From History Class to A Class all their Own

A daily pattern seems to be emerging... up at 6-6:30, buzzing around checking out new things whether on bike or RV, driving some distance, checking out more cool and new thinkgs, drinking some sort of beer, and making it back to the RV by sundown. Today was no exception.


After the first successful attempt at cleaning out the "grey water" tank in the RV - SM wants to put off emptying the "black water" tank as long as possible - we shoved off from Rehoboth Beach around 8, heading south with Southern Virginia as our final destination. Our trutsy GPS, Judy Garmin (cute name, huh), was directed to take us on non-highways today. We tooled through the small towns of southern Delaware into Maryland by 8:45 and then into Virginia at 9:54.


The first things that we noticed were several "farms" and a few "factories" scattered along the biways of Delaware and Maryland. We both sort of recognized the long, stout, windowless "farm" buildings from a documentary we watched about a month ago. The "factories" on the other hand were somewhat new. The documentary was entitled "Food, Inc." about how the modern day American food system works. It is an incredibly eye opening movie which touches upon much more than the poultry industry, but today all we could think about was the chickens. The long windowless buildings were actually chicken coops created to house thousands of chicks at a time - shoulder to shoulder, to pump an endless supply of feed and anitbiotics to grow the chicken faster and bigger, and to cut-off the animals treatment from public view. The "factories" were marked Tyson and Perdue. The physical plants were enormous - a far cry from the quaint farm picture they show on their labeling. Anywho, we passed them by too quickly to snap a shot, but really wish we could have shared those sights with you.

We then continued on our way to Williamsburg, Virginia. Although we had hoped to head to Washington, DC we decided to avoid the traffic and make our way to another one of Carolynn's old homes in Williamsburg. We passed through and over the Chesapeake Bay bridge and tunnel. That was fun... just ask Car (she has a phobioa of driving over bridges). She was driving and almost passed out on several occassions, especially when the semi blew by us on the other side of the one lane road, creating a vaccuum, and sucking her into oncoming traffic. Scott promptly fell asleep once hitting the mainland again. We rolled into downtown, had a quick bite to eat at The Cheese Shop, and went to the information booth to inquire how we could "visit" Williamsburg. $36 and a map could get us to see everything. The "free" tour included all the reastaurants and shops - including Talbots (can you effing believe it?) No thank you. We opted to head for Carolynn's favorite Williamsburg bakery (imagine the pastries you can get for $72?!?) hoping to score some morning pecan rolls at The Carrot Tree Kitchen. To no avail. We settled on two pecan bars (oh my!) and a cookie (eh). Then Judy led us to historic Jamestown - a much better fit for us.

We spent the $80 to get in. But wait, that gets us (and two more friends if you're interested) into EVERY national park in the US for a year. Well worth it. We spent a couple of hours learning more about the first permanent English settlement in America and the real story of Pocahontas - Disney lied. We won't ruin the story. Look it up.

Pork was calling, so we moved on down the backroads towards Emporia, VA - population 5,587. When researching places to stay between Delaware and North Carolina, CP came across the small town of Emporia. Unsure of if it was worth a visit, she read up on it on Wikipedia and discovered that the very DAY we were considering stopping there, they were hosting the Virginia State Pork Festival. It was an easy sell at that point, so Pork festival or Bust!!!

We rolled in to the festival at 5 pm and were amazed. That might not be the right word, but our jaws dropped for most of the two hours we spent there. The entry fee included all the Bud you could drink and all the pork you could eat... but this wasn't your momma's yummy pork cutlets... this was an ecclectic assortment of lots of big parts, including pigs feet, souse (think Spam but less good), fried bologna and random types and flavors of pork sausage (ie all the leftover parts you can fit in a patty). After the chicken factory sighting, CP was in a not-so-meaty mood so she nibbled on a few choice (again, maybe not the right word) selections... while drinking a little bud light with lime (yup, when in rome...) Scott, never one to shy away from new foods, tried to eat everything on the menu with varied success.

Pictures probably can't really depict the size of this event. Imagine 15,000 people of varying sizes and degrees of sobriety in an outdoor space (with, oddly, a swampy wetland in the middle) with 5 bands, various beer trucks, free pork booths, the biggest live pig we have ever had the pleasure to meet and two Yankees giggling and stuffing their faces (*SM*) with "pork" and beer.

P.S. If this festival is any indication - Jorts - aka jean shorts - are about to make a HUGE come back.

1st contest - in the comment section below, please guess and define what we attempted to eat (chew, gag, swallow) in this picture.