Yorktown for Ron's Birthday

Well I think I have fallen in love with Virginia, the area here is so beautiful.

We started the day with a stop at the Williamsburg Visitors Center but decided to go to Yorktown instead for the day.

To get there you travel the Colonial Parkway which is a picture perfect path, look at the swans in the pond.

Now it was only a few weeks ago and we were at the start of the American Revolution and today we jumped to 1781 and it was the last major battle which secured independence for the United States.
A stop first at the Victory Center introduced us to the characters and weapons of the day.

The British lead by General Cornwallis, had come out of the Carolinas believeing that if they could only take Virginia, they would win the war. They took over Yorktown and dug in building many of these redoubts to ward of the Americans and the French.

George Washington brought his and the French troops down from New York to assist the French Navy in the battle of Yorktown. They trapped Cornwallis and after 19 days they met at the Moore homestead so that Cornwallis could surrender his 7500 troops.

The National Park has a 20 mile self guided driving tour around the battlefield and today it was gorgeous.


Back into Yorktown and a view of the Victory Monument.

Some of the houses are amazing, we have not yet visited a plantation, have sort of been saving that for Georgia.

Here is a replica of the Betsy, a British merchant ship, that the French sunk in the York River in Chesapeake Bay. It was not until the late 1900's that they began retrieving some of the
treasures that lay just off the shores after the big battles.

A couple of French guns, the Americans were very appreciative of the French, without them they certainly would not have won that war.