Part Seven--Colonial Escapade 1990-1991 FIELD TRIPS

Colonial Escapade Part Three: Field Trips

We went on just two field trips during this school year:

1) Knott's Berry Farm Independence Hall
(Hal is taking the picture):

2) East Coast Adventure  April 29-May 13, 1991

Our second and last field trip was a two-week colonial America extravaganza. Our little truck carried two adults and four children across the country. There were no laws about car seats or seatbelts, so all four kids were in the back on carpet. They had a tape recorder and oodles of tapes and books, and Amber was back there. Our kids have always traveled well, and this was no exception.    

Looking back, we were nuts! We didn’t have very much money to spend on this trip, but if we had thought too much about it we might have never gone. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the side of the road many times, stayed in a few hotels, but also with friends, parked at rest areas or drove through the night.  It was a blast!  If we weren't nuts we would have saved that money to buy another car, but educating our children and creating family memories has always been more important to Hal and me, so we took this trip instead. 

  
Virginia

We drove day and night until we got to Virginia. In the early morning I was driving when I saw the Seven Mile Ford exit, so we took an impromptu stop. This place was home to my 2nd great-grandfather, and his father, Meredith Collins, enlisted in the rebel army in 1776 at the age of 16. 

 

One perk of knowing our family history is that we were able to put these two ancestors on our school timeline--mine, Meredith Collins, and Hal's, Eliphalet Reynolds:

To prepare for this trip I wrote to several national historical parks, asking for information. Amber and Jasmyn had also written to a few founding states as part of a school projects. Not only did this teach them letter-writing skills, but it gave them something to look forward to, as we all received "colonial" mail like this:

Williamsburg, Virginia

Our first field-trip stop was the restored living history city of Williamsburg. The children wore their colonial outfits and became instant celebrities--everyone wanted pictures of the colonial kids, and people thought they were part of the living history tours. Throughout of trip we spent time waiting for Amber and Jasmyn, as people stopped them and asked for a picture--they were photographed and videotaped all the way from Virginia to Boston, and along the way people would stop us and say, "We saw you in Williamsburg!"

Williamsburg dancers

We were in Williamsburg for about an hour when a newspaper reporter saw us and asked for an interview. The next day the children were photographed for a front page newspaper story that was in our mailbox when we arrived back in California. Here is part of the story:

  

Richmond, Virginia

At St. John's Churc Amber and Jasmyn and Hal IV reenacted
Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech, part of which they had memorized. 

Mount Vernon, Virginia  

This is the only complete family photo from the entire trip!

While at Mount Vernon we tried to see George and Martha Washington's crypts, but the place was really crowded at first. I finally asked Amber and Jasmyn to stand nearby for a picture, and immediately everyone cleared out of the way because they wanted this shot:

Valley Forge, Pennsylvania   

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania   

Betsy Ross Home

Liberty Bell

Ben Franklin monument 

Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania

We stumbled across this monument by accident. After spending the day in Philadelphia we stopped on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River so the kids could touch the place where Washington crossed in 1776. (I don't remember that there was very much to see in 1991, but when we went back in 2008 we found that this monument and other sites are part of Washington Crossing State Historic Park) 

Adams National Historic Park, Braintree, (now Quincy), Massachusetts

The Saltbox home where John Adams was born.

(When Abigail Adams first visited our school the week after our 'brain' week, she told the children that they would always remember where she lived because the town was called Braintree. When she said that, the kids eyes popped and they looked at each other and they tried to imagine what a 'brain tree' would look like!)

John Adams' stone library 

Minute Man National Park, Concord & Lexington, Massachusetts

Lexington Common, where Captain John Parker said,

"Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

Boston, Massachusetts

We took an entire day to walk the Freedom Trail, red (mostly brick) path through the Boston, which leads from Boston Commons and the Old South church--where the Boston Tea Party started (think Sam Adams and Johnny Tremain), to Charlestown and the Bunker Hill Monument.

The Old North Church where the two lanterns were hung, "One if by land, two if by sea," stands behind this statue of Paul Revere:

 

At the end of the day we found the Boston tea party ship and museum:

 

We visited several other places, including ancestors' graves and Nathan Hale's schoolhouse in Connecticut, and then drove straight home without stopping.

This was a wonderful adventure, and I'm glad we didn't wait until the very end of the year to take this trip, because we were all so inspired that we wanted to continue our colonial escapade!