OCTOBER 15, 2014 | DAY 14 of #ONTHEROAD1014

I’ve had a love for Colonial Williamsburg since I was thirteen and visited Virginia during an 8^th grade trip to Washington DC. It was during my adolescent trip that I discovered how closely packed together states are on the East Coast and my love for pineapples. As Bowerbird had never been to Colonial Williamsburg I wanted to introduce him to the rich history and old buildings. It’s a 7-hour drive between Wheeling, West Virginia and Colonial Williamsburg on a good day and we were driving through a torrential downpour. We left for Williamsburg super early in the morning and arrived at the visitor center 2 hours before everything closed down. Since we were on a budget-friendly adventure we opted to just get the day pass minus all the fancy tours that get you inside the buildings. We walked around the grounds and popped into the open shops, Bowerbird and I are pro-window shoppers.

Apart from both Bowerbird and I’s general love of old building and history, the day was pretty mellow. Except I was tweeting the chef of Husk hoping to get a table for the next day, which you can read about here. The day pass does include access to the museums and we checked out the colonial asylum and art museum. I loved them both and ended up taking lots of pictures of furniture. I’m fascinated by craftsmanship; the artistic wooden carving and intricate inlay patterns all done by hand! I was almost not even going to share this post, but I can’t be the only one that freaks out when they see a gorgeous set of velvet chairs and foot rest.

Illuminate stuff right here….

Before there was Netflix & chill, people had needlepoint. This is a wedding needlepoint tapestry. 

We booked a dinner at one of the Williamsburg restaurants, Chowning’s Tavern, for the novelty of the meal. It’s expensive for mediocre food, but in all honesty you’re eating dinner there for the town troubadour to come to your table. The website says you don’t need a reservation, but I say book ahead, we called them while we were in the museum. Plus we did hear people being turned away at the door because they didn’t have a reservation. The service was fantastic and the little pitcher of cream for our coffee was just my style. At dinner we were checking on the neighborhood of our Couchsurfing host and found out it was one of the most violent areas of Richmond. YAY! – not. But as we google mapped the address and studied the street view, we were able to talk ourselves off the ledge. I could only imagine what travelers think of when they google Echo Park.  Our Couchsurfing host is a medical student, like most people in that part of Richmond. It’s a neighborhood in flux. We chatted about music and our travels with our host and his girlfriend before heading off to bed. During that time I was still feeling anxious and was in a funk as explained in my Wheeling post. But Michael, our host, and his energy just wiped away all the bad moe joe and after that night I was starting to feel a lot better.

Michael – you’re the bomb dot com.

If you’re a furniture nerd too, leave a comment below, I want to feel less alone! 

I made a wish in the well and this handsome fellow appeared.