The Nina and the Pinta

I'm a sucker for history field trips, so I was really excited when my mom told me the reproductions of the Nina and the Pinta would be in the area during our stay.  I have to admit that I was more excited about the Nina and the Pinta than about the Ultimate West Virginian Wedding, or seeing my aged grandparents, or even lunch at Coleman's Fish Market.   Before we left South Carolina, I asked The Goobers what they remembered about Columbus.

JellyMan:  "Well, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella from Spain . . . (here he gleefully delved into the intricacies of fifteenth century global economy and trade routes) . . . blah, blah, blah, blah, blah . . ."

Me:  "Okay, JellyMan.  You get it.  I got it.  Moving on.  What about you, Anemone?"

Anemone:  "1492!  Ocean Blue!  Haiti!"

Okay, then.  I wanted The Goobs to be as fully informed as possible, so I told Anemone to read the Christopher Columbus sections in The Story of the World by Susan Wise-Bauer and Famous Men of Modern Times by John H. Haaren and A. B. Poland, and I told JellyMan to read chapter two of Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen.  Well, you know how it is.  We got busier and busier as we neared our date of travel, and by the time we were packing our suitcases we had forgotten all about it.  No matter.  The books were there waiting for us when we got back.  

The weather wasn't the best, but the Steubenville Marina was still pretty enough, I guess.  For Steubenville, anyway.

I started to read this sign, but then my eyes glazed over.  I took a picture of it in case I wanted to read it later, but my eyes are still glazed over.  I like the buckeyes, though.   If anyone wants a better view of the sign describing the Ohio River Lock and Dam 10 Site, just click on it.  In fact, all the sign pictures are clickable if you feel like clicking something.

Which ship to see first?  We could start with the larger Pinta.  That's it there - the one crawling with field trip children.

Or we could start with the Nina.  That's the deserted ship over here:

Can you guess which ship we boarded first? 

That's correct!  We chose the Nina!  Here is Anemone on the Nina:

"1492!  Ocean Blue!  Haiti!"

I'm embarrassed to say that the most memorable piece of information we took away from the Nina was that it was small.  Really, really small.  

Okay, on to the Pinta!

You can click on this next sign if you want to, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, even at great magnification.

I like this picture of The Man and his boy.  The Man had obviously just said something totally old and lame and not worth the time of a thirteen year old, because JellyMan is wearing his "You just said something totally old and lame and not worth my time," face.  I think The Man must have suggested that JellyMan stay behind and volunteer to be on the crew.  (I was tempted to volunteer myself, but I didn't want to offend my aged grandparents.)

There is absolutely no reason for me to be showing you this picture:

Here are the Goobs after touring the Pinta and purchasing many useful items from the small gift shop.  JellyMan is telling me to pretty please hurry up, because he was promised a fish sandwich, darn it.  His stomach is thirteen years old, you know, and needs constant refills.

This was, perhaps, the absolute worst history field trip blog post EVER (I mean, I'm not even bothering with the tilde in Nina or telling you about the dinghy made by a fourteen year old ship builder's apprentice or anything!) and I apologize.  If you want to actually LEARN something about the reproductions of the Nina and the Pinta and the wonderful people involved, you can read all about it at thenina.com.  It is fascinating.  I want to be just like Miss Ellie when I grow up.

Gnadenhutten, OH

We woke up to pouring rain one joyful morning this week, and it didn't take long to convince Dad and Uncle Bo that The Goobers and I NEEDED to see Gnadenhutten.  Gnadenhutten (that's German for "Huts of Peace") is the oldest extant settlement in Ohio.  It began as a Moravian missionary village, and was the site of the Gnadenhutten Massacre, a heartbreaking chapter in history involving the murder of nearly 100 innocent Native Americans by a vengeful militia.  So.  Rain and blood.  Blood and rain.  Good old fashioned fun, I say, and my Goobs agree.

