;)
Fort Sumter, S.C.
Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 12:33PM Getting to Fort Sumter is a huge, expensive pain in the ass unless you have your own boat, which in itself is a huge, expensive pain in the ass. Either way, it'sgonna hurt. Bummer! Get it? Bum-mer? (Sorry.) We do not have our own boat, so we had to shell out $50 for seats on a Fort Sumter Tours ferry. While The Man was waiting in a ridiculously long line (this will teach us never to go anywhere on a weekend) I took this picture of the USS Yorktown.
We didn't board the USS Yorktown. If you've seen one aircraft carrier, you've seen 'em all, and we've seen a lot more than one. (For those of you who haven't, this is just the tiniest little bit of the carrier. Those suckers are huge.)
Once you're on the boat, you have to wait for your fellow tourists to get settled. This takes a long, long time. While you're waiting, you can give your Goobers a crash course refresher on the beginnings of the Civil War. While you are talking, they will look at you like this:
This can mean several things, depending on your particular Goobers' temperaments. It could mean they are fascinated with your lecture and are dreaming of one day becoming historians themselves. It could mean they are desperately struggling to appear politely interested in the face of your historical/political diatribe. Or it could mean there is a wasp in your hair and they're trying to keep you calm right up until they smack you over the head with their Fort Sumter pamphlets. Whatever. You just keep talking, because it's very important that they not listen to the obnoxious,ignorant wretches tourists sitting next to you, who believe the Civil War could have been prevented if only there had been more dialogue between the two sides. Yeah, because slavery coupled with secession would soundFANTASTIC if you could just talk about it long enough. There's WTF moment #9,876 for you.
Once you get underway, you can quit talking and listen to the recorded tour guide. Your Goobers won't really listen, but that's okay because you can give them another crash course refresher afterwards while the Ranger is going through her "Don't touch this, this, this, that, this, or that over there," routine. You'll also have a lot of time to kill while you're waiting for your fellow passengers to get off the boat, and while you're standing there you can beat "April 12, 1861" into your Goobers' brains. If you do it right, they will remember for ten whole minutes, or at least until they see a pair of dolphins surface or a pelican diving for fish. It's okay. We have books so that we don't have to remember all the little details. If you ask your Goobers when the Civil War started, and they reply, "In the early 1860's," you've done your job well enough. After all, if you're at Fort Sumter, chances are you're on vacation. Don't sweat the small stuff.
And now for some pictures. First, proof we really did visit Fort Sumter:
And here are some more pictures, just to satisfy the armchair tourists among you. I know it isn't as good as being there, but hey. I did the best I could.
And that's about all she wrote! I apologize for this not being an in-depth tour, but the truth is, I've never been able to drum up much interest in battlefields. What can I say? War is hell, and I'm a girl. I'm not cut out for it. (But I visit battlefields anyway, because it's the least I can do. Well, besides enlist, but I've already done that.) I did enjoy watching The Goobers mull over the fact that Fort Sumter was designed so that the powder magazine was at the back of the Fort, on the side facing the mainland. Good planning when the enemy is a foreign power; not so much when the enemy turns out to be your brother. I think that made the whole thing a little more real for my Goobs.
There is one more batch of photos from our trip, and they're from a neat little...
Oh, no, Tressa, look out! Evil vampire cows!
Don't worry. Anemone's got your back.
The last two pictures are courtesy of my JellyMan.
field trips, history in Homeschool
Reader Comments (5)
Thank you, Anemone, for looking out for me. Those vampire cows creeped me out.
I love the WTF moment. Some people, I swear.
Fort Sumter looks strikingly like Fort Monroe!
Those vampire cows are really creepy! Anemone did good watching out with that gun. What a girl!
You made it into one of your photos AND onto your blog. Yippee!! Love the arch picture. I'm always a sucker for those infinity type photos and I love the old brickwork.
Thank you so much for the personal tour of a place I most likely will never get to visit :(
I've enjoyed being along for the ride and actually getting to "see" you again :lol:
As for the cows :0
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