Firestation

Oct 15 the Junior Writing Workshop went to the local fire station. Above is the Fire Chief's office, full of all sorts of toys and doo-dads that have to do with fire stations.

The rack of firemen clothes near the trucks.

The nice fireman helping Janet get down from looking inside one of the trucks.

Four of the students on the back of a fire truck.

A fireman suiting up.

One of the original city fire trucks.

Fire truck with lights flashing!

J. next to the tire of the newest fire truck, custom made for the city.

One of the kids asked how the fire plugs worked. This fireman is demonstrating on a dry fire plug just how they check to make sure the connections are clear before they turn it on with the handle on the top. Different colored tops tell the firemen how much water pressure is in the plug.

Group photo.

Amazement Square

October 8 we took a field trip to Lynchburg's Amazement Square, a great adventure. They took an old warehouse near the James River and created an innovative and creative museum especially for kids. We were joined by one other family. The historic nature of the area requires them to leave the painted on advertisements on the buildings. One of the signs on their building has something to do with killing bugs, so they have taken upon themselves a pro-bug mascot - as a result there are two bug sculptures outside their building. Here we are in front of one.

J. is standing in front a donor wall. There are three like this one where the buttons stick out. The kids can push them or lean on them. When they are done they pull the handle and they all come out again. One stand alone wall has buttons on the front and back. J. is doing a body impression above.
Here is the after picture. The names of the donors are written one letter on each button.

Here is A. walking up the steps. They light up. You've got to see this!

Electric circuit puzzles. They thought they didn't work. About half had batteries and the others had generators. Once they were connected right they worked just fine. In the same room were giant marble rolls of various types. Golf balls were used instead of marbles and one demonstrated how balls going down a spiral pick up speed. Another went up a hill and then down a hill three times with the hills getting smaller and smaller. There were magnetic walls with paths for the golf balls to follow.

This is a hair dryer with a ping pong ball balanced on it. She is trying to make a basket with it.

This is J. actually balancing a ping pong ball on the air from a hair dryer.

There was a healthy body exhibit. This is me racing A. on bicycles connected to a machine that shows who is winning.

A., my competitor.

The race is on.

Here is B. and D. dong the same race.

The picture doesn't show it very well but the middle of this museum is filled with ladders, slides, tubes, etc. so kids can climb up and down the floors. They can go from the second floor (where you come in) down to the first floor or all the way up to the fourth floor without ever going up stairs.

From the fourth floor the kids (and adults-its a little harder the older the muscles are) can climb a little further to an observation deck (enclosed) and look out on the James River. A railroad runs through the parking lot so it is signed warning cars to not park across the tracks or too close to the tracks. The fountain is in the river.

My favorite exhibit is the James River model. There is actually a model of the river and they can make it rain. It gives them an opportunity to explain the water cycle - though they don't wait for the water to evaporate, they just pump it up to the "clouds".

There are wooden boats for the kids to float down the river and there is a rapids direction and a quieter canal side - with locks. The kids can operate the locks, closing the gates, turning the handles that open the water in or out of the locks, then re-open the locks so the boats can go on their way. Or they can just open the gates anyway and flood the river.

B. on the zip line.

B. on the zip line.

J. on the zip line, or under the zip line. She really did do it, the camera was just not quick enough.

J. in the Paint Box. There is this cool room in the first floor that is mirrored on one side and glass on the other three sides. They put a smock on the kids and make them take their shoes off, then they can paint. And paint she did.

Here is the paint. The rules were don't put the wrong color brush back in the paint, no splattering and do have fun.

One of their latest additions is an XBox Rock Band. We took turns doing the drums or the guitar. It was challenging keeping up with the Xbox.

We did go back to the river exhibit again and play some more. Here is a good view of the "clouds". B. and D. are in the background with J. in front.

J. playing with the lock

J. in front of a writing wall.

The other bug at the museum. All in all, I would recommend this as a fun place to take kids. Amazement Square also has tours for schools and groups on various subjects. There was also a display on the heart, the Monacans, architecture, stained glass and silver with a new exhibit opening soon.

Mount Vernon

We never quite got to Mount Vernon when we were studying the Revolutionary War (we are studying Victorian Era to the present this year) so we took advantage of our trip to Washington, D.C. to come visit. We got to Mount Vernon in the early afternoon and there was almost no crowds to speak of. The Ford Orientation Center and the Reynolds Museum and Education Center were added since I last went to Mt. Vernon about twelve years ago, which made the visit even more interesting for the kids. Here they are in front of life sized statues of George and Martha Washington and her two children. Martha was 4'9" and George was 6'2".

After getting oriented and getting the "Historic Trails Handbook for Scouts" we walked up the hill to The Mansion. We had yet to learn about Ha Has but had unknowingly gone between some.

