After Jamestown and Yorktown and Colonial Williamsburg our brains were history-ed out so we were happy to find a state park near our campground so we could stretch our legs and get them ready for the days of mountain hiking ahead of us!
York River State Park is less than 5 miles from Thousand Trails Williamsburg where we stayed. The day started out grey but we had a nice lunch by the river:
I liked seeing the maps of this area of Virginia and understanding our position according to the major rivers. My Grandma grew up right north of where we were – on the coast between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers and there’s still family land there.
After lunch we set off on our first hike on the Taskinas Creek Trail. By the way, for anybody reading this and curious – we always use the app All Trails to find our hiking trails!
And I must say… Virginia is definitely the spideriest state we’ve been in! We walked through more spider webs and saw more spiders here than anywhere else, ever! And I’m very proud of myself that I’m sort of adjusting to their existence.
Taskinas Creek is an important marsh and part of the National Estuarine Research Reserve System. We love seeing these mostly un-touched nature areas and never realized how much we loved marshes/estuaries/creeks!
And here are two pictures for MomMom:
Sorry MM! But it’s YOUR ancestor’s stomping grounds so you should accept all parts of it 🙂
The sign did warn us. We were just thankful it was a harmless one! The homeschooling Mom in me loves signs like this:
We were grateful the clouds cleared and it ended up being a beautiful day!
The kids loved taking a break at the playground between hikes and B and I had some great conversations on the side while they ran around:
Our 2nd hike was to Fossil Beach and then we went back to the parking lot via Beaver Trail. Look at the crazy way the branches grew on this tree. It’s like field goal posts:
RR, the animal whisperer, found a new pet lizard on this trail. But we made him leave it in its habitat:
The kids liked exploring along Fossil Beach:
AB did not like the “long cut” we took on the way back… but it’s good for her. She’s fine! 🙂
The Williamsburg area was a great start for our 2 week vacation!
We were just so happy to be back in Woody and exploring together again! 🙂
I do have to throw in here that 1 hour into our trip we blew a tire and it was baaaad and tore up the side of Woody. I’m so thankful for the way the Lord worked it all out ! It was scary but B got us to the side and thankfully roadside assistance was there quickly and we ended up with 3 new tires! It truly is amazing how the Lord protected our travels all around the country in Woody. We had one other tire incident in Texas in March 2019. But both times it happened I thought – I’m SO thankful the tire blew exactly where and when it did! There are many places we were in during our travels that would have been terrible places to have a flat! If it had to happen this was the best where / when. Woody is under warranty still so his little bent up siding can be fixed and all will be well. Amazingly it only delayed our travels a few hours:
Here are the kiddos – so happy to be back in their cozy little beds in the “bunk house”:
We haven’t really been impressed with any of the 1000 trails campgrounds we have stayed at… but they’re okay when you need laundry machines, want to enjoy activities and pools, and meet other families. I know the full time families love it because once you pay the annual membership – all stays are free!
Here’s our tight little spot we had for the few days :
We enjoyed playing games and cooking and eating outside again:
Most of the things at the campground were closed because of Covid but at least they kept mini golf open!
We loved the night time laughter and story telling around the campfire:
And made such good memories watching the Waltons all snuggled up, playing board games, and having Bible time each morning:
It was a fun start to our special two week adventure!
Oh the joys of being back in the great outdoors.
Praise God for His protection on the road
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