Never Miss An Update

Every Spring and Summer there are farmer’s markets all over Fairfax County, Virginia. The towns in the county have them on different days, presumably to avoid duplication. And competition, for that matter. 

Anyway, Reston has a farmer’s market from early May through mid-November on Saturdays. So I went over to Lake Anne to take a look and snap a couple of photos. See below. 

Lake Anne is the original location envisaged by Reston’s founder, Robert E Simon in 1964. It was supposed to be a kind of urban Utopia.  Actually, the 1960s were chock full of utopian schemes. Over the years, though, there just wasn’t enough room for development around Lake Anne. And as it turned out, the brutalist architecture featured around Lake Anne, didn’t afford enough choice to accommodate a change in scenery.  

Eventually what is now Reston Town Center, where we live, became the hub. It’s about a 10 square block area that bears more than a faint resemblance to the upper East Side of Manhattan. It’s a mixed use area, meaning office buildings, apartment, condos, and high-end restaurants and retail stores are located there. 

As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote back in 1849, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”

JFB

We took a short trip down to the historic triangle which encompasses colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown. This is not a trip to be missed. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the new land and the place where the mighty British Empire established its first presence. Not surprisingly, Jamestown served as the first capitol of the Colony of Virginia, from 1618 until 1699. It was also the home of the county’s courthouse.

Williamsburg, VA, USA — January 9, 2019. Actors in period costume, surrounded by tourists, put on a mock trial in colonial Williamsburg.

It is difficult in the modern age for us to even imagine the dangers and hardships the settlers endured. For instance, from 1609 to 1610 over 80% of the settlers perished from disease and starvation, in what came to be known as the “Starving Time”. During this time the the settlers dug graves for the fallen, but hid the site so the Indians wouldn’t realize how weakened their position had become. 

A simple gravesight, recently discovered, secretly established by early settlers of Jamestown VA.

It was also in Jamestown that the first Africans arrived—aboard a Portuguese slave ship. Thus began America’s long history with slavery, which was not to end until the civil war (1861—1865).  But some effects linger to this day. 

Yorktown, VA, USA — January 10, 2019. Photo of a small reconstructed wooden building that served as slave quarters on a Yorktown farm during the colonial era. Four to six people would have been housed here.

Virginia is a living museum to the American experiment in self government, and the historic triangle of Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown tells an important part of the story. 

Williamsburg, VA, USA — January 9, 2019. Photo of horses, carriage and drivers in period dress by a hitching post by shops on the streets of colonial Williamsburg.

Williamsburg, VA, USA — January 9, 2019. Photo of shops, pubs and Inns in colonial Williamsburg, VA on a cold and cloudy winter day.

JFB