We had one full day in a place called Williamsburg, Virginia. This is one of the first places to have independence from England in 1775, becoming the Commonwealth of Virginia. They have an historic section which is mainly original (and some restored) buildings from 1750 to 1800. All of the buildings have furnished in the time period and there are actors that are dressed and play parts from that time period. We visited lots of tradespeople, such as coopers, blacksmiths, jewellers (that actually sell their jewellery but nothing else sells theirs), gunsmiths, silversmiths, book binders, basketmakers and loads of others. Some of the hosues that belonged to important people in the time are furnished how they think the family would have lived.

The Governer's Palace was undergoing annual maintenance and while we couldn't see all of it, we booked a tour that allowed you to see some the lower level and they explained how they restored and upkept all the antiques that they have. The guy at the gate said every year when they do maintenance, they pull 100 pounds of gum off the antique furniture in there!!

We also participated in a day in court. Unfortunately, not being American voters and women meant Emma and I were not really eligible for any parts....poor us! The trials are based on actual records from the time and included a sheriff suing for reward money for returning a slave (the guy he was suing didn't turn up to court!), the owner of the tavern wanting payment from a travelling merchant for his tab (he wanted to pay in North Carolinian notes and apparently this is not good money!) and a man who didn't pay his taxes because he said he was travelling on the day when he was supposed to declare where he was resident so technically he wasn't resident anywhere so he shouldn't have to pay taxes. It was quite amusing!

In the evening, we participated in joining the Union Army. We were put through some drills and they did a musket firing demonstration (no warning beforehand so I almost fell over I jumped so much!). We were shown how to load a musket and prime a musket ready to go! It was really quite an interesting place and provided us with a lot of the history of the area during the American Revolution.

We are off to Atlanta tomorrow. Another 24 hour (ok, 23 hour) travelling day as we don't get into Atlanta until 16th Jan. Can't believe we will be in Vegas soon and then before we know it, we'll be on our way home!