Jamestown Glass House

After leaving the Maritime Museum on Saturday, we made a quick trip to Yorktown. We'd been there before, and we were mainly stoping to get Jon a "Explorer Edition National Parks Passport" like the big ones that Mark and I have. Since Yorktown was out of them, we went on down to Jamestown which is a beautiful drive along the tidal lands. The first picture here is the Jamestown Glasshouse which is a reproduction of the original one that sat nearby on the park. The Jamestown center didn't have Jon's passport but the Glasshouse did, so that's the first stamp that he has for his new passport...though he still has the old small one.
We spent some time watching the glass blowers work on beautiful fluted small pitchers, a two person job! I really enjoy watching them, and I usually end up buying an example of whatever the artists were making on that day. Saturday was no exception, though I also did purchase a large glass that I thought was especially beautiful. It has rings of decorative glass added to the bottom, and the base is quite a few pieces all melted together. I really appreciate the artistry that these people put into their work, they are following examples of pieces of this era that are documented which makes it all that much better!
These are the two pieces that I purchased on Saturday. Notice that they are green, which is the natural color of glass, in order to make it clear or any other color, other substances must be added. After the glasshouse closed, we made our way back to Ft. Eustis and dropped Jon off. We'd gotten a closeby hotel.
We started Sunday morning with a drive to the Richmond Battlefield National Park which consists of many sites. The closest sites to where Jon is stationed are the Gaines Mill Battle site, and the Cold Harbor site which also has a visitor's center. Jon and I got a couple of books there (Jon got a book about the life of a Confederate Artillerist) and had an enjoyable time talking to the ranger. We then went exploring the battlefield which was part of the 7 days war in 1862, as well as was a pivitol site in 1864 when Grant's and Lee's troops dug in for battles there. This site is only about 9 miles from the Capitol in Richmond. The trenches are very apparent on both Union and Confederate lines. We also drove the path of some of the other battles, I had gotten a book on Virginia battles which had a lot of insight into the participants as well as the strategies, and we talked about it all while we were touring.
We then got some Korean and Japaneese food for lunch and dropped Jon off so we could begin the long ride home. I'm so glad we got to go, I've been missing Jon a lot, and there's always the added bonus to have a kid that is as interested in history as I am.