After a bouncy night on the mooring ball, lots of boat traffic making wakes, Erik watched the sunrise and finished yesterday’s blog while Renee, Riva, and Chelsea slept in. We sat on the boat drinking coffee and made our plans for the day.
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Renee relaxing on the aft deck before heading to shore
Patriotic pup awaiting us ashore |
We loaded the four of us in the dinghy and headed in to shore to catch the parade that was lining up in the park. The parade was a good one with Navy, Air Force, Marines, floats, a fife and drum band, and many cars, trucks, and organizations.
A very nice parade
After the parade we walked up the street to the coffee shop where we had a bite to eat, a yummy breakfast wrap, bagel sandwich and a pistachio latte. Erik left to get an Uber to get some cancer sticks while Renee walked in circles trying to find her glasses she lost somewhere at the coffee shop. We had a picture to confirm she had them on when they got there 🤪. Finally Chelsea found them under the picnic table, YAY!!! Thank you Chelsea🥰.
We walked up the road to explore the Nelson house, a house built around 1730 and still original floors everywhere but the entry hallway. Beautiful house and gardens but the most interesting thing is the cannonballs embedded in the side of the house. The story is that the British had taken the house during the battle of Yorktown, Mr Nelson was fighting aboard one of the ships in the York River and he encouraged the launching of cannonballs at the cost of damage to his home in favor of defeating the British 🇺🇸. Which is exactly what happened and we won our independence!
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Some of the many cool historical homes
If you look closely at the second to last pic above this one you can see a cannonball lodged in the brick wall |
There is cave in the river bank that is supposedly where General Cornwallis hid during the seize. We stopped to check out the candy, ice cream, and coffee shop where Erik and Renee found one of their favorite ice cream flavors found thus far, Rush Hour, a coffee, caramel, and chocolate flavored deliciousness made but Ashbys Ice cream. YUM! Chelsea enjoyed some Superman ice cream 😋. We walked some shops, made a few purchases including some special treats for Riva before watching the hotdog eating contest and heading back to the boat for a few hours to rest.
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| Riva making herself at home in one of the shops |
We relaxed on the boat for a few hours, Chelsea laid out, Erik and Renee relaxed on the aft deck in a nice breeze, or in the air conditioned boat. There were many boats anchored by the beach, with many people camped out all day for the festivities and fireworks. We made sloppy joes for dinner then almost tipped the overloaded dinghy when we headed back to shore 😂.
First we climbed the hill to see the Yorktown Victory Monument, erected in 1884. We then walked a short ways to the battlefield where the battle took place and back into town to enjoy the festivities. Kona Ice and kettle corn in hand we listened to the sounds of The Fife and Drums of York Town then they read the Declaration of Independence(all in full colonial attire).
Beautiful view from up at the Victory Monument
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Victory monument
With a beautiful overlook |
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| Yorktown battlefields |
Back at the boat we cooled off with showers before settling in for the firework display. We could almost reach out and touch the fireworks barge! Ok not really but we were VERY close! After a wonderful fireworks show we rocked and rolled as the boats moved around leaving their anchor spots. We finally stopped bouncing around enough to settle in and quickly fall asleep. It was a wonderful 4th of July!
