Williamsburg live blog day 1

Thanks to an amazing device called a "laptop" and something called "wi-fi," I can give some live reports from our trip to Busch Gardens. Not too much to talk about today, it was mostly a travel day, with a 5-hour trip from Pennsylvania to Williamsburg.

First was a lunch stop at Tysons Corner. This was my second visit to Tysons Corner. See a report of my first visit here. We hit lunch in the food court, and my father-in-law and I chowed down on burgers and fries from Five Guys. Certainly a lot better than the last meal I ate in this mall.

Then, while my wife visited Bath and Body Works, I finally got to see the Lego store! It was worth the trip. Among the products was a $500 Millennium Falcon that had a diameter of about 2 1/2 feet (with 5,000 pieces, it's the biggest Lego set ever made, even dwarfing the Death Star I build with my brother and two other friends), a motorized walking AT-AT, a very detailed Volkswagen Beetle kit, and a Eiffel Tower kit at 1:300 scale using the original blueprints! It was more than 3 feet tall. If I had done better at the casino last night, I may have purchased one of those kits. My wife asked where I was supposed to put these after I build them, failing to understand that the true fun of Legos is actually building them.

We finally get to Williamsburg around 5:00. After some research on the Internet, we liked the menu from a place called J.M. Randall's. It was off the beaten path and away from the tourist traffic. However, we were disappointed. The place was pretty much empty, and despite an extensive menu, it probably does more business as a bar than as a restaurant. First of all, there were several items on the internet menu like chicken pot pie and fried ice cream that weren't on the real menu. Obviously their internet menu needs to be updated. Also, we had our 7- and 4-year old nieces with us. Despite a lengthy children's menu, they gave our nieces no crayons or nothing to draw on. Almost every restaurant I have taken them to gave us paper and crayons. Also, the service was slow. It took too long to get our drinks, and way too long to get our food. This is an even bigger problem when you have kids with you. Most of us were disappointed with our food. I have had worse, but the food I tasted (pork bbq sandwich, grinder where the lunchmeat was toasted but not the roll!?) was just mediocre. We elected not to get dessert there because we were afraid it would take forever, and, frankly, wouldn't taste all that good. (Update: This place has CLOSED sometime in 2012 or later).

So, we went back to the hotel and had dessert there. My wife had a tasty orange cream cheesecake, my sister-in-law had apple caramel pie, and my brother-in-law and I enjoyed a beer. To those of you staying at the Crowne Plaza in Williamsburg, I highly recommend the dessert menu. If we had known better, we would have eaten dinner there. oh, well...

So tomorrow, it's off to Busch Gardens, where I will attempt to conquer my fear of rollercoasters. Will I go for it or wimp out? Stay tuned...