Our summer trip of history and science

Mom and the kids and I went for a mini summer vacation to see some history and some science and some family.

First we headed south into VA.

We had in mind to visit Williamsburg and Jamestown for our summer of Colonial American history. I had been reading some mommy blogger travels with kids things about Williamsburg and one of them highly recommended eating at the Cheese Shop. So to the cheese shop we went.

Good strong recommendation that one. If you find yourself down that way check it out. Yum!

We went to Jamestown first as I recall it warmly and thought we might be able to do it in half a day.

It was not cheap but it was very worth the price (17 bucks for the grown ups and 12 for the kids). The museum was fantastic (forbidding pictures unfortunately) but for me the living history stuff was the best part.

We spent a while in the Powhatan village grinding corn and visiting dwellings.

Megan has a thing for Pocahontas so this was fantastic. We got to see where Pocahontas lived and what her house looked like and to try out some chores that she had to do as a girl. We worked on tanning a hide with oyster shells. We asked questions of the reinactors and got great responses.

Then we went to the fort of Jamestown.

We walked in on a talk about colonial medicine that was gratifyingly gruesome.

Megan tried all the beds and decided they were better than the ones in the Powhatan village but not as good as the ones in Fort Frederick (too scratchy). She also followed the chickens about and explored the buildings at a dead run.

She particularly liked the church as it was shady (quite a hot day that day) and had pews to climb.

Then we went down to the dock and climbed aboard the Susan Constance the Discovery and the Godspeed.

It started to sprinkle when we got there and the crews started stowing everything.

The let the kids help.

Kiernan got a good look at the workings of a shipboard cannon.

He did some lifting and climbing around and was pretty chuffed.

Megan got to help wind the pennants and even pull some sail rope.

The bragged to each other about the superiority of their experiences and bickered over their relative merits.

sigh

It stopped raining and we went back to the fort.

We all tried on some armor.

The the highlight of the day came when the blacksmith (mostly abandoned due to the rain) asked Kiernan if he liked puns.

This began a good 10-15 minutes of chat between the two of them ranging from minecraft to the typical outlay of a nailer (a blacksmith of about 10-12 year of age) apparently the first blacksmithing job back then was that of nailer and a nailer produced around 2000 nails a day.

We left the blacksmith reluctantly and went to the hotel.

The kids wasted no time in jumping into the pool and mom and I found a good Italian place to refuel at.

After we ate dinner we went over to Colonial Williamsburg for an evening stroll. I really wish that we'd had more time for this part of the trip.

Everything looked appealing and we had no realistic time for any of it.

We walked though a colonial garden (many plants for sale and boy was I tempted!) and we poked our heads into a shop or two.

We threw the children into the stocks...

Like you do.

The kids loved the hotel and loved the feeling of being on vacation and of having asleep over every night.

Kiernan learned a new trick.

The next morning we went to Yorktown.

It was a bit of a bust.

The monument was beautiful and we got a surprise wedding on the back of it to witness.

But Mom had a fall at the visitors center (not a great museum) and hurt herself. Megan was all historied out and we had a long 10+ hour drive ahead of us and felt the time pressing down.

We left and drove and hit a lot of rest areas and late that evening arrived at Aunt Jessica's new house. It is a lovely new house.

The next morning we got ready for church and tested out our solar eclipse view glasses.

They looked great.

The kids we excited to see and play with their cousins. Their cousins are teenagers and I am always afraid that it wont go well and it always goes well.

Megan loved church and Kiernan tolerated it fairly well.

After church we adults were free to wonder off as the cousins had important playing matters to attend to.

I loved being with my sister. I miss her a great deal and wish that she were nearer.

The next day I took everyone canoeing.

Everyone was my brood plus Aunt Jessica and Cousin Katie.

There was a great deal of "Ahoy the boat" and "Avast ye scurvy dog"!

It was great.

On Monday morning we made eclipse boxes and talked about what to expect.

Then the kids fled upstairs for the real reason for the visit...Super Smash Bros.

Megan was particularly helpful on this venture.

I started scouting ways to get home.

The eclipse will not look amazing from my photos.

It was amazing.

The boxes worked fairly well.

The glasses worked very well.

The glasses worked much better on the eyeball than on the iPhone lenses.

We saw totality from Nashville.

We say strange dancing shadows (they looked like bars passing along the ground) and the diamond ring and stars come out in the day time. We heard the birds stop singing and the neighbors shout. We shouted.

It was incredible.

It smelled like early morning and I wonder if the drop in temperature hit the dew point or something.

If you ever get the chance to see a totality event do yourself the favor.

We drove back and hit rest areas again.

The traffic was some of the worst I have ever experienced. The kids got to sit on the roof of the car at one point so that was fun. In the middle of the night on tiny dark back roads lines of people were being directed by police cars onto other tiny dark back roads.

It took around 8 hours to get out of TN.

At 3 in the morning we stopped at a motel 8 and Kiernan collapsed on the floor of the check in room because there was such a line of people being turned away or checked in depending on reservation status.

Fortunately mom had made us a reservation hours and hours before hand from the car so we got in.

We slept until almost 10 o'clock (this is unheard of in Kuehnert land).

We drove and listened to goosebumps books and aimed ourselves at Nana's favorite pizza joint as a thank you for her help on the trip.

I also love Three Brothers Pizza/Calzones. The kids got to have one of my childhood experiences complete with a pitcher of root beer and some arcade games.

It was fun but we were exhausted. 

We went home and kissed daddy and pet the dog and dropped our luggage like it was on fire.

Good trip!