Mount Vernon

We visited Mt. Vernon in late June. It was hot and sticky, though not as hot as Virginia can get later in the summer. I rather missed the cool-ish, arid air of Colorado. We cooled off from our walk from the parking lot inside the visitor's center for awhile and watched a movie about George Washington.

After the movie, we walked toward the house, to get in line for a tour. We spent about an hour in line, during which the 3 boys had fun playing with leaves and being silly:

The tour was a bit rushed, but interesting. (Rather than your standard tour, there was just a line of people going through the house and a "tour guide" in each room talking about the room you were in). I found it rather interesting that the key to the Bastille is displayed here, having been sent to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette (a close friend to Washington, practically his adopted son).

I also found it interesting that, since he wanted his wooden home to look like stone, sand was thrown onto the wet paint to make the texture of the home look like stone. On one of the dependencies, I saw this chipped corner that shows how the "stone" is really wood. Also, I'd always heard about how the Mormon Pioneers had painted the pine used in early buildings, like the Salt Lake Tabernacle, to look like nicer woods. George Washington did this too; his pine paneling in the house was painted to look like mahogany.

What I really liked, though was his "backyard." With a superb view of the Potomac, and a cool porch to sit on, it was my favorite part of the estate.

Besides, there were magnolia trees! I haven't seen my second-favorite tree (the first being really big Live Oaks) in years. I love the big, white flowers that smell so nice! I gave James and Thomas each a boost to smell this one.

We stayed until past closing time (they stop letting people in at 5, but you can stay on the grounds until 5:30 and in the visitor center until 6). And, we of course visited the gift shop and added to my bookshelf. :) I'm glad I got a chance to see Mt. Vernon!

Fort McHenry

When we lived in Maryland, I'd wanted to visit Fort McHenry, but we'd never had a chance to do so. So, while we were back east in June/July, we stopped by for a visit. Being the history buff that I am, I didn't want to miss Ft. McHenry. It was an integral part of creating the affinity for the American flag that we now have. The war of 1812 cemented America's Independence. When you think of it in its historical context, our national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, is really a moving song.

They are building a new flag pole, so instead of seeing the giant flag wave, we got to hold it while a ranger spoke about the Battle of Fort McHenry and its significance, as well as the significance of the American Flag.

I enjoyed standing on the ramparts and feeling the sea breeze coming off the Patapsco River and Baltimore Harbor. It was a nice view, too. I've been having fun with my new-found panoramic feature on my camera, can you tell? :)

The boys' favorite part was seeing all the cannons. Thomas and James were dismayed to find that this stack of cannonballs were all attached to each other, so they couldn't try and pick them up.

In the barracks, the boys got to try out holding this gun; it's longer than they are tall!

It was really an interesting place to visit. I enjoyed it a lot and the kids had fun. And, I have to admit, when they played the National Anthem and we stood to honor the American flag, in the very spot where the flag that song was written about was flown, I got teary-eyed. God bless America!

Manassas Battlefield Park

Manassas Battlefield Park was the last stop on our 2-week vacation through Virginia and Tennessee and so we did not arrive at the park until late in the afternoon, and we were all tired. I was worried that it would be a disaster, but was pleasantly surprised at how interested my five children (ages 5-17) were in the park. We went to the Visitor's Center first and I obtained Junior Ranger booklets from the desk. I highly recommend you doing this, if this is the type of thing your children enjoy doing because it helps to give them a focus and an idea of what to look for. It was helpful to me, too, because they give different booklets out for different ages, so it helped me to point out interesting things in an age-appropriate way. The museum in the visitor's center is very interesting and the 6-minute display/description of the battles that took place there is a very good introduction. You can follow a ranger-led tour, but we chose to explore the battlesite at our own pace. The kids loved being able to touch the cannons and such and just walking on the field made you really being to imagine the soldiers that were once there. The admission (very inexpensive at $3.00 per person 16 years of age and older and free for those under 16) is good for three consecutive days, so you have plenty of time to explore the entire park and even take the driving tour. We were able, however, to see most of the sites near the visitor's center in about an hour and a half. Click here if you would like to see more of our trip there.

Davy Crockett Birthplace State Park

This park has many of the things you would expect for a state park such as hiking, fishing, camping and even a swimming pool, but it also has a reproduction of the cabin in which Davy Crockett was born. The cabin is furnished with reproductions of things that would be in a cabin of that day and there is a tended garden in the back. The footstone of the original cabin is outside the reproduction. The museum on premises has educational material about Davy Crockett, including a short video. (For more photos, click here .) We had a very fun, peaceful and educational time there. If you are in the area, you should really give it a try.

Glen Echo Park, the Clara Barton House, Clemyjontri Playground and Claude Moore Farm

I know - this is a lot of adventures in one post, but there you go:

Back when I was recovering from my surgery I stumbled upon a little jewel on the interweb - during the summer at the Clara Barton House they put on a free 2-day camp for kids! A FREE camp?? How could I resist? So I immediately called and got Sheely in the final session (Xavey was too young).

I arrived super early on Tuesday because, surprise - there was NO traffic. I forgot that Congress is having vacation. Better early than late, I guess. I hit enough traffic later on to make up for it :) ANYWAY.

