The Continuing Adventures of Bonnie and Clyde

In the news, we got a  little bit of snow this week.

Just a few inches.

Of course, Bonnie had to make snow angels.

And an epic battle had to be waged.

And, we had to do a little school work.  Today’s subject?  Aerodynamics.

Truthfully, there were far too many good sledding pictures, so Bonnie & Clyde’s dad made a video of some of the best sledding clips.  The background music are two duets, played by Bonnie & Clyde this holiday season.  The first is “Deck the Halls” and the 2nd is “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”  Hope you enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Sledding on youTube

Happy Halloween from Bonnie & Clyde!

Though it was quite drizzly, they had fun with the yearly run through the neighborhood.

This was a quiet school week, allowing us to get caught up on a few assignments that were giving us trouble.  Clyde worked hard on a descriptive paragraph that described his favorite ride at Disney World, and Bonnie tried another summarization.  This coming week won’t be as quiet; I might have to raid the kids’ candy supply for a little boost.

Hope all remembered to fall back, too!

Having visited the turning point of the Civil War, it seemed necessary to also visit the site of the bloodiest one day conflict, and to also see the town that saw the events which headed the nation towards Civil War and was a key strategic location for both the North and the South.

So, we started the final day of our field trip with a stop at Antietam National Battlefield.

The Battle of Antietam was the culmination of the Maryland Campaign of 1862, the first invasion of the North by Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia.  Over 23,000 lives were lost in that one day, and though the battle was tactically inconclusive, Lee withdrew his forces back to Virginia (ending this first campaign in the North) and it gave Lincoln enough confidence to announce his Emancipation Proclamation

Unfortunately, the museum was closed that day, so we took a quick look around the Visitors Center, looked out over the grounds,

decided against another car tour, and decided to move on to Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, where there would be more to see and do.

Indeed, there was too much to see and do at Harpers Ferry; we were only able to cover one small portion of it on this trip: the lower town. Some day we’ll have to return with plans to hike some of the ridges and explore more of the Civil War ruins that are still around.

Harpers Ferry is located at the intersection of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland, and is located at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers.

You’d be right if you thought that that created a recipe for a flood plain, and indeed, the town has flooded many times.   Here, Clyde contemplates the height of the flood waters from various historic floods.

The lower part of the town is the National Historic Park, and was mostly deserted, making it seem a bit like a ghost town …

… which was a shame, as we really needed more people to witness the family in 1860s clothes.

Harpers Ferry is historically important for multiple reasons.  It’s perhaps best known as the location of John Brown’s raid on the Federal Armory.  John Brown was an abolitionist who planned to raid the armory at Harpers Ferry in order to arm rebellious slaves and strike terror amongst slave owners throughout the south.   He ran into several problems, and ended up holed up in an engine house, which became known as John Brown’s fort.

President Buchanan sent a detachment of marines, led by Robert E. Lee, to Harpers Ferry to squash the rebellion, and John Brown was eventually hung for his treasonous actions against the government.  Though the raid failed, it is commonly credited with escalating the tensions between slave and free states to ignite the War Between the States.

Once the war began, Harpers Ferry became an important and strategic location.  It had witnessed the arrival of the first successful American railroad, and because of it’s location on the B&O Railroad, Union and Confederate troops moved through Harpers Ferry frequently.  The town changed hands 8 times between 1861 and 1865.

One of Clyde’s favorite Civil War heroes is Stonewall Jackson, and he was thrilled to learn that Harpers Ferry was also the location of one of Jackson’s most decisive victories.  In September 1862, Robert E. Lee led the confederate troops into his first invasion of the North, and he chose Jackson to lead the assault on Harpers Ferry.

On the morning of September 15, surrounded by a force twice the size of their own and out of long range artillery ammunition, the Union forces surrendered.  Jackson captured over 12,500 Union troops at Harpers Ferry – the largest single capture of Federal forces during the entire war.  The southern victory was short-lived, however, as the Battle of Antietam was to come two days later, and ended Robert E. Lee’s northern invasion.

With that, we were at the end of our time, and began our trip home.  We’ll have to head south to visit sites for the end of the Civil War, but that’s for another trip.

Though we haven’t visited very many Civil War sites, it seemed as if we would be remiss if we didn’t make a stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania since we were so close to it.  One of the bloodiest battles, the three-day engagement is described as the turning point in the war.  The battlefield is quite large, and there are lots of tours that you can take, but we weren’t sure if there would be enough kid-appropriate things to hold their attention.

