Back to the 1700s

The next morning we started our day at the Frontier Cultural Museum in Staunton, VA. In fact, we arrived with about 80 school children on a field trip. The gift shop representative suggested that I start at the English farm and I should be able to make it around and go to the new world before the classes got there. What I didn’t know about this place before we went here was that it was a state run living museum. They also have volunteers that run the trams from the Old World to the New World. We started our adventure in the Old World. The West African Village was under construction so we headed to the English House. We got to tour the home first and learned about how the woman of the house would use the the walking wheel to create thread to sell. We learned that six children would sleep in a trundle bed. The family that lived in the house was a burgeoning merchant and would entertain guests in the parlor. The only time that children would be in the parlor would be during a wedding. We also learned about how the house would be passed to the first-born son and how a daughter could never inherit the house, but her husband could if there were no other heirs available. Outside of the house was a mayflower pole, garden, and dairy barn. We got to pet the calf Hallie who was born on Halloween and where she got her name from. The kids feed chickens and got to watch the chickens pluck the worms out of the ground.
From there we walked over to Ireland and went to the Irish Forgery. There were a ton of questions for the blacksmith as the kids found this to be the most interesting portion of the Museum. The blacksmith made a nail and explained how it was in the 1700s for a blacksmith. He told them that the apprenticeship was 10 years and he had been doing this for 5 years. We saw an Irish home which had a foot wheel to make thread and this family was a bit better off, as they had their own loom as well. There we met their cat, Fiona, who would catch the mice that got into the oats and the house. They had a barn with chickens and pigs. When we got the German house the field trip group was just arriving so we quickly hopped on a tram to the new world. There we saw a log cabin from the 1740s, 1820s, and 1850s. We also saw a one room school house. The tour guide for this section also told us that all of the homes had been moved from one place to this location.
From The Frontier Cultural we headed closer to our Nation’s Capital and towards the home of the man who helped shape our country. We went to visit Mount Vernon. At Mount Vernon we started our tour by watching a video about George Washington. Then we toured his home. During the home tour we learned that George Washington over saw all the building of his home. One of the things that I thought was very interesting was that the siding on Mount Vernon is not stone, but actually sand made to look like stone as stone was not readily available near Mount Vernon. It was very interesting to learn that Mount Vernon was often visited by many guests at a time and that many people would not know the Washingtons before their visit. After we had finished the tour we headed to get something to eat at the Mount Vernon Inn.
The dinner was quaint and a great time. The boys both chose the roast duck and I chose the the turkey dinner. Bryce loved his duck and Blake was not as impressed. My turkey was good and I enjoyed sitting in a nice restaurant with my kids.
We asked for our dessert to go and the kids ate it as we drove to DC to tour the Capital by Moonlight. Unfortunately, we were late for our tour and missed it. So we headed up to our cabin at the KOA for the night. If we had gone on the tour than we would have been doing a late check in after hours. When I went to check in at the desk I found out that they had not switched our tent site over to a cabin so it was a very good thing that we got up there earlier. We also found out that the hop on hop trolley was delayed because of the race for the cure, which we wouldn’t have found out if we had gone on the tour. I guess everything happens for a reason.