MD-VA 2015

After a two-day, snack-filled drive down to Maryland, the car needed detailing to remove crumbs and Katy's chickens willingly obliged

Charlie and Erin spent hours playing with the chickens

Not content to leave the National Park sites in the DC area unexplored, Dave took his girls, plus Lyla and Charlie on a busy day trip. First stop, Fort Washington, first established for the War of 1812 and expanded for the Civil War.

The kids dutifully worked on Junior Ranger booklets under Bobblehead George's watchful eye

The requisite cannons in the deserted fort didn't have signs prohibiting climbing...

Erin and Lyla made the hike down to the Potomac River for the view across of Mount Vernon and upriver towards DC

At the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Anacostia DC, Erin didn't have the stomach for the movie portraying slave life

Oxon Hill Farm was oddly situated inside a cloverleaf of the DC beltway, and proved to be a dense, if not mildly informative view of farming life

 The resident goat Aaron was a feisty kid and tolerated this extra attention

Have Charlie and Lyla been successfully infected with the Junior Ranger bug?

Not a bad day's haul: 7 badges and 1 patch for each

Back at Boxwood Farm, the kids swam and played

Erin loved the joy rides with Charlie

 In addition to entertaining guests, Aunt Katy's dental skills were also put to use

On the way to Virginia we stopped at the Clara Barton NHS in Glen Echo, MD. The founder of the American Red Cross and a tireless leader of relief efforts nationwide, we believe that she is a strong candidate for the upcoming addition to the $10 bill.

Her house was set up like a Red Cross shelter with many storage rooms and even a cotton muslin ceiling.

At Aunt Claire's the cousins had fun swimming and kayaking around Lake Barcroft

Brooke and Erin are losing their gap-toothed smiles

Tessie had fun romping around with the big kids

The eldest children

Back in Maryland, we prepped for Katy's square dance, which was a huge success, so much so that we didn't stop to take any photos

One more NP site day trip. The Fredericksburg battlefield preserved a bullet-ridden house

Aunt Katy leads the Junior Ranger charge

Outside Fredericksburg was Ferry Farm, the link between GW's birthplace and Mount Vernon

Caroline Ehmann, est. 2007

George Washington's birthplace can be found in George Washington's Birthplace, Virginia, on the neck of land between the Potomac and Rappahannock estuaries. It is a beautiful location with a re-creation of the original house and plantation.

Katy was envious of the boxwood on the grounds

There it is, Virginia's cash crop: tobacco

 Every year we get a little closer to a great lineup photo of the cousins

 Patriotic mustaches!

 This may be the last year the porch swing can support all 8 kids

 We had a great time with our visit

Fort Washington fun

Glen Echo carousel

Before the square dance

Cray cray for National Parks sites

With more time at our disposal than any year before or likely after, we decided to extend our usual trip to Virginia-Maryland by driving down and back, visiting many of the National Park sites along the route.

 

 Before we left, Caroline created a treasure hunt out of her Junior Ranger badge and patch collection. Check out her rhymes for "cannon" and "music"

 

The only NP site in Connecticut is Weir Farm, and boy is it a stinker to visit. Ever heard of American Impressionist painter J. Alden Weir? Well, this is his studio, which in the first half of the 20th century hosted other American artists that you have never heard of. The Junior Ranger activity required a walk through mosquito-infested woods to sketch Weir's scuzzy pond, and Erin came out with her legs painted in red splotches.

 

 If we come back to do the other 2 activities, we can earn a patch and a pin

 

 Morristown, New Jersey, now this is a solid National Park site. It's got replicas of the wooden huts where the Continental Army spent one of the terrible winters of the Revolutionary War. It also has a large museum of George Washington artifacts.

 

Shoes, swords, and even one of his pianos are on display

 

 We broke down and bought a couple of Founding Father bobbleheads. Erin got bobblehead Alex and Caroline bobblehead George.

 

Edison's workshop in West Orange, NJ was absolutely amazing

 

even if its surroundings were rather unsettling

 

 Edison's office had lots of artifacts, like this cubic foot block of copper, which was a gift from the copper industry in recognition of electric lighting

 

 There were three floors of the laboratory to explore with all of the original machinery. As the girls remarked, it smelled like a dirty old factory

 

 This building is where the first motion pictures were made

 

 Next stop, in an equally unsavory section of New Jersey, was Paterson Great Falls, where in the 1792 none other than Alexander Hamilton established the first US industrial complex, employing the power of the Passaic river

 

 Apparently Paterson has the second highest waterfall east of the Mississippi

 

 With ice cream sandwiches in our belly, we moved on from Paterson...

 

 ... to Edgar Allen Poe's scary house in a scary part Philadelphia

 

Having read Poe's story about the black cat, we enjoyed the spooky dark basement. There were several holes in the walls, but thankfully no corpses were to be found.

 

 We arrived at Independence Hall in torrential rain

 

and this is as close as we got to the Liberty Bell

 

Hopewell Furnace: one of those off-the-beaten-path gems

 

We learned how charcoal was made in the 1700s to power early iron smelting

 

in giant stone chimneys

 

 and then carted off to the nearest waterway for transport

 

Erin was spooked by the creaky old waterwheel, since it reminded her of the one that impaled Saruman in the Two Towers 

 

 More fun with General George, now at Valley Forge, PA

 

We were surprised to learn that 2 Loseys were soldiers at Valley Forge

 

 Now we're on our way back north, and if it's a cannon it must be a civil war site. Monocacy battlefield in Maryland, where a third advance into Union territory was stopped in 1864

 

 Nice kepi and haversack, Caroline. Also, the girls learned firsthand how uncomfortable wool must have been in the summer. Dave just finished a book about the history of cotton and also is thankful for that wonder fiber. Imagine if your only options for underwear cloth were wool, linen, or silk!

 

 (Not shown is Harper's Ferry NHP, because we didn't want to take the required trolley ride from the visitor center to the historic town. Instead we did a drive-by of the John Brown sites and will save the full visit for another time) The battlefield at Antietam was simple to tour and full of memorials to all the fallen men. 

 

It wasn't a National Park site, but Crystal Caves were a fun stop for a real cave experience

 

 Erin didn't appreciate the joke that this was about her not infrequent whining

 

A boondoggle if I've ever seen one, Steamtown in Scranton, PA, had a huge railyard and expansive visitor center.



 and the requisite cabooses and freight cars for exploring

 

 Dioramas of those who rode the rails in the 1800s: The Immigrants

 

Caroline took a shine to the newsboy

 

And after a stop at the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River in Lackawaxen, PA, we finished our tour and headed back to NY, then MA.

 

Hmm, this National Park isn't on the map yet