Living Near History

I'm thinking I've mentioned, at least once or twice, how much we love where we live? Yeah, thought so. If you missed the memo, we love it.

One of my favorite aspects of where we live is location, location, location. Locally, totally. But also on a bigger scale, too. We are within 2 hours of Washington, D.C., New York City, Philly, Baltimore, and the beach. And we're also close to New England, too!

In the past several months, we've been to Philly, DC, NYC, and Boston. We've also visited 11 of the 13 original colonies (as well as Florida).

And it's extra cool because we've been studying American History. We live near the coolest stuff!! And we love that we homeschool and can VISIT these places as part of our learning. We really, really love it.

We've already blogged about our trip to NYC, our trip to DC, and our trip to Philly. Now here's a bit about our trip to Plymouth and Boston:

We've got library cards through my Mom in MA. The library system there has an AWESOME museum pass system. From here (in PA), we can reserve the museum pass cards, pick them up, and visit all kinds of cool places (museums, zoos, historical sites) for SO MUCH CHEAPER!! For example, instead of paying $118 to visit Plimoth Planation, we got in for $42 for all 5 of us! Awesome.

Plimoth Plantation


There are SO many pictures I want to post. I'll try to restrain myself.

Visiting here with my husband and kids was surreal--this was one of my childhood field trips when I was a little girl! It was fun to have Vavo along, too. She loved it.


SO lush!

Too bad it's blurry--this is a cool picture

So, first we visited the Native People's village (Wampanoag Homesite):





You get to see how they lived and interact with them and ask them questions and visit their homes and gardens. It's very, very cool. Here we are near a mishoon, or dugout canoe.

We then walked to the 1627 English Village. This is especially cool because the people stay in character and time period. It's as if you've gotten there via time machine. They speak just like the colonists did and they live just like they did, too. You see them cook, work the land, etc. And you can ask them any questions you want (this is strongly encouraged) and get such a feel for what it was like then.



This guy was awesome. He was the acting minister but he wasn't ordained so he couldn't administer the sacrament.



So cool how you can see the Atlantic Ocean RIGHT there.

I LOVE OUR KIDS!!

This is John Alden caring for the cattle. Priscilla was at home.


This area is a big hit.

Visiting another home


They have a cute children's museum where we warmed up and played old-fashioned colonial games.


Plymouth Rock

The rock is housed inside that columned area

When you look down, you see the (slowly-eroding) Plymouth Rock

Out for some yummy seafood on the coast


The Mayflower

This guy was AWESOME (video to follow). He didn't miss a beat, stayed totally in character, and was really funny to boot. He had a lot to say about women on the boat (apparently they were trouble). It took the Mayflower over 2 months to get TO Plymouth (where it had to "dock" a mile off shore) but took less than 4 weeks to get back.



This guy was below deck and was a total gossip. He had a lot to say about all of the passengers on the Mayflower. He told of swindlers and said that he felt that many Christians made better performers than practitioners.




The kids had a lot of fun playing with this exhibit near the boat--all the different tools that helped them measure speed and direction

In front of the Mayflower

(Something neat about the Mayflower -
my Dad did carpentry work on the Mayflower gift shop)