Virginia may be known as the Mother of Presidents but it was three famous ships that won the place of honor on the Virginia Quarter. Most of us can readily come up with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria but these are the OTHER three ships. The Discovery, Susan Constant and Godspeed left London on December 20, 1606. Five months later they reached Jamestown, Virginia. For those whose version of this history comes primarily from Disney’s 1995 movie Pocahontas, the truth story of Captain John Smith and the others warrants checking out. Smith quit the colony for good in 1609 leaving only 60 of the 500 ship mates surviving. Tales of their hardships are ripe for Reality TV.
My plans to linger in Virginia Beach and Norfolk for a day and take my time with a tour of the Botanical Gardens were foiled by American Airlines. Due to a delayed flight my DFW layover morphed into an overnight and I didn’t arrive in Norfolk until the next day. Virginia has so much history at every juncture. I would like to visit 4th President, James Madison’s Montpelier and check out the recent restoration but I was going nowhere near Orange, VA on this trip. In fact, I was barely dipping my toe into The Old Dominion. My Virginia visit of 2008 consisted of flying in, renting a car, going to Doumar’s Drive-In_ to get a coffee and driving south across the state line. Doumar’s says that everyday is ice cream day but somehow I just wasn’t feeling it. I’d love to go back though! The next day I repeated in reverse order without the Doumar’s detour. Luckily I’ve been here before and know that I missing a great deal this time around. I’ll return, you can count on it.
Oh yes, there’s Appomattox, Bedford, Fairfax, Culpeper, the Mosby Heritage Area, Portsmouth…all beckoning me.
Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Virginia Beach and the nautical heritage of Norfolk and Newport News have enticed me in the past and call me back.
Next time, next time, next time…..
We have a chance to drink like a Founding Father. George Washington’s Distillery near Mount Vernon, once the largest whiskey distillery in the fledgling US, has been reconstructed on it’s original grounds. You can purchase the spirits at Mount Vernon but I haven’t been able to locate any other outlets to satisfy my curiosity. http://www.virginia.org/site/description.asp?attrID=43790
The iconic Virginia food is Smithfield Ham. This is a beloved American tradition known across both state and international borders. Smithfield Ham is considered by many to be the premier country-cured ham, the Smithfield is said to have been so loved by Queen Victoria, that she had six sent to her household every week. Although these special hams were once produced from hogs raised on a privileged diet of acorns, hickory nuts and peanuts, today's Smithfield hams come from grain-fed hogs.
To be accorded the appellation of "Smithfield," the hams must be cured and processed in the area of Smithfield, Virginia. They are first dry salt cured, spiced, and slowly smoked to perfection using oak, hickory and apple wood and then aged for 6 to 12 months, sometimes up to 2 years. The result is a lean, dark-colored ham with a flavor that's rich, salty and dry. It may be served raw like prosciutto, but it's usually baked or boiled. Before being cooked, Smithfields must be soaked for 12 to 24 hours to remove excess saltiness.
RoadsideAmerica.com lists World's Oldest Edible Cured Ham in Smithfield, VA as a quirky stop.
“The cured ham is also the oldest edible cured ham in the world. It looks gross with green mold on the outside, which we were assured could be scraped off if one wanted to eat the ham. Of course, these type of cured hams have to be soaked in water for at least 24 hours and then slow cooked for hours prior to eating.
This is a neat little museum, they have revolutionary war and civil war items as well as the items from the Smithfield hams industry. The main street of town where the museum is located is worth spending a day exploring. A bronze statue of Ben Franklin sits on a bench outside the local newspaper The Smithfield Times. The Smithfield Bakery has the best muffins, cookies, and sandwiches on homemade bread.
The museum has pictures of the ham biscuit from 2002 at 8 feet in width, 14 inches tall...500 pounds of Smithfield Ham. The Smithfield Ham Biscuit, which was made during last year's 250th Anniversary Celebration, was accepted by Guinness World Records as the World's Largest Ham Biscuit.”
Hey – just thought I throw it out there. RoadsideAmerica.com is great fun to browse, moldy ham aside.
Here are more Virginia facts:
Kentucky and West Virginia are both made up of land that was once part of Virginia.
VA has produced eight US Presidents including Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington. Other famous Virginians are tennis Player, Arthur Ashe; jazz singers, Pearl Bailey and Ella Fitzgerald; Confederate General, Robert E. Lee; actress, Shirley MacLaine; and educator Booker T. Washington.
More than 2,200 of the 4,000 battles of the Civil War took place in VA
North America’s first permanent English colony was founded at Jamestown, VA in 1607.
The first elected African-American governor was Virginia’s L. Douglas Wilder in 1989.
The American Civil War Center is considering whether to add a bronze statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond. A spokesman for the Virginia Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said their offer of the life-sized casting is intended to mark the bicentennial of Davis’ birth, not as a response to a statue of Abraham Lincoln dedicated at the site in 2003.
Virginia farmers produced the first peanuts ever grown in the country.
The largest office building in the world is the Pentagon in Arlington, VA
The Hilton Virginia Beach Oceanfront hotel has the city’s first rooftop bar and infinity pool. (OK that’s not really trivia for everyone but I was going to stay there and check it out but…well you know my sad story.)
My musical choice is Virginia Moon by the Foo Fighters. Check it out on YouTube.
Willa Cather is from Virginia but I needed to break away from her. I ventured out from fiction and chose to read The Writings of Thomas Jefferson. Is there any more famous Virginian? The book gave me insight into this great man’s psyche. I constantly see references to Jefferson. Here’s an excerpt from a recent post from (Mental Floss ) – “Negative campaigning in America was sired by two lifelong friends, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Back in 1776, the dynamic duo combined powers to help claim America's independence, and they had nothing but love and respect for one another. But by 1800, party politics had so distanced the pair that, for the first and last time in U.S. history, a president found himself running against his vice president.
Things got ugly fast. Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."
In return, Adams' men called Vice President Jefferson "a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father."
As the slurs piled on, Adams was labeled a fool, a hypocrite, a criminal, and a tyrant, while Jefferson was branded a weakling, an atheist, a libertine, and a coward. Even Martha Washington succumbed to the propaganda, telling a clergyman that Jefferson was "one of the most detestable of mankind."
Politics sure haven’t evolved much in 200 years.
On a lighter note: President Jefferson hated so much going to formal affairs that he would often greet foreign dignitaries while wearing pajamas.
Time for my pajamas…
http://www.virginia.org/site/description.asp?attrID=43790
http://www.montpelier.org/
http://www.doumars.com/
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/08/22/mf.campaign.slurs.slogans/index.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114148/
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