It ended up becoming Clyde’s favorite stop on this whole trip.

We started at the Gettysburg National Military Park Visitors Center and purchased the kid-friendly version of the audio car tour.  There’s a more complete version of the audio tour to the park, but the cashier was quite helpful in telling us that the kids’ version would be more engaging to them.  She was right; this version was perfect for their attention spans, and the descriptions of the individual skirmishes were engaging, but not overly grisly; factual and not overly simplified.  The kids still gained a decent understanding of the issues and situations on each battle day, but weren’t totally overwhelmed with names and places.

We also picked up the Junior Ranger booklet to the park, which has activities for the kids to complete at many of the sites in the park.  We’ve done many other Junior Ranger booklets, and each activity usually takes between 5 and 15 minutes to complete.  It can get a little annoying if the kids focus on only completing the booklet, instead of seeing other things in the park, but it also calls their attention to things they might not normally notice.  However, if you have children and plan to do this activity booklet at Gettysburg, be aware that it’s MUCH longer and more complete than any of the other booklets we’ve seen.  Most activities were rated to take between 45 minutes and an hour, and some take longer than that.  It’s an excellent resource if you’re going to spend a large amount of time at the park (at least 2 days), but be aware it could be frustrating if you’re only spending an afternoon here.

Anyhow, we started the car tour, thinking it would take us about 2 hours to work our way through the park.  We should have realized it would be longer when we were sidetracked at the very first stop on the tour.  The whole tour was quite amazing – the dramatizations of each battle, the descriptions of strategies, the consequences of decisions were all outlined for the kids.   There are approximately 1600 monuments in the park, and some of the most significant are also called out on the tour.

One of the most impressive monuments in the park is the Eternal Light Peace Memorial with the eternal flame.

Located on the summit of Oak Hill and surrounded by guns that mark Confederate artillery positions, the Eternal Light Peace Memorial overlooks the July 1st battlefield.   It was dedicated by former Union and Confederate soldiers to “Peace Eternal in a Nation United” in 1938, and the flame was lit by FDR.

One of the most chilling sections of the tour was the area known as the Devil’s Den in the Valley of Death.  A turning point for Day 2, the kids could easily see how the Confederate soldiers were trapped when they gave up the advantage of the higher ground.

And the kids were also quite moved by the Pennsylvania memorial which lists the names of all 34,530 Pennsylvanians who lost their lives in the Civil War around the base.  As the football fan stated, “That’s over 2 and a half stadiums of people!”

We ended up interrupting our audio tour in order to make the final ranger program of the day at the National Cemetery, the location of Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address.

We had issues with the ranger, but we did learn that Lincoln was NOT the featured speaker of the day.  When the cemetery was being dedicated, a popular orator at the time was asked to speak, and he prepared two hours worth of remarks on the battle at Gettysburg.  Lincoln was asked to just say a few, brief, appropriate remarks.  His comments were so brief that the photographer wasn’t able to set up his camera in time to get a picture!

I’m not sure the full implications of this cemetery really sunk in for the kids, but they did see the Soldiers’ memorial,

and learned that the great, great, (great?) grandfather of President Richard Nixon is buried here.  Someone had set a dime on his grave marker, and we would love to know the story about that.

By this time, we were quite a bit behind on our planned itinerary, so we had to do a little revising on the fly.  After a decent night’s sleep, we went back to the Minuteman National Historic Park’s visitors center in Lexington, just to see what was there before heading on  our way. It was an absolutely gorgeous morning.

This visitor’s center focus is entirely on the events of April 19, 1775 and we saw one of the best multi-media presentations on those events that I have ever seen.  I’m so glad that we stayed to see it.  It very clearly outlined the events on the Lexington Commons, the North Bridge, and the ensuing battle down Battle Road and the kids got a very good feel for how the Revolutionary War actually began.  It tied together a bunch of loose pieces, I think, and was totally worth the stop.

We had planned to stop in Hartford, CT and at the New England Carousel museum, but those didn’t make the cut.  Instead, we did a long drive down through NY (over the Tappan Zee bridge), though NJ, into PA, to make our way over to start the Civil War portion of the trip at Gettysburg.  However, we didn’t want the two battles to get confused, so we needed something to delineate one portion of the trip from another, and what better way to do that than to stop at the very historical Chocolate World?

Ahem.

Okay, so maybe not really historical, though there are Revolutionary soldiers buried in the town, and we did learn quite a bit about the history of Milton Hershey and the Hershey Chocolate empire.

