It's really happened. We actually got in our car, turned the key, backed out of the driveway, and drove somewhere. Didn't even break down. Sure the heat is acting funny, the car won't really, how do you say, "idle", but these are small matters. She runs, she moves, she rocks.

What better way to celebrate the rebirth of our horseless carriage than with a trip back to olden times, when Richmond was a day's journey from Williamsburg, and all those plantations which now have quaint restaurants were inhabited by slaves. (It's much better now. Now the African-Americans are paid to only dress like servants and tend the cash registers.) A time when men wore wigs and women more layers of skirts than you could count, let alone be bothered to get through. A time when a cheeseburger cost $8, when boomin' bass pumped from every other coach, when nubile college students jogged through dusty streets in short-shorts with Walkmans and Baskin-Robbins was right around the corner, and..

Yes, to say that Colonial Williamsburg is full of anachronisms is to say, well, something accurate.

They try very hard to make the experience a full one, and it often works. If you stand at the town square and squint your eyes just enough so that the Nike logos and digicams blur a bit, so that the fat children screaming at their parents look like fat forefathers screaming at the king, it almost works. You can sort of picture yourself there, back in those simpler times, and picture how bored you would have been.

To be fair, we didn't pay the $37 (each!) ticket price. It wasn't fair, so we didn't pay it. Being thus unpossessed of laminated badges, we weren't able to enter most of the structures. We didn't get to see people making furniture, sewing blankets, whittling. No mock trials, no ale-quaffing contests at the tavern; we surely missed out on a lot of the experience. But really, $37?

Okay, to be more fair, we had a good time. It was great to get out on the road, and the place is genuinely interesting, even without a ticket. It's a nice place to spend an afternoon. But seriously, $37?

On Sunday we attended Richmond's famous Monument Avenue 10k. Faith, Anthony's brother's wife, ran it and came in 35 out of all the women (something like 4000 of them) and 5th in her age group! We're very proud of her. She's fast like an ibex.

Some photos of runners. When we first saw them, a mile and a half or so into the race, they looked fresh and full of hope. As they came down the other side of the street, 5 miles in, the mood had changed to one of misery and what-the-hell-have-I-gotten-myself-into-ness.

Happy...	Not happy.	Not Recommended.
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