I first read about Gnadenhutten in one of my absolute favorite books - That Dark and Bloody River: Chronicles of the Ohio River Valley, by Allan W. Eckert.  I've mentioned it before, but I'm going to mention it again because it is just that good.  If you live in the Ohio River Valley you should run out and buy this book immediately, because it's great fun to exclaim, "Hey! That's McCulloch's Leap!" as you're driving through Wheeling.  But it would be a great book even if you live in Colorado.  Read it.

Oh, here we are! There's a museum! I love museums!

Closed! Cousin JimBob said, "What, didn't you call first?" Why, no, Cousin JimBob, I didn't. I checked the website, just like any normal person would do, and trusted that the museum would be open during the stated operating hours. And so I drank the dregs from the bitter cup of disappointment. But such is life in the Ohio Valley.  Folks from the Ohio River Valley are familiar with bitter disappointment, so we all recovered nicely.  Besides, I read the pertinent pages from That Dark and Bloody River to everyone on the way, so we were all caught up. We knew a lot more than what is posted on these signs:

Anemone was so impressed with the story of Gnadenhutten that she wrote a synopsis of it in her journal.  And I am so impressed with her being impressed (she's my "I hate history!" baby) that I am posting what she wrote here.

Gnadenhutten, Ohio: 1782

Colonel Williamson and his militiamen were marching, looking for an Indian killing party that had been terrorizing settlements.  When they crossed the Ohio River, they found Private Robert Wallace's wife, Jane, and their infant daughter, Sarah Jane.  They had been tomahawked, scalped and stripped, and impaled on stakes, face up.  They had probably been left there as a warning to the militia.  The soldiers sadly wrapped the two in a blanket and buried them together.  They made a vow to get revenge.

A few days later, Williiamson sent Captain Charles Bilderback to scout.  Bilderback came across several Indians from Gnadenhutten working in the fields and immediately killed them.  Meanwhile, Col. Williams came to the Tuscarawas river across from Gnadenhutten.  They crossed the river and found a number of Indians working in a cornfield.  He told them that he had been sent there to bring them back to Fort Pitt.  He asked them to put down their weapons, and the Indians agreed.  Abraham, the Indian leader, told Williamson that there were fifty more of his people in Salem.  Williamson told him to send runners to fetch them and bring them back.

Robert Wallace saw that one of the Indian women was wearing Jane's bloodstained dress they got when trading with the war party.  There was a vote to excecute all of the Indians, whether they were innocent or not.  The militiamen tied the Indian's hands and feet together and put the men in one buiding and the women and children in another.  Then the runners came back with the people from Salem, and the militiamen took them and tied them up and put them inside with the others.

Williamson waited until next morning so the Indians, who were Christians, could pray and sing for the rest of the night.  In the morning, each Indian was tomahawked and scalped, even the women and the children.  The night before, two children named Thomas and Abel worked all night to free themselves and sat so the militiamen would think they were still tied up.  Thomas pretended to already be tomahawked, and he was only scalped.  The soldier who tomahawked Abel ran out to throw up and left the door open.  Thomas ran through the door and kept running.

In the other cabin, three children named Adam, Esther and Peter crawled into a cellar.  They tried to open the door to the outside, but it was stuck.  After killing the Indians, the militiamen set the buildings on fire.  The children decided to crawl out a tiny window next to the door.  Adam and Esther went out first, but when Peter tried he got stuck inside it.  The building crumpled, and Peter was buried inside.  Adam and Ester ran to Schoenbrunn to warn the other Moravians there.

Isn't she great?

Here is the burial mound.  There were several bunches of flowers left on the other side.  I want you all (well, just The Man, really) to notice and be impressed by my first attempt at merging two pictures in PSE6, even though it looks horrible.  Seriously.  Tell me how cool I am and buy me the full version of Photoshop as a reward.