The kids enjoyed the factory tour ride (and the free sample) and enjoyed packaging up their very own package of Hershey kisses.

The trolley tour through town was quite interesting, too.  The kids really got a kick out of the Hershey kiss street lights

and the fact that there are 80 million kisses made each day (just imagine the thousands of miles of foil needed to wrap those kisses!)

And, they enjoyed the multiple free samples along the trolley route, too.  “It’s the milk chocolate!”

Someday, they’re looking forward to returning, but mainly to ride the rides at Hershey Park.

Since the focus of this field trip was on historical things, I was looking forward to the stop in Boston for a quick little side trip into cultural history, with a quick visit to the restaurant that inspired the TV show Cheers.  It was right off the trolley tour, what could be easier, right?  It was a sitcom-worthy day of misadventures, and while I did see the outside of the restaurant, alas, I will have to be greeted where everybody knows my name another day.

We had planned to start early, take a quick trolley ride through Boston, hear some historical facts, and then move along to Lexington and then head towards Connecticut.  We knew we weren’t going to be able to walk the whole Freedom Trail (little legs on Bonnie would have tired out long before the end of the trail) and the trolley tour seemed a good compromise.

We got a late start to the day, and when we boarded the trolley at stop 1 (near Quincy Market / Faneuil Hall), we learned that stop 3 was unavailable for the morning, but would be available towards the afternoon.  There was a movie shoot going on in the morning, and the bridge was blocked off.  Okay.  A quick look at the map showed that stop 3 was exactly where we wanted to be – at the Bunker Hill memorial.  Argh!

So, we rode by Paul Revere’s house, and decided that we would hoof it from stop 4 (The Garden) up to Bunker Hill, then walk back to stop 4 to re-board the trolley.  The day was nice enough for the walk, and we had an excellent view of the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge as we walked across the Charlestown Bridge along the Freedom Trail.  Though it was a bit confusing, as there was plenty of traffic going across the bridge.

A quick view of the USS Constitution (we skipped it since we had just done a ship tour) and then we walked up to the Bunker Hill monument.

It is, of course, at the top of a hill, Breed’s Hill, to be exact, and Bonnie, in particular, was glad that we weren’t walking the whole Freedom Trail.  Good choice there!  We wandered into the Memorial, and there was a sign:

And, of course, Bonnie & Clyde wanted to climb to the top.  294 steps to the top.  There’s a family story that Dad was once challenged by Grandpa to RUN up and down those steps in under 2 minutes (history says that he made it, too) but I can tell you that it took us longer than 2 minutes to go up those steps.  The steps are helpfully periodically numbered, so you can tell when there are 284 … 200 … 100 .. 50 steps to go.  The view from the top is delightful.

But then, remember, there are 294 steps on the way down.  The kids did learn that different leg muscles are used to climb UP stairs and to walk DOWN.  So, history and anatomy, all in the same day.  That’s a homeschooling bonus!  There was the mishap of the missing dad, and the mishap of the iron-covered hands, but we did eventually make it back down to the Charlestown Bridge to head back to the Garden, and we realized there was something odd about the bridge.

Yes, it was completely deserted.  Apparently the filming had not yet taken place, and the bridge was, indeed, blocked off.  We were stopped about halfway across the bridge, as the scene was supposed to start, but there was some sort of delay, so we were finally allowed to cross.  We did get to see cars backing up the bridge … we assume it is some sort of chase scene as there was talk of a helicopter coming down the bridge a little later in the day, too.   We hung around for a bit, but then gave up as we were already really behind on the day, but when the movie “The Town” comes out, we’ll have to watch it for the scene.

We made it back to The Garden, finally, and then realized that the trolleys weren’t running there either.  Apparently, they had expanded the closures to include stop #4, so we had to hoof it to stop #5, about another 1/2 mile walk.  Yes, Bonnie was very tired by then.  We did finally find a trolley (despite the mishap of the missed trolley) and were very relieved to sit for a bit.

The swan boats were put away for the season, but we did get a view of the “Make Way for Ducklings” statue, and finally, we reached Cheers.  Hooray!  Lunch, at last!  We took the required tourist photos out front, then went inside to be seated.

Instead of hearing “Norm!” though, we heard that it was an hour wait for a table.  Kids were expiring, so we gave it up as another mishap, and wandered around until we found some food.  A few more delays and mishaps, and we basically gave up on Boston for the day.  It was late, we canceled our hotel reservations for the next stop (there was no way we were going to get that far), and instead, moved over to Lexington, MA.

