Just a little chocolate…

May. 1st 2013

20130429_152209

After my wonderful day running around Norfolk Botanical Gardens, I decided to spend some time with our daughter, Alexa on Monday. She has been in college working on a degree in psychology and was in bad need of some stress relief before one of her finals. So true to form we decided to take a break in one of our favorite day trip locations… Colonial Williamsburg.

After a quick lunch of sushi and catching up, we headed up from Chesapeake. She had been just the weekend before and had seen a hoodie at the William and Mary Bookstore she really wanted. The traffic wasn’t too bad on the way, but the rain didn’t seem to want to let up. I was getting concerned that our trip would mostly have to be inside the stores at Merchant Square. Not that that is a bad thing per say, but it can be hard our budget. But when we arrived, the rain seems to know and just stopped.

After purchasing her hoodie, she did a little arm twisting and “forced” me to go to the Wythe Candy Store. This is one of our favorite stops in Merchant Square. Coming in the door, you gain five pounds just breathing in all the sugar in the air. I am surprise they don’t hand out napkins at the door because by the time you leave, your month is watering.

Cheese Shop Merchant Square

Cheese Shop
Merchant Square

Before we got to the Candy Store,  we stopped at the Cheese Shop next door to the “Fat Canary” Restaurant. If you have never had a chance to eat at the “Fat Canary”, when you are in Williamsburg, you must stop! It is a little pricey, but well worth the cost! After looking over the cheeses they had and not finding any that jumped out at me, we headed to the Candy Store.

20130429_152507

As we walked in, we were greeted by a staff member dipping carmel apples. Just in front of him were cupcakes with so much frosting on it, you would have died from a sugar coma! There were tons of different types of fudge and then we saw them. The chocolate covered candy apples! Oh my….

20130429_152526

As we made our way around the display case, we saw clusters, chews, jelly beans, sours, licorice and endless confections! We rounded the back of the display where we were greeted by truffles of every shape and size. There were truffles that looked like cupcakes, egg shaped truffles, small “pop in your month” truffles and tons and tons of different favors.

20130429_152600

20130429_152650 1

20130429_152709

20130429_152716

Alexa knew quickly what she wanted and had it boxes up before I knew it. She picked out a blueberry truffle and an Irish Creme truffle. I knew that I couldn’t go home without brings some back to Brett and our son Tyler. So I picked out four truffles for them to pick from. They had a choice of peanut butter, key lime, Irish Creme or raspberry.

The top right is a blueberry egg-shaped truffle

The top right is a blueberry egg-shaped truffle

I picked out some chocolate almond bark that was sugar-free for me. One was milk chocolate and the other was white chocolate. I know what you are think! Sugar-Free at a Candy Store, but yes! They make some of the best sugar-free chocolates I have ever tasted! And I don’t feel so guilty for eating it!

Once we finished purchasing our choices and heading out just in time to miss a large crowd of teenagers, I asked Alexa to allow me to find out if the “Young James Madison” was working today at Colonial Williamsburg. Bryan, who is the historic interpreter that plays “the Young James Madison” has been following us on our Belle Grove Facebook Fan page for several months. When he first contacted us, he was just studying for his part as James Madison. He had told me that he was given our page and blog information by the librarian in Williamsburg. So I knew I wanted to meet him if I could since I was there.

I stopped at the ticket booth there at Merchant Square, but she didn’t have any information on him. She sent me to the Visitor Center. So Alexa and I drove over to the Visitor Center. There I talked to the ticket supervisor who placed a couple of calls to find out for us. She ended up with his manager on the phone. When I told him who we were and what we were looking for, he told us that Bryan was there today and that he was at “Revolutionary City” doing a program. His manager then gave us the cell number of his direct supervisor there and asked us to call him in about five minutes because they were in the middle of program change. This gave us just enough time to jump back into the car and head back to the parking lot at Merchant Square.

When we parked, I tried to call the supervisor. No answer…

I looked at Alexa and said, “Well do we pack up and go home? Or do we hike down to the Revolutionary City Capital and hope that we might get the supervisor on the phone or see if we can meet him through someone there?” Now when I say it’s a hike, I am not joking. It’s seven large blocks down. For Alexa that wouldn’t be much of a hike, but for me… well…

Alexa said to me, “Mom, what do we have to lose? If we don’t go, you could have missed your one chance to see him.”

So you guessed it, off we went….

Now the walk isn’t really bad when you can stop and catch your breath on one of the many benches along the way. But because it had been raining most of the day, all the benches were wet! And I don’t know if you know this, but most Colonial Homes didn’t have front porches! So most of the steps were wet too! Just before we reach our final stop, I did manage to find one dry spot to catch my breath. It was here that I started noticing historic interpreters walking pass as if they were leaving.

We quickly go up and stopped a lovely Colonial woman who was pushing cart filled with baskets. She informed us that the programs were done and that all the interpreters were heading home! I asked her if she knew if the Young James Madison had already left and she told me that she thought he had just walked by! But she asked me to follow her and she would see if he was still there. As we reached the next block, she pointed to another Colonial young man that she said would know where he was. I thanked her and headed over to him.

This kind young man did indeed know the “Young Mr. Madison” and asked me to stand by at the corner as he went inside to see if he was still there. We stood there for what felt like a long time even though I am sure it wasn’t. I started to think at first that we had missed him. Then I started to think the young man had forgotten us! Then I looked up to see “Young James Madison” coming out of a doorway.

20130429_164330

Bryan was wonderful. I introduced him to Alexa and we discussed his studies and programs. He is working on a new script for a new program he will be doing soon. In the middle of our conversation, Bryan mentioned that we looked familiar to him. I thought maybe he just knew our faces from the blog or Facebook. But was we spoke, he mentioned that he lived in Chesapeake. A couple quick inquires and we found out that we attended the same church for many years together. Bryan was a couple years older than Alexa and several years older than Tyler, but we have known his family as members. Fun how we both had to travel to Williamsburg to find someone we knew from home.

We thanked Bryan for taking time to talk with us and promised to return to see him in his programs soon. As we headed back to the car, the rain started lightly coming down. It wasn’t too heavy to get us really wet and the trees offered some shelter from the mist.

We decided to end our outing to Williamsburg with a drive down Colonial Parkway between Colonial Williamsburg and Yorktown. This is a beautiful drive and with the rain on the new leaves, the greens were just so bright and wonderful! We took our time as cars rushing home from daily jobs passed us. It was nice to just drive to see what you can see and not to worry about when you are going to get there. Rushing around, we miss so much in our lives.

20130429_170924

To see more photos from our past trips to Williamsburg

Facebook Link

Please visit our Facebook Fan Page!

Posted by Michelle Darnell | in Darnell History, Food and Recipes | 14 Comments »