Here is a more impressive monument to the Indian dead.  The obelisk reads: 

HERE
TRIUMPHED IN DEATH
NINETY
CHRISTIAN INDIANS
MARCH 8, 1782
GNADENHUTTEN

Jeez. I just noticed Anemone is wearing her favorite shirt. Again. I'm going to start calling it her field shirt. She wore it HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.  Well, she can't wear it anymore because it caught on a nail and tore out at the farm.  I tried to be sorry, but I'm not.  Not really.

This is a strange thing to place a marker for, isn't it?  The building is a recreation of the mission house, but it was as locked up as the museum.  Bummer.

There is also a beautiful old cemetery surrounding the historical park, and we had a lovely time walking through and admiring the headstones.  JellyMan says he wants a crypt when he dies.  I told him he'd better hold off on dying, because if he dies on my watch he's getting a wooden board with "BOY" carved into it.  And that's if he's lucky.

Since we had already come so far, we decided to visit Schoenbrunn, Gnadenhutten's sister village, as well.  This stupid internet connection makes me reluctant to blog about it, but you can read the sanitized story HERE. 

Battle!

The Man and his fellow noncommissioned officers (aka sergeants) had to go on a professional development field trip to a reenactment of the Battle of Hobkirk's Hill out at the Revolutionary War Park in Camden, SC. Families were invited as well, and I revised my "absolutely no squadron activities" policy in order to take The Goobers on a history field trip.  Aren't I a great mom?

After we paid our $18 - eighteen dollars! - entry fee, we wandered around the camp for a while, killing time until the rest of The Man's peeps showed up. The whole reenactment thing is obviously more for the participants than the observers - the only time we could make eye contact was when someone was trying to sell us something.  I blame myself; I could have marched up to people and demanded they tell me stories, but that just isn't my way.  Or The Man's way.  Or The Goobers' way.  We're just not that way, people.  We're shy. 

That's all right; I confess that I've never really been all that interested in the details of making wooden buckets, and I can't say I've ever been tempted to take up woodcarving.  We decided to take a walk instead.  We were the only people on the nature trail, quite possibly because we were the only people not busy buying glass beads and colonial style bonnets.

We saw exactly one sparrow and one anole on our nature walk, which was disappointing but not surprising due to the noise from the artillery demonstration.  We did see some fancy looking fungus, though.  Fungi don't scare easily.

We also saw Pine Tree Creek, which got its name from a fallen pine tree used by Indians and settlers alike to cross the waterway.  I'm not sure because the sign didn't specify, but this might actually be Little Pine Tree Creek, which empties into Big Pine Tree Creek, which in turn empties into the Wateree River.

Upon leaving the woods we saw that The Man's peeps had already assembled, so while he was developing his professionalism I took The Goobers over to the blacksmith demonstration. The smithy gave a good lecture; he told us about the history of blacksmithing all over the world, and I regret not taking notes because now I don't remember a thing apart from how people work the bellows in Africa.  I'm afraid that in my mind blacksmithing rates just a half a step above bucket making and woodcarving.  Anyway, as he lectured he made a cute little heart shaped hook to hang on the wall.  I'm sure they were for sale somewhere.

After the blacksmith demonstration and a brief lunch break, it was time to watch the battle. I'm sorry to say that we were underwhelmed.  (Man. I'm a little embarrassed by my apathy here. My apologies to all you reenactment fanatics.)  JellyMan cracked me up, though.

"Mater, ubi est equitatus?"

Ha!  Ha ha!  Hahaha!

Sorry.

The absence of cavalry was regrettable, but hey, at least the field stayed clean.

