The crossing took 144 days. At Virginia's historical parks like Jamestown, visitors forge links to the past as blacksmiths pound horseshoes, the militia fires antique weapons and the American legacy comes alive This summer, take a break from pricey, overcommercialized theme parks. And the hands-on demonstrations are so entertaining, your kids might even forget about that giant mouse and friends in Florida. The blast echoes through the woods like a cannon, but it's only a musket. He holds up a paper packet of black powder and stuffs it down the barrel with the ramrod.
Kids stick their fingers in their ears and grimace.
A puff of white smoke accompanies the deafening roar. Costumed men and women greet us as they go about their everyday chores. The street scene seems so real that a mother scolds her daughter for peeking into a candle-lit house, but the woman inside invites them in to watch her spin wool into thread. This isn't the original Jamestown Settlement, but it's pretty darned close, literally and figuratively. This painstakingly re-created village is a visitor attraction operated by the state of Virginia, and it's steps away from the original town site, which is preserved by the Colonial National Historical Park.