Photo courtesy of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Formal gardens of the Governor's Palace at Colonial Williamsburg.

Associated Press File 2006

Wesley Greene, garden historian at Colonial Williamsburg, plants Persian squill bulbs in the colonial garden.

Thirty years ago, I took 11-year-old Ellen to Colonial Williamsburg, and I can see her still: face looking upward entranced at the blacksmith, or buying licorice root from those outsize jars in the general store, or staring at the women in 18th-century bustling dresses.

Now, 30 years later, my wife and I took her almost-11-year-old back to Williamsburg. Were we re-creating our youth? Or just being romantic -- that perhaps you can extend your memories over three decades? Well, some of each, as well as the chance to complete a sort of cosmic arc.

Corey, our grandson, is living in England these days with his younger sister, Jane, and mother and father (our son-in-law is with a British-based bank). When we suggested the idea to Corey, he immediately was excited: He told us he was tired of learning about British kings beheading their wives.

It turns out that there were others who had tender memories they wanted to re-create. Before we left, Andy, our son-in-law, had a request: "Take a picture of Corey in the pillory. When I was there 30 years ago, I had my picture taken in it."

There were significant differences for us this time around.

I don't know if "urgency" is the right word. But we miss Corey and his family.

The last time he stayed with us, he'd pop into our bed in the mornings. But that doesn't happen any longer.

He's at the age where ... well, when you don't snuggle in bed with your grandparents. Still, this was a time for us to be with him like old times, to smother him, to keep these moments undiluted for the next few years.

When you don't see a child for a while, you've missed rites of passage that can never be simulated.

We had driven to Williamsburg in the old days because it was cheaper than flying. The trip encompassed Skyline Drive, motels, fast-food restaurants. Now we went by plane, to Newport News, and then by taxi to the Williamsburg Lodge. It took us fewer than four hours, door-to-door.

We were greeted by the world's oldest doorman, in a proper Colonial outfit. The years had been good to us. We stayed the first time off the grounds, and that meant driving back and forth from a smallish hotel, where my wife and I and three children were ensconced in one room. This flying business is pretty neat: After breakfast in Manhattan, and just around lunch-time, we were in the midst of another America.

There are places that tend to make the bond tighter between grandparent and grandchild, and Colonial Williamsburg is one of them.

Perhaps it is our sharing of imagination -- that guy with the funny pants really isn't Patrick Henry, but let's make believe he is. We didn't have that feeling at a water park, or in the Everglades, or even Disney World.

I think that major connection was made between us because we both genuinely enjoyed the experience of being in a fantasy world together, in another time and another place. But there is another reason: This stuff really happened in Virginia. Once upon a time, it wasn't make-believe.

Corey got everything about Williamsburg.

He stood next to the raised wooden platform on one of the main streets where young women rehearsed a dance.

He spoke to the ubiquitous ladies and gentlemen in those baggy clothes of yesteryear.

He headed for the blacksmith's and stood, transfixed, for 25 minutes. So had his mother. Time stood still, in Williamsburg and for us -- as it was supposed to.

Corey kept returning to the blacksmith's and the carpenter's, another favorite of his mother's. Way back then, her youngest brother had been given a metal clothing hook forged by the blacksmith. Corey asked for one, too, and was disappointed to learn, "We don't give things out any more. But you can buy them at the store."

Fully half of 18th-century Colonial Williamsburg was composed of slaves or freed slaves, and now that number is reflected in what we see and learn.

When we took our kids there in the '70s, there was little reflection of the racial makeup of Colonial Williamsburg.

Our children probably saw nothing amiss with that, since they grew up in an all-white suburb in Long Island. But Corey and his sister are from the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and so the fact that people of a different color were slaves -- which he knew from school but had never experienced -- left Corey saddened.

A black woman spoke to us in a candlelit room about her life; a freed slave addressed the town square (in the outdoor shows, the interpreters have wireless, unobtrusive microphones), which is very different from what I remember.

The folks who channel the great patriots are well trained, and Corey and other youngsters, as well as those of my generation, instantly become part of that era. That, too, helps bring the generations closer.

When George Washington spoke to us, and then asked for questions, both Corey and I addressed him as "Sir," and "General," and even "Mister President."

There aren't many occasions when grandpa and grandson laugh at the same things. But our favorite time was at a campy, hysterical evening in the Kimball Theatre called "A Grand Medley of Entertainments."

If you can imagine 18th-century vaudeville shtick, then this show is for you. It included a puppet show of dumbed-down performers who apparently failed Puppetry 101.

This time around, I had a digital camera. I took a photo of Corey in the pillory. I downloaded it onto my computer -- our room was tricked up for Wi-Fi -- and sent it off to his father in London. The next morning, I got an enthusiastic e-mail from my son-in-law: "Cool." When we returned to New York, we rummaged through our store of photos -- when we moved four years ago, our children didn't want them, and my wife couldn't bear to toss them away.

And so those photographs, for the second time in a week, transported us to another time, when the kids were all ours, when they listened to us, when we were part of an America that was still flexing its muscles (even though it was still a colony of England).

Well, sometimes you can go home again.

Gerald Eskenazi, a retired reporter for The New York Times, where he had more than 8,000 bylines, is the author of 16 books. He has written stories from China, India, Thailand, Turkey and Europe, as well as from winter and summer Olympics and Super Bowls. He also has lectured on cruise ships. He lives in New York City with his wife of 44 years, Rosalind. Their next trip will take them to Egypt.