Thursday, July 26, 2007

Education From the Road

The other day I was thinking what a great learning experience this has been so far for Connor and Alexis (and us!). Here are a few highlights...

My Uncle Joe and Aunt Beverly were nice enough to host us in Washington, D.C. which gave us the opportunity to go to some of the attractions there.

The Smithsonian
Forget seeing all of the Smithsonian in a day, but we took in a lot in. Here we are standing in front of a statue in the Japanese Art Museum.

Did you know Connor is fascinated with banzai?

My favorite is the Museum of Modern Art. You're not supposed to take pictures, but I couldn't resist this one. This was from a newspaper story on a war in Albania. Check out that badass guard with his finger is on the trigger itching to dust somebody. Someone needs to tell him this is not appropriate gun safety. Go ahead, make his day!

Civil War Battlegrounds
We went to Bull Run. The civil war, by the way, was NOT about ending slavery; it was about a federal government telling states what they can or can't do. Abraham Lincoln said this: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it..."

(The more I learn how bankrupt official history is, I'm pretty sure the Civil War was a contrivance of secret societies and European banking powers, but that's a story for another day.)

Mount Vernon
George Washington spent money like a drunken sailor! He was a military man who married a wealthy widow and spent her money like there was no tomorrow. Here are some of George's pigs.


Snapping Turtle
While we were driving near Washington D.C. we saw this turtle in the road. This thing was about as big as a football and our approaching it really pissed it off (well of course we poked things at its mouth, silly!) At one point we attempted to touch its tail and this creature spun around in a flash and almost had a finger meal. Who said turtles are slow?

Apparently, during the spring the females walk around on the land looking for a nesting spot and during this time they are particularly aggressive. Sorry for the weird color in this photo; I was still learning when not to use the flash.

Philadelphia
While in Amish country, we took a day trip to “Philly”. What a strange day that was! Because we have been in mostly rural places we had forgotten how truly scary and mean big cities can be. It was upsetting, actually. Tours of Independence Hall were all booked up, but we saw the Liberty Bell!


Freemasonry
A major highlight of the “philly” trip was our visit to the Grand Freemasonic Lodge of Philadelphia. If you ever get a chance to see the inside of a Masonic Lodge, take it! You will be confronted with a rich and beautiful symbolic language that few of us can interpret. “Mommy, why does that statue have a man's face, an Egyptian hat, a woman's boobs, and a lion's body?” Good question, sweet child o' mine. There's a big answer to that question which we'll go into later.

Cherry Picking
Somehow, in the process of buying a pint of cherries in New York state, we found ourselves in a cherry orchard filling up buckets of fat, juicy cherries. We picked a little more than a pint though. We ended up with about fifty pounds of cherries that we stuffed our fat, little faces with. The children recouped most of the cost of the cherries by selling them in the RV park.

Niagara Falls
We detoured from our community-seeking quest to see Niagara Falls National Park. I don't have any digital pictures because I forgot my camera, which is just as well because we got soaked! But Janet had her analog camera and the pictures are probably the finest ever created. Too bad you can't see them.

Anyway, the Falls are simply fantastic. We learned that the volume of water is heavily regulated to be just enough to enthrall the profane masses and no more as this erosion business might disrupt the commerce in the area. Is there no end to mankind's folly?

Upper Canada Village
While staying at Green Trust in upstate New York (more on that later) we went with our hosts to Upper Canada Village in Ontario. This is a 19th century village preserved for our viewing pleasure. They have lots of buildings with water wheels that make possible all sorts of magic, like making wool, grinding grains, cutting wood, and so on. The ingenuity of these folks was impressive indeed.


There is no doubt we are all learning a lot of new things on this voyage!

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