We had originally planned to just buzz through Lexington on the way to somewhere else, but upon finding out that they could get their National Parks passport stamped at the (closed for the day) visitors center, we decided to see a few sites on a self-guided tour, and would visit the visitors center in the morning before moving along.

So, of course, we had to see the Minuteman Statue.

The statue in Lexington is said to face the same direction as the advancing British “regulars” (the regular army), and this is his view today.

From there, we walked the Battle Green, stopped at the Revolutionary monument, and visited the reconstructed belfry.  There, we had a bit of an odd moment, as it was pouring about 20 feet away from us, yet we were perfectly dry.

From there, we made our way to the Old North Bridge.  It ended up being a gorgeous evening at the bridge.

At one end is the gravesite for the first British soldiers to lose their lives in the Revolutionary War.

The inscription reads:

Grave of British Soldiers
They came three thousand miles and died,
to keep the past upon its throne:
Unheard, beyond the ocean tide,
their English Mother made her moan.

At the other end of the bridge is the Concord Minuteman statue, which marks the spot where the Minuteman first turned back the British regulars on the first day of the war.

The best known stanza from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Concord Hymn is inscribed on the base of the statue:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

One of the most challenging things, for me, on a trip of this length is dealing with the disappointment when Mother Nature does not follow my plans.  We had planned to spend this day in Plimoth Plantation, soaking up the costumed-goodness of the period.  Alas, the forecast was predicting a 100% chance of rain and thundershowers, so we were pretty sure that wasn’t going to be worth the drive.

Instead, we spent the morning at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum on the Pequot reservation in Mashantucket, CT.  It’s a fascinating museum of Native American art and artifacts, and we were quite disappointed we weren’t allowed to take photographs in the museum exhibits as it is really is a nice treat.

We first took a ride up the 18-story tower to get a view of the reservation (and casino!).  Quite impressive.  The actual tour started with a descent down, underground, and back in time to the Ice Ages.  The exhibits are state-of-the-art and well-maintained, and both kids enjoyed the exhibits.  Favorite exhibits included a video of the ruffled grouse (that sounds like a lawnmower that can’t quite start!), a diorama of a buffalo hunt that filled the room, a 300-pound beaver, and the beautiful, extinct, dire wolf.  A film on tool-making was extremely well done and interesting, as well.

We still wanted to see Plymouth Rock, even if we couldn’t tour the Plantation, so we headed on up to Plymouth after lunch.  It was quite rainy, and the heavens really opened just as we arrived at the Mayflower II.  Fearing that we would flood out the car, we moved to higher ground and toured the Pilgrim Hall Museum instead, a museum of Pilgrim history and possessions.  The museum has a “treasure hunt” for kids to help engage them in the exhibits – paintings and artifacts from the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag culture.  The kids enjoyed the possessions that were brought over on the Mayflower:  a 3-legged chair, a chair for a baby, a baby cradle, an ornate upholstered chair were amongst their favorites.  Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed there either.

By the time they finished the treasure hunt, the rain had let up a little, so we went back to visit Plymouth Rock.  The actual rock is protected from vandals, but I think this is new(ish).  I’ll have to look back through old family photos, because I thought we had a picture of me standing ON Plymouth Rock when I was a kid.

You can see the rock in the bottom portion of the monument, behind the bars.

From there, it’s just a short walk to the Mayflower II, a replica of the original Mayflower.

We had just enough time to tour the ship before it closed, and it was worth it to breathe in the smells (thankfully not too many!) and sights of how the voyage must have been for the Pilgrims.  The sea voyage itself was 66 days, but they spent almost 6 months on-board the ship because of a delayed start, and then having to build lodging when they landed.  Just imagining the living quarters with the livestock was enough to make us all happy that we were not on that voyage!

We had quite an enjoyable Navigator who regaled us with his theories about intelligence being related to hair color, and he told us how he would shout down directions to steer the ship to the sailor at the steering stick.  You can see that the person steering couldn’t actually see where they were going!

Of course, by the time we were done, the skies cleared, but we had to move on from Plymouth.

Living on the East Coast, there are so many good historical sites to visit, but it seems we never quite get there (unless we’re taking a visitor around!) so we decided to take a few days off our normal schedule and go for an extended field trip.  Because, really, if you’re going to be a homeschooler, you should take really cool field trips, right?  It seemed a good time to finish up seeing some Colonial/Revolutionary War type exhibits, and then visit some Civil War related places, so we planned a little figure-8 type route through some of the places we’ve been meaning to visit for some time.

