Coney Island, Galesburg, Illinois

We rolled into Galesburg, Illinois (my hometown) in time for chili dogs at Coney Island. I remember going to this local establishment as a child, and it was fun to talk to the owners. Our family had not been back to Galesburg for 6 years but they remembered our boys, and even asked about my oldest son who was not with us on this trip. I was amazed. This place is so nostalgic for me. The decor is amazing, and it looks like nothing has changed since it opened in  1921. The kids had fun drinking soda out of glass bottles, and the girls were allowed to keep several bottle caps. The chili dog with onions is my favorite, and it instantly brought me back to my childhood. After Coney Island we headed to another one of my childhood haunts: Kastle Kreme, home of the Krunch Kone. The kids thought it was funny that all of those words SHOULD start with a C, but they had modified everything to start with a K…but why? Some questions will never be answered.

My kids remembered Krunch Kones from our previous trip in 2011, and they did not disappoint. I recommend the chocolate, it is amazing. I have never found a cone (or is it Kone?) like this one anywhere else. It is like a mixture of peanuts and jimmies…the flavor combination is amazing. I don’t have a whole lot to say about Galesburg that isn’t about food…this ended up being one of our favorite stops of the whole trip, and the amazing food was a big part of it. What can I say…our family are all foodies. As long as liking coney dogs and soft serve ice cream cones can qualify one as a foodie. I’m not sure if it does. But hey, this stuff is incredible. Trust me.

We also took time to visit Linwood cemetery (twice, actually) and place flowers on my dad’s grave. Our 2011 trip was for his funeral and I hadn’t been back since. It was a bittersweet time. I went into HyVee grocery store to pick up flowers to put on his grave. When I walked in, I immediately saw their coffee shop, where he used to go a few times a week to chew the fat with friends. I had completely forgotten about that, and burst into tears. I wasn’t prepared for it. We met my aunt at the cemetery and had time to talk about dad and pray as a family at his grave, thanking the Lord for giving us such a wonderful man in our life. We know we will see him again one day! We didn’t have enough time to locate my grandma and grandpa’s graves, so we went back another day and did that, too. I couldn’t remember the exact location but I was so thankful that one of the kids found them under a grove of trees after all of us had been searching for a long time.

Landmark cafe and creperie in Galesburg, Illinois

Dad always loved to go to Uncle Billy’s Bakery also, and their thumbprint cookies are one of my favorite things ever, so I stopped in and bought a few so everyone could try them. The thumbprints got a big thumbs up from all the big kids, tho the little ones didn’t like the nuts they were rolled in. More for me, lol. Some of these food memories were really nostalgic for me. We had Uncle Billy’s thumbprint cookies after my grandma’s funeral. I went to school across the street from Kastle Kreme and we used to bring coins to school so we could stop there on the way home sometimes. Another absolutely favorite of mine is the Landmark Cafe and Creperie on Seminary Street. I spent so much time there as a teenager. Their very very very best thing is the ice cream crepe. We literally ate all the top rated food network establishments we could find on this trip and at the end of the day everyone agreed that the Black Forest Ice Cream Crepe at the Landmark was THE BEST food we ate. Anywhere. They also have a spinach bisque soup that I crave, and it is so good with whole wheat crackers. I stopped drinking flavored coffee years ago, and so did my husband, but we gladly ordered the flavor of the day for old time’s sake just like we used to do back in the day.