I'm much too lazy to write an essay about the significance of the Battle of Hobkirk's Hill (I left that to The Goobers) but here is a narrative of the battle if you're interested. I do recommend reading about South Carolina's involvement in the Revolutionary War, even if it's just out of the World Book encyclopedia. It's good stuff. Here are a few more links to get you started:

The Revolutionary War in South Carolina

The Battle of Camden 

And, because I know you're curious:

African bellows

Edisto Island, SC: Part 2

There's only so much time one can spend searching for shark teeth on the beach before one's eyes begin to glaze over, so we went for a little walk to Spanish Mount, which is what they call the midden. A midden is code for "trash heap." Apparently ancient peoples were a little more particular about their trash heaps than we moderns are; shells went here, everything else went somewhere else. This midden was a little less specialized than others I've read about; archaeologists found animal bones and pottery shards mixed in with all the shells. Here is a picture of the pottery from the case at the interpretive center:

The trail was very pretty, with palm trees, live oaks, and plenty of spanish moss for atmosphere. Unfortunately for me, there were also plenty of mosquitos. I kept everyone entertained by doing my groovy little mosquito dance and smacking myself, muttering darkly every time I squished a full mosquito. That's just so nasty. Whose blood is that? Not mine. Gag, hurl, spew, blurghghph.

Thirty crazy dance moves and five hundred squished mosquitos later, we arrived at the "Mound of Mystery." According to the sign, the "Mound of Mystery" is thought to be about 4,000 years old. In 1809 the "Mound of Mystery" was 20 feet high and covered a half an acre of land. Now it is less than a tenth of that size. The park service stablized the"Mound of Mystery" in 2005 and provided a nice viewing deck. Please don't take any oyster shells, people. There are millions of shells for your enjoyment over on the beach.

Gazing upon the "Mound of Mystery:"

Here are some ancient oyster shells:

And here are some more ancient oyster shells:

And oh, would you look at that - even more ancient oyster shells!

There is only so much time one can spend gazing upon ancient oyster shells before one's eyes start to glaze over, so we indulged ourselves in a little summer home shopping:

 

There's only so much time one (I) can spend gazing upon other people's summer homes before one's (my) eyes begin to glaze over, so we headed back to the beach to look for more shark teeth.  I was much more careful with the sunscreen this time, believe me.

Carnegie Science Center; Pittsburgh, PA

JellyMan is working on the astronomy merit badge for scouts, so we took him (and Anemone, too) to Pittsburgh, PA to visit the Buhl Digital Dome, which is located in the Carnegie Science Center. We thought we'd see a cool planetarium show and learn all sorts of new and exciting things about space.

Can you tell? Can you tell by their faces (and those are NOT my parents' faces, because my parents would never, ever consent to being photographed for this blog and I would never, ever do such a thing without their permission) that they are beyond excited? Ready to learn? Eager for understanding? We really thought we were going to see something fabulous.

We were so wrong. Except for that man who is absolutely NOT my dad. His face says he is expecting this whole thing to really suck. He was so right.

The show was geared for people with absolutely zero knowledge, and when I say zero, I mean zero. It was perfect for five year olds who had never been outside after sunset; in fact, we learned how to find Spongebob in the stars. Wow. The Goobers have never wanted to see Spongebob in the stars or anywhere else. It was a total waste of 30 minutes (closer to an hour if you count the time waiting for everyone to finally get settled). We had hoped to attend an observation session on the roof, but the only night we had free was cloudy. Bummer. (Don't feel too sorry for us, though. We had several excellent stargazing sessions out at the farm.) The museum had lots of information available in pamphlet form, but it was all information we already had in our own books. Bummer again. We did see a piece of a meteor - those are always cool, but this one was a little cooler because it came from Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona. My parents sent The Goobers postcards when they took a trip there a few years ago. This particular chunk of meteor weighs 746 pounds.

The rest of the museum was okay, but it was definitely geared towards younger children. The Goobers liked the model train room, but they would have liked it a lot more when they were little:

JellyMan told us all about the different cars and the controls and other obscure things I don't care to remember. That's the great thing about merit badges - if you do it right, you learn an awful lot!

We also enjoyed touringthe USS Requin. 

I don't know who these people are, but they are NOT my parents.