Janet chased butterflies in the Upper Garden near the green house. There are several active archeological digs going on in the garden and we got to see the people sifting and digging carefully to learn more about the original gardens.

They have a nice fall crop in with lots of egg plants growing.


We waited in line for about fifteen minutes to see the Mansion. This gentlemen was an actor playing the part of a Scottish doctor who attended troops during the Revolutionary War and knew General Washington.

The guides talked to us about how the house was small when George Washington inherited it and he enlarged it to three stories when he was in his twenties. Then he added wings to both sides. One wing was the private areas for George and Martha. Upstairs was their room and her dressing area. She used it as a school in the daytime. The downstairs room was Pres. Washington's study and dressing area. He had over 800 books and a fan chair - you pedal it and it waves a fan over you. (Photographs are not permitted inside the building.) The main dining room had farm symbols all over - in the plaster of the ceiling, on the mantel over the fireplace and over the door. In the main entry there is the Key to the Bastille, given to him by Lafayette who felt The Father of Liberty should have the key.

After the Mansion tour we enjoyed looking out from and sitting on the porch of the Mansion to see the Potomac River. It was a lovely, warm day with a gentle breeze. Above is one of the stables. We also saw the Gardener's House, the Laundry, the Clerk's House, the Salt House, the Smoke House and a Dung Heap - to compost waste for use as fertilizer.

Above is one of the General's coaches. One of the other rooms also held a riding chair. It was basically a chair fastened securely to a cart bed that could be pulled by a horse.

Above is a HaHa wall. The idea here is to keep animals from coming up on the lawn. That was one of the fun things we learned about. It may have been named because it might fool some of the animals and the humans can say "ha ha". They are discreetly placed around the greens of Mount Vernon but it doesn't feel like a fence because the top is at the level of the grass. Admittance is through a gate.

Next stop on our trail was the old burial vault, where the bodies of George and Martha were buried until the official burial vault was finished. Above is a photo of the finished burial vault. George and Martha had previously selected the site and the materials but it took a few years for it to be finished. Scouts can actually prepare wreaths and participate in a Wreath Laying Ceremony between the months of November and April.

The Slave Cemetery is a monument in the general area of many slave burial sites. Exact locations are few but there is enough information to verify that this is the place.

The path down to the river edge and the Innovation in Farming exhibit.

At the river's edge tickets can be purchased for river cruises. There is a nice breeze by the Potomac River.


It was a short walk to the farm. Here is what a shed and fence looked like to shade some of the animals and keep them in.

We had read about George Washington's innovative threshing barn so it was really fun to see a real one. They often have live demonstrations but we had an audio demonstration. It even sounded like horses were walking around and around. It is basically a two story structure.

Upstairs would be spread the harvested wheat. The floor was made so that the wheat seed could fall between slats. Horses would tread on the wheat and the wheat would be loosened and fall through. Harvested wheat crops could be ruined in the rain so moving it indoors improved the output.

Downstairs the wheat would be scooped up, cleaned and then taken to the grist mill for grinding.

The back side of the threshing barn. Next stop was the Nature Trail.

We learned that there were Native Americans at Mt Vernon a couple of hundred years before the Washington family was there.

There were originally a great variety of trees. One of the trees that has disappeared from the area is Chestnuts. There was also signs about animals that are no longer in the area like the black bear, the timber wolf and the passenger pigeon (extinct).

This was an impressive bridge that crossed a divide. Next stop for my weary travelers is the Reynold's Museum We took the Education Center route and were not disappointed. They had an exhibit on how they figured out what George Washington really looked like when he was young. There was a death mask and they did a "best guess" at going back in time, based also on paintings and drawings of the General at different times of his life.

We also saw, among many other things, an amazing movie-show about three major Revolutionary War battle victories of General Washington. They included Boston, Trenton and Yorktown. When ever there were big cannons going off our seats vibrated. When the soldiers were in Boston and there was fog - fog started coming into our theater. When it was snowing in Trenton - snow started falling on us in the theater. I wish I knew how they did the snow - it wasn't cold, it didn't smell like soap or anything - but it did definitely drift down like lightly clumpy snow.


Then we discovered a Hands On room for children J's age. She had a great time. She put her face in various holes of a Washington family painting. Above is where Patsy Custis's face would be.

There were clothes to try on, puzzles to do , pictures to color, books to look at,

and a doll house of Mount Vernon to arrange and re-arrange the furniture in. It was almost 5 pm and closing time so we hope to go back again someday and see all the stuff we didn't quite have time for. We spent time in the shop and found a great book on crafts and things that were done at Mount Vernon - like carding wool and so on. We also got the scout badges for the Historic Trails and Innovation in Farming. Visiting Mount Vernon was well worth the time.