The Clara Barton House is the home that darling Clara lived in during her later life, and for a long time it was actually the warehouse and headquarters for the Red Cross of America. I dropped Sheely off in the tender care of a park ranger and then the boys and I were on our own. I went to the GPS and looked for historical sites nearby and WAHOO! I found a multitude of choices. I opted for The Claude Moore Farm - just a short jaunt across the Potomac into Virginia (seriously, a 10 minute drive away). We arrived and things looked a little quiet. Turns out, it's not open on Monday or Tuesday. That figures :) Luckily, on the way (like, across the street) I noticed a playground I've been meaning to go to for ages: Clemyjontri Park!! I may have made a squeal of joy at my luck - I've never been sure of how to spell it so I could never find directions, I just had heard about it from friends. It is a fantastically huge all-abilities playground.

ANYWAY. We went to the playground in the very sweaty stickiness! The kids had such a blast. We ran around a maze and scared each other, I spun them on the tireswing (I've got a special move called "the tornado") and I took them for a ride on the merry-go-round. Xavey made some friends and played all kinds of running and climbing games while Preston stuck close to me and did his own thing on the huge climber. I realized I had a friend that lived nearby that I hadn't seen for ages, so I called her and sweet Michelle dragged her children to the playground for some funtimes and chatting.When it was time to be out of the sun and in the car we drove back over to Clara Barton which happens to share a parking lot with Glen Echo Park. I've been hearing about Glen Echo for ages also but have never made my way over there. I didn't know anything about it, though, so Xavey and I learned together as we did his own Junior Ranger Booklet. There was a sticker-bingo game (a scavenger hunt), he designed his own ride and we learned a lot about the history of the park. First it was a Chautauqua Center, then for a long time it was an amusement park (the first bumper cars in the world were build there!) and now it's like a giant artist colony/historic site/place to hang out. There's a playground where the sandy beach/swimming pool was back in the day. The bumper cars pavilion now hosts outdoor dances and shows. While we were there playing (both days) there was an Irish Dance school practicing on that floor and so Irish music floated throughout the grounds the entire time. There's a puppet theater and a children's theater as well as every kind of cultural arts class you could possibly imagine.

PLUS there is a giant carousel, the original from the time the park began to be an amusement park. We took a ride on Wednesday and I kept thinking about all the generations of people who had sat on those horses - it was built in 1921 or something. If you're a history nerd like me and want to know more, here's the lowdown. The ranger even took the camp kids on it!After our first day of hanging out there we went back to the Clara Barton House in time to catch the last tour through the house before camp was over for the day. Yes, I took my two sons. No, it was not the best idea on the planet but I had no idea of when I'd get the chance to go through it again and since there was only one other guy and his daughter that were going to do the tour, it seemed like as good a time as any.

Plus, the boys did great! They asked all kinds of questions (some relevant, others not so...) and were genuinely interested in the house and Clara herself. We watched a neat video about her life that actually made me a little misty-eyed at one point. What an AMAZING WOMAN. I never knew what an interesting life she led or even how famous she was while she was alive. I'm overflowing with information about her that for some reason feels really important. I hope I can come away from this earth doing for others even a tiny portion of what she did.The house itself is massive and we did a scavenger hunt in there also. The boys got a bandage put on their legs and they pretended to be wounded soldiers. We saw the giant red cross windows and learned about how even visitors to the Clara Barton House had to work during their stay (she had sewing machines in the guest rooms!) To save time and money, Clara nailed bandages to the walls instead of covering them with plaster :)

After camp that day the kids and I went up to my moms to spend an evening together and had a sleepover in the basement (first watching two episodes of Psych with my mom, of course).

Next day, more fun! Sheely's first day at camp was all about Clara Barton - they did behind the scenes stuff, some archeology, took a crack at plastering walls, had crazy obstacle course type games and generally got Sheely wanting to be a park ranger when she grows up. The second day for her was all about Glen Echo. The ranger booklet here is cool - it's actually both in one - one side is Clara Barton and if you turn it over and upside down, it's Glen Echo! How fabulous.

While Sheely did her thing, the boys and I went BACK to Claude Moore Farm, since it was open on Wednesday :) The farm is set up as a poor tenant farm circa 1771. What I think of this place:

*easy to find and inexpensive ($7 for all three of us)
*woodsy and peaceful
*friendly costumed interpreters - when there was a two-handed saw Xavier wanted to try (a no-no), they led us over to a field where a tree had fallen down and demonstrated it for us*small, so not too much walking, it was just enough - but probably not big enough to drive down there just for that
*lots of animals walking around, entertaining Xavier and TERRIFYING Preston if they got close*some things to touch for the kids - a few old time toys, corn to grind*fun paths to walk (one takes you to a "spring" where there's fresh water and a tiny stream), sticks everywhere, a pasture with no cows that we could find but a glorious fence that entertained my kids for 20 minutes while they pretended to be soldiers*picnic tables in the shade, perfect for a snack and some work on the Junior Ranger book

Really, it was a great outing. Xavier probably took 60 pictures of random things and had a ball. We were probably there for an hour and fifteen minutes and we were all happy the entire time (except for Preston and his geese fear).