We had a good laugh while we were walking through - we heard a lady in front of us say,"Oh, this isn't so bad! I thought they'd have a lot less room to sleep." We laughed because we knew we were walking through the officers' quarters. She was singing a different tune once we got to the enlisted section! "Oh, my! This is just terrible!" Those guys had it rough whether they were officers or enlisted, though. I have such respect for those serving aboard submarines. I could barely handle just touring the thing. I did like the kitchen. It's only the tiniest bit bigger than mine, so I didn't have to feel too envious:

They did a very nice job with the displays; in addition to having props set up like it was in service, they had video screens showing interviews with veterans who had served on the ship. That was cool. I wish we could have seen more of them, but it was crowded, and I was practically clawing the walls. I had to GET OUT.

And now the moment you've all been waiting for - the announcement of the winner of the $20 Barnes & Noble gift card giveaway! The totally random winner is . . . Kelley! Yes, really! I know, I know. It's crazy. My friend Tressa won the last giveaway, and now my friend Kelley wins this one - I'm afraid everyone must be thinking the random winners of my giveaways aren't all that random. That's why I had The Man pick a second name out of the hat. The winner of the 2nd $20 Barnes & Noble gift card is . . . Lisa! Yay, Lisa! Congratulations! Just email me with your address (use the contact form in the sidebar) and I'll get your gift card in the mail. Kelley, I'm keeping yours. I will think of you while I am at Barnes & Noble.

Cold War Memorial; Mount Pleasant, S.C.

Between purchasing our tickets for Fort Sumter and actually getting on the boat, we took a walk around this memorial near Patriots Point. It is a monument dedicated to those were lost aboard submarines during the Cold War. We were very impressed with the whole thing.

I have never studied the Cold War in depth, so I was very glad of the wealth ofinformation presented on the signs. There were stone benches scattered around the park; each one was dedicated to a different submarine. And of course, the "sub" itself wasvery cool. I love the fountain grass planted all around - nice touch.

Best of all, we were the only ones there, so we were free to take as muchtime as we needed towander around, read, and chat about what we hadlearned. And to havea little meltdown. I could make the same old excuses, "Oh, they're just tired," or "Oh, they had donuts for breakfast," or "Oh, they're off their routine," and it would all be true. But we're Lutherans, for crying out loud. We don't have meltdowns- at least not in public. ApparentlyThe Goobersdidn't get that memo, because here they are, in front of Godand the whole world, having a meltdown.

(Thisis where you'll have to imagine a picture ofThe Goobers having said meltdown. Theyhave asked me not to post it, so I won't.I really, really want to, because it's freaking hilarious,but Iwouldn't want to provoke my children to anger - they might have another meltdown.)

I have no idea what they were fighting about, because they had self-corrected by the time I walked over there. I guess theforce German is strong in them after all.

And this concludes myparticipation in Applie's "Take a Hike" week. Fortnight. Month. Whatever!We're still taking walks, but they're just around our boring neighborhood. I won't subject you to pictures of that. Really. I promise.

Fort Sumter, S.C.

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. 

The Battery; Charleston, S.C.

Can you believe that in all our visits to Charleston, we had never walked around the Battery? We couldn't, either, so we made sure to do it this time. It was nice to see where the notorious pirate Stede Bonnett was hanged, but I still like Waterfront Park better. Even so, you just can't beat a morning constitutional in Charleston. Yes, its a beautful city, but really it's the people that make it interesting. There are a lot of dog walkers in Charleston, and none of them walk dogs that look anything like our Norman. They walk fancy dogs, and it's fun to try to guess the ridiculously obscure breeds. There are also crazy-healthy joggers all over Charleston, and it's fun to watch them dodge the fancy dog poop. There are also lots of tourists in Charleston, and tourists are always fun to watch because you never know what they'll do. Unless they're boring tourists. They're not worth watching, because all they do is:

pose on the sea wall

or by a cannon

and translate the Latin on memorials. It makes them feel smart.

