The museum came highly recommended and it didn't disappoint.
It had all kind of interesting artifacts....like old stage wagons. (Christopher was coming down with a cold so he took my sweatshirt and his eyes were starting to show, but he still took in every bit of this museum.) This one was a little worse for the wear, but neat nonetheless. They had Indian history and settlement history. One section was a replica of a traveling "town" that accompanied the train as it was being built. They would lay sections of track and then move the town to the new edge of the tracks. There was a saloon, wagon of ill repute, etc. Very interesting.
Outside they had several structures along with an exhibition of some desert animals. We got to see this very cute baby porcupine, an owl, and badger. The structures included what you would see in an old homestead....a home, barn, smokehouse, outhouse, and garden. Further along the path, there was a small sawmill that was no longer in operation. All very fun.
Along the way were people who "lived in the era." (No, none of the ladies of ill repute, but the bartender was there.) At the house there was the traveling teacher who lived 40 miles away. She tried to get there as often as she could, but it took her two full days of wagon travel (one way) to come teach so she didn't make it very often. She was tutoring the children in handwriting, drilling them on their sums and teaching lessons from the McGuffy Reader she had.
In a turn from normal events, Christopher was quite the willing student and James would only look on from afar. Christopher wrote on the slate and he tried the quill pen. Did a mighty fine job. (Ok, that could be because the ink piece he did said CBT loves his mom, but it was very, very neat with no smears.)
It was hard to move on to the next thing because everything was so interesting, but move on we did because once they were done with their lessons they had to do chores.
The chore of the moment was pumping water for the tub so big sister could wash the clothes....the old fashioned way with a washboard. It took several buckets so several children got to participate. The older children got to participate more so James had to fill his totally to the top while Christopher only had to fill it halfway.
It was quite a bit of work to get that bucket full. "Big sister" recognized their hard work and told them she would teach them a new game and they could play a bit before needing to do something else.
It took a bit of coordination. (James, you should thank me for not including a picture of you. I didn't have any that were really flattering.)
Not entirely sure how Keith got to play since he didn't pump any water.....
Our next step was panning for gold. Christopher found a ton of pyrite and was very, very angry when he found out that it wasn't gold. He couldn't get over the fact that someone would lie to him.
It was still fun (and educational) even if it was pyrite. I always have such new appreciation for our technology and finer things when I go to one of these museums. Even thinking about how seldom they were able to communicate with their family back east makes me grateful for what we have. How hard that must have been for the young brides.
There was so much more, but I don't want to bore you. For those of you who know how much Christopher loves to catch lizards, you guessed it. On our way to the car, he saw one and was determined to catch it. I had to make him leave because our next stop is Crater Lake and we wanted to have time to enjoy it.
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