We're in Colonial Beach, VA after crossing the Chesapeake and going 35 miles up the Potomac River.


On the way across the Chesapeake we passed the US Navy's target practice ship for fighter/bomber aircraft. This area is shown on the charts and can still be active for live fire exercises. Obviously, they keep everybody away from that area if they're using it as a target. It is a large old freighter that looks like a ship underway in the middle of the Chesapeake, but look closer.... you can see the many bomb holes and in fact you can actually see light and blue water all the way through the hull through that big hole about one third of the way back from the bow. I checked my charts as we were passing and the entire ship is in only about 15 ft. of water even though we were in 50 ft of water as we passed. Obviously, it was sunk upright and is sitting on the bottom.


We stayed a few days here to see the area. First we went to visit two local "Northern Neck" wineries, including this Ingleside Plantation Winery near Colonial Beach. They actually do produce pretty good wines here.


The vineyards looked young and in excellent condition as we drove up, and in fact they are. The wineries in this area started in the 1960s, so they're very young, as wineries go.


Today, we visited Stratford Hall Plantation, the birthplace and first home of Robert E. Lee. In fact, there were many famous Lees that came from this family and this plantation, which was started by Thomas Lee in the 1730s. Two of Thomas Lee's sons, Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lee, were signers of the Declaration of Independence. A cousin whom lived here with them was "Lighthorse Harry Lee", a soldier of Revolutionary War fame and the father of R. E. Lee. The plantation house was completely restored and furnished with period 18th century furniture including the crib in which R. E. Lee slept.
One of the great features of the plantation, not mentioned in any of the brochures or by the docent that led us on a tour of the house is that the combined carriage house and stables has an utterly fantastic collection of antique horse drawn carriages. This one was built in 1807, the year of R. E. Lee's birth, and is the highest quality carriage of the period. There were many other excellent carriages stored in the carriage house. The stables had the original hand hewn board horse stalls from the 18th century. I liked these finds as much as the house.



Strange Trees. These purple flowering trees, which I have never seen, are in full bloom here in Virginia this week. They bloom before any leaves come out so all you see is purple flowers floating up in the air around the trees.

The orchid-like blooms also smell quite good (my opinion...Kathy didn't think so). I inquired about them at one of the wineries and a lady told us that they were slow growing Pelonia trees and that the Japanese paid thousands for fairly large Pelonias which were shipped to Japan for transplanting.


We're leaving tomorrow morning to cruise up the Potomac towards Washington, DC.