Well, they try to translate the Latin on memorials.

We also went to the Old Exchange andProvost Dungeon. That was fun, but I don't have any pictures. (Photography was allowed, but I didn't have my camera with me.) If you click on the link, you can take a virtual tour of the place. The only thing I didn't like about it was that you could only see the dungeon on a guided tour, and you had to sit through long speeches made by Disney-esque automatons. It didn't do anything for the atmosphere.

Then it was on to lunch. Everybody says, "Oh, you've got to go to Hyman's Seafood. You'll love it." The guide books say, "Oh, you've got to go to Hyman's. You'll love it." We try to stay away from the "everybody loves it" restaurants, because, well, people are stupid when it comes to food. But this time, we went ahead and tried it because we were walking by and it looked like rain, and now I can tell you NOT to go to Hyman's. All of our seafood was tough and overcooked, except for the scallops, which were an interesting combination of overcooked and raw. How hard is it to choose scallops that are all roughly the same size so they cook properly? I'll tell you how hard it is - it isn't!!! The crabcakes were okay. A little too much bread, but not nearly as much as you get in some restaurants. The cheesecake was decent, too, but even the okay crabcake, the decent cheesecake and the dubious honor of sitting at the AC/DC table was not enough to make up for those scallops. Or the shoeleather flounder. I do have one good thing to say about Hyman's, though. They put boiled peanuts on the table. I hate peanuts. I don't like peanut butter and I don't like peanuts in my chocolate, and I really can't imagine why anyone would want to eat peanut brittle. But boiled peanuts are awesome! Seriously. Seek thee out some boiled peanuts.

The Man got us into the restaurant in time to beat the rain, but none of us banked on the storm lasting as long as it did. We lingered over our drinks as long as we could, but eventually we had to make a mad dash for the car, which was parked about a half mile away. We didn't have umbrellas, and every time we crossed the street we had to wade through ankle deep rivers, and by the time we got to the car we looked like drowned rats. But the rain made a pretty picture and our vehicle is upholstered with Manly and Rugged vinyl. No harm done.

We also visited Fort Sumter, and I'll blog about that tomorrow. Unless I decide to blog about cows instead. That happens sometimes.

Old Sheldon Church; Beaufort, S.C.

I am a tourist with a long list of must-see tourist attractions (I really must see the corn palace before I die) so before we left the Beaufort area we stopped to see the ruins of Old Sheldon Church. The British burned it during the Revolutionary War and the feds burned it again during the Civil War, and it's been standing empty ever since. There was a little bit of graffiti, but not enough to be distracting, and there is a nifty old cemetery around back. It was also suprisingly crowded - I had to time this picture just right.

I've read that there are sunrise services here every Easter. I bet it's pretty neat.

Hunting Island, S.C.

We took Applie's advice and took a hike on Hunting Island, South Carolina.  Our first stop was the lighthouse.  It's the only lighthouse in the state open to the public, so we figured we'd better take advantage of it while we were there.  It cost $2 per person to climb to the top.  It was worth twice that just to watch one exasperated mother try to coax/pull/carry/drag/push her reluctant five year old up the stairs.  It was the funniest thing I've ever seen - those two deserve each other!   

The hunting Island lighthouse has 167 steps up to the observation deck.  I stepped on every single one.  Twice. I had a bit of a shock when I reached the top - I expected to see The Goobers and I didn't.  Mothers naturally jump to the worst possible scenario (at least this mother does) so I completely disregarded the gorgeous view and hurried around the deck looking for The Goobers, who are small and soft and wouldn't survive a one hundred foot drop to the hard ground.  I found them, they laughed at me, I scolded, they laughed some more.  Those Goobers and their shenanigans. 

The Man didn't laugh at me, but only because he is afraid of heights.  I love that he always comes with us anyway. He's brave like that.

There is more to Hunting Island than just the lighthouse.  I'll blog about the rest in the next few days.