homes for the middle class. They are unique, beautiful and timeless, like almost anything FLW has built. Every one of the dozen people on this tour had been to multiple Frank Lloyd Wright sites. As revered as he is, this house was supposed to be torn down in 1960’s to make room for a highway. To save it, the owners donated the house to the National Trust. The house that cost only $7,000 in 1941 was moved. By the time it was settled in the current location, it cost over a million dollars to move it. Obviously, we are not the only ones who love Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings.

Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighy House

Mount Vernon - remember those five guys named George we met in Williamsburg? This is the home of one of them. Despite being the home of the most famous George, by the 1850’s it had fallen into disrepair. The “Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association” was formed to save the home “since the men won’t do it”. They bought the land, they restored the mansion, outbuildings, gardens and part of the farm at great effort and great expense…but only about 100 million people have come to visit since…

Since our last visit they have also added a top notch museum and painted the mansion. We actually took three tours at Mount Vernon: The very crowded mansion tour, a tour specifically dedicated to the Hamilton musical and a fascinating living history tour by an actor portraying Tobias Lear. He was Washington’s personal secretary after the war and the tutor of Martha Washington’s grandchildren. 

Our tour guide Tobias Lear at Mount Vernon

Sorry for the length of this blog post. And I did not even mention all the disc golf courses, breweries and distilleries we went to. I am humbled if anyone made it this far. Life ist just too full on the road to pack three weeks into a tweet.

Prost from the Cedar Run Brewery,
Nokesville's oldest brewery, est. 2019

And that’s the news from Virginia’s Historic Heptadecagon, where all the buildings are old, all the men were declared equal, but some were definitely more equal than average.

Chris & Sandra