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Glen Echo, watching the Irish dancers, playing on the playground, watching my sons wrestle on a stage while other parents (or, really, I'm thinking nannies) watched them also, assuming I would stop them soon. Nope. I bought a cup of ice and was pleasantly surprised by how entertaining it was for my boys to eat big pieces of ice.When we got back to Clara's, the kids were presented with their Junior Ranger badges and I felt like it was two days worth of effort well spent. We learned a lot, we played hard, I had some quality time with my boys, Sheely got to be a VIP at a National Park site, I got a better appreciation for the history of that part of Maryland, I got four new NP passport stamps and marked four new outings off my list.

EnergyExplorium

Today we took a family trip to the south end of Lake Norman, near Huntersville, where the Duke Power EnergyExplorium is located at the McGuire Nuclear Station. Lake Norman is a man-made lake built by Duke Energy in 1963. There are three power plants located on the lake--nuclear, hydroelectric, and coal.

McGuire Nuclear Power Station

Cowan's Ford Dam and Hydroelectric Plant

We learned all about how nuclear and hydroelectric energy is made and how it is transmitted to our homes. Since this is a Duke Power museum, and it is free, we learned how amazing Duke is, how well they protect the environment, and how safe everything is. In truth, I was impressed to learn that the control room operators of the nuclear plants spend one out of every five weeks in training.

Our family favorites in this museum were the generation station,


the treadmill generator (which powers up a TV),



and the plasma globe (where Carter got a nasty shock from Jonah).


It only takes an hour to go through this museum, but we had some good learning experiences in there. The kids really grasped how electricity is metered on our home and we have to pay for the lights we have on and the games we play. When we came home, Courtney ran around unplugging and turning things off. They also gave us some great workbooks to take home for each kid. Thankfully, they included an answer key workbook because I have no idea what the answers are to some of those questions.

If you do visit, make sure to plan some other activities in the area to do as well. There is a butterfly garden next to the museum as well as a 1 mile nature trail.


There are also some nice parks on the lake, and of course, there's always geocaching to be done! We took a quick side trip to this monument to General William Lee Davidson, a hero of the American Revolution. He was killed in a spot nearby that is now under water, thanks to the damming of the river to make the lake. It was for him that both Davidson County and Davidson College are named.

Reed Gold Mine

Today our Carolina adventures took us to Reed Gold Mine, about a 1/2 hour from home. I only recently learned that the first documented gold discovery in the United States happened here in 1799. Little Conrad Reed was playing down by the Little Meadow Creek one day and brought home a 17 pound shiny rock.


His parents thought it was nice and used it as a doorstop. Three years later, John Reed took the rock to a jeweler, who gave John his asking price of $3.50--a week's worth of farm wages to John. The rock was then sold for $3,600 (or $200,000 today). Of course, John was annoyed, but he began searching his land for gold. For awhile he pulled it out of the ground like potatoes. Eventually, they went underground and the area was mined for 80 years. At the height of the Carolina Gold Rush, there were 300-600 mines in operation throughout the state.

We first walked through the museum and then took a guided tour of a renovated section of the underground mine. Our tour guide was very good and the kids had a great time. One thing that I found amazing is that John Reed didn't think mining for gold was an ethical way to earn a living, so farming was still his first priority! Of course, he died a wealthy man.


We were about 50 feet underground through the tour and it was a nice 62 degrees down there. This is looking up the shaft:


And this is us standing on the top of the same site:


The whole thing is free, except it is $2 to pan for gold.


We found two small flecks as well as a very random piece of tin foil from the 1930s.


We spent a little over two hours there, but you could spend more or less depending on what you want to do. We didn't watch the video or take the tour of the mill house where they would grind the quartz to get to the gold inside. There are also some trails to walk around and we did see the foundation and chimney of the room that pumped the water out of the mines. The Reed Gold Mine is in the middle of nowhere, but there are picnic benches on site.

This is a great place to take out-of-town visitors. I knew it was a success as we were leaving and my kids asked me when we are going back!

James K. Polk Memorial

Both Andrew Jackson and James K. Polk were born within a half an hour of where we live. Both ended up in Tennessee. Both ended up in the White House. Andrew Jackson was known as "Old Hickory" and James K. Polk, who was a big supporter of Jackson, was known as "Young Hickory."


The James K. Polk Memorial is located right behind the Carolina Place Mall in Pineville, North Carolina. It consists of a relocated family graveyard (I-485 was going to end up right on top of it), a visitors center/museum, some period buildings, and a dodgy memorial to Polk from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Pros:

• It's free.
• It's conveniently located.
• You get an actual tour guide on the grounds.
• It's quick. You only need an hour.
  

Cons:

• Pretty much nothing there is original to the Polks. The family moved when James was 11 and no one thought to preserve the site until the early 1900s.
  
• The museum is pretty skimpy on the artifacts. I learned a lot about slaves in Mecklenburg county, but not as much about the man and his presidency as I would have liked.
  
• And that memorial from the DAR circa 1904...