First stop, Philadelphia.  It seemed only fitting to start a historical field trip at the Liberty Bell.

We were fortunate to get a loquatious park ranger who taught the kids that the big crack in the bell that everyone sees is NOT the crack that rendered the bell unusable.  He told the whole story of the bell – the cracks, the recastings, the horrible tone, the replacement bell, the repair job; everything.  And then he showed the kids the real fatal crack – the one that runs from the top of the repair job (the large crack that most people assume is THE crack) to the top of the bell.  It’s a very thin crack, hard to see unless you’re looking for it.  But it was feared if the bell rang again that it would split in half along that crack.  Even Dad, who has been to the Liberty Bell at least 3 times, had never heard that story before.  We spent a lot of time talking about that little crack!

After the bell, we were able to enter Independence Square (they do timed entry tours with a ranger), and we spent some time imagining being a prisoner in the Courtroom of Independence Hall.  It’s fashioned after the English courtrooms, so the prisoners had to stand or sit in the dock with the bars around them throughout the trial.

Across the hall is the assembly room – made famous in pictures of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  The tour guide there was quick to point out that no-one actually signed on July 4th – most delegates signed in August, after they had had time to go home and make sure they had the support of their constituents before coming back to sign.

We also learned that Connecticut is called the Constitutional State because of their delegates’ role during the Constitutional Convention in proposing the Great Compromise – the bicameral legislature that we still have today.

From there, we wandered through the Portrait Gallery at the 2nd Bank, and then over to Franklin Court, at the location of Franklin’s house and print shop.  Those buildings are no longer standing, but they have erected a model to show where the house and print shop stood.

They have preserved a place where you can peer at the actual basement floor, though.

We were told that if we only saw one thing, we should take the kids to the printing office that is there, so we did.  There, the kids learned how papers were printed back in Franklin’s day, and the guide did a whole demonstration.  They used a paper made out of linen, so it had to be dampened in the morning to help the ink set better.  The guide talked about the possible beginnings of the terms “upper case” and “lower case” letters as being the description of where the individual type was stored in the shop.

Once the type was set (letter by letter), the type was inked with beaters.

And then the paper was placed on the ink and pressed two times (top half of the page and the bottom half).  Once the page was printed, it was hung to dry.

Bonnie and Clyde thought that was pretty neat, but the best part of the day for them was getting to hear someone play the glass armonica.  Another invention of Franklin’s, it’s based on the same principle that makes a crystal ring when you run your damp finger around the rim.  Franklin was so secretive about his inventions, though, that even his wife did not know what he was working on.  It was said that she was awakened by its beautiful tones when he was finished, and she was afraid that she had died during the night and that she was hearing the music of the angels.

An incredible sounding instrument, and one that Clyde would love to learn how to play.

So, I was informed the other day that I had slacked off on publishing pictures to the blog.  You’re right, you’re right – it’s just been a very hectic time.  In many ways, I’m still back in February (and the temperature sinking to the 20’s tonight isn’t helping dissuade me from that.)

But, one way that I know it’s April?  When it’s time to celebrate my birthday.  Inspired by my mother’s bowling birthday party, the venue for our celebration was the local Putt-Putt course.

Bonnie enjoyed being on the Fireball team

The fireballs were inspired enough to all wear the team uniform of red t-shirts.

while Clyde was on the Turtle team

Don’t they look like they belong on the Alps?

In pottery, the kids are finished making their masks.  They had originally made some other creation, but there was an accident when the masks were being fired, and all the original ones were destroyed.  So, they were only able to paint these molds for this project.  The next project, they threw a bowl on the wheel, and I’m looking forward to seeing those.

Hope everyone had a blessed Easter.

As is typical, after a long dry spell of extra activities, now everything is happening all at once.  Bonnie and Clyde are back to their pottery class, and the project for the month of February was to make birdhouses.

Here’s Bonnie’s.  She made a birdy drive-through!  Before you ask, we don’t make too many trips to the Starbucks.  It’s the bank. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

And Clyde’s.

And yes, those are the new braces that you can see.   Clyde’s mouth is feeling a little better, so we can actually take a picture of them now.  It’s nothing like when we were kids, though, now the braces are just glued on the front.  No evil headgear, either.

So – the Redskins’ colored braces.  Now, that’s a fan. Think that’s good enough for free tickets to a game?

They really changed the look of his face, though.  No doubt that we have a pre-teen here.