Hampton. Virginia

Not many pictures in this post due to issues with my camera but the next post will have plenty I promise!

After leaving Norfolk, we headed to Hampton, Virginia. Hampton is only about a 30 minute drive from Norfolk but when you’re sailing it takes about three to four hours. Ah, sailing…the art of slowing your life down and going where the wind takes you.

A Hampton Shrimp Boat and Lone Crabber

We anchored out right across from Hampton University, one of the first African American schools in the country. During the Civil War, Fort Monroe in Hampton, had been taken over by the Union. Escaped slaves flocked here because a declaration had been made that if they reached the Union lines, they would be free. With an influx in refugees, the army saw a need to educate these newly freed people. They asked a woman named, Mary Peake, to teach the freed African Americans. Peake agreed. Her first lesson was taught under an oak tree that still stands in Hampton today. This same oak tree was the sight of the first Southern reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. It’s amazing to me how tangible our country’s history still is today.

On Saturday night, we stopped in at the city block party. I wasn’t really expecting much as it was a city event and from what I know from past experiences, city events usually don’t draw much of a crowd. So, I was amazed when we turned the corner onto East Queen’s Way and saw a mass of people dancing in front of the stage, sitting in lawn chairs and mingling in the street. I have to admit, The City of Hampton really does know how to throw a party!

Every Saturday in the summer, the city closes the main road, East Queen’s Way, and sets up a stage for the live music. Food vendors come in and set up tents, while locals and tourists flock to the venue to set up chairs that they brought from home or to dance the night away in the street. Of course, Matt and I joined in the fun and spent the evening dancing to the band of the week in the street with a huge crowd of people. It was such a fun way to enjoy the weekend!

I made some homemade postcards while we were in Hampton and I think that they turned out pretty nicely.

This house was across from the anchorage and I absolutely loved it. It reminded me of Longbourn, the Bennet’s house in Pride and Prejudice,  perhaps because I just finished reading a book based on Pride and Prejudice titled Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. The book is a murder mystery based upon the characters and places from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. For anyone who enjoys Jane Austen’s works, I would recommend it. While it is obviously not a Jane Austen novel, the characters are familiar and P.D. James brings them to life once more in this tale of a tragic murder at the Pemberley estate and the search to find the true muderer.