There was truly too much good food to cram in to just a couple brief days, but we did our best. We left the kids at the hotel one night and celebrated our anniversary (a bit early) at one of our favorite old haunts, The Packinghouse, also in downtown Galesburg. The salad bar, homemade cinnamon rolls, french onion soup, and steak were all just as amazing as they had been 25 years ago. That place is so yumulous (yummy and fabulous). The atmosphere is awesome, too, as it is in an old meat packing plant (thus the name). We didn’t eat at Arby’s (as if) but it was fun to see that the old sign was still there. Some things never change. We drove by the mall and that was pretty sad. I remember spending tons of time there playing Ms. Pac Man at Aladdin’s Castle and listening to 45s at the music shop. Now it is a ghost town and slated to be demolished from what I hear. I saw a creepy video on Facebook recently, in which someone wandered through the mall. There were only two stores still open (a Bergner’s that is about to close and a GNC–so weird). The rest is all dark and encased behind bars, with occasional buckets scattered throughout to catch dripping rain. Really sad. We stayed at a hotel near the edge of town and the parking lot backed onto a corn field. I love being back in Illinois and seeing all the red barns and the rolling corn fields. I didn’t grow up on a farm but that ag culture was part of life there, and intertwined with the landscape. I miss that. 

Anyway, when we weren’t busy eating we took time to visit Knox College. I have a son named Knox, so we wanted to get some college swag from the bookstore. The store on campus had good sales on Knox gear, so we came away happy. Also, Knox College was the site of the October 7, 1858 Lincoln Douglas debate. My older sons have been in the Classical Conversations Challenge Program, where they have gained experience in the Lincoln-Douglas debate style, and it is neat that my hometown was the site of such a historic event. It was fun to visit Knox College and learn a bit more about the debate. We also did a driving tour and saw where I used to live and the schools I went to. Everything looked so much smaller than I remember. When I was home in 2011 for dad’s funeral my sister and I went to visit our old home. The woman who bought the house from our parents over 20 years ago was out in the yard and we stopped to speak to her. She invited us in to look around and literally nothing had changed. Things our dad had built were still there (the garage, the playhouse, the deck, the kitchen remodel) and even the pink bathroom remained untouched. It was really amazing to walk through our childhood home and relive those memories.

I wish we would have had time to get on the restored old train car. Also, I had planned to visit Carl Sandburg’s Birth Place but it was closed while we were there. I have read some of his poetry and stories to my kids over the years. The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was In It is a favorite. And I would have loved to show them the inside of the old restored Orpheum theater. I have happy memories of going there as a kid, and of watching the movie West Side Story there with my dad when I was celebrating a birthday in my 30s.

Orpheum theater in Galesburg, Illinois

Carl Sandburg birthplace

I sure do love my home town.

Our six week epic road trip began with a journey to Belhaven University in Jackson, MS for our oldest son’s college graduation. We were in Jackson from May 11-14 and the time was filled with an honor society induction, baccalaureate, graduation, and moving our son and his wife out of their apartment as they headed to another state for new jobs and their post-college life.  We did have time to enjoy some of our (and their) favorite restaurants, as well as a trip to the Mississippi Children’s Museum.

We always have to make sure to stop at San Marco’s in Meridian, Mississippi for shrimp nachos, and Bop’s Frozen Custard in Jackson for a brownie sundae or a Snappy Turtle. Priorities, right? We also celebrated the big graduation at a couple of really nice places: Shapley’s steakhouse for dinner after baccalaureate, and brunch at Amerigo Italian–wow, that was some yummy food.

My girls had a great time at the Mississippi Children’s Museum.   We try to spend a few hours there every time we are in Jackson, as it is really a highlight for our girls. They love spelling their names on the giant scrabble board, climbing through the digestion themed play structure, fishing water play, making spin art, the music room, and dressing up in costumes and putting on a show. This museum is kind of pricey, but they sure do love it.

We usually stay in a hotel when we are in Jackson, but we have a big family and we planned to spend a few days in Jackson. It seemed easiest to rent a house this time, and I found a great place on VRBO. It was really relaxing to be in a home, and it gave us so much more flexibility. We had one child graduating and another trying to fit in a college visit and a variety of formal celebrations and ceremonies that not everyone planned to attend (read: there were too many quiet, structured events for 2 busy little girls). Staying in a home allowed us to stretch out, and if some of us had to be gone, others could be at the house playing games or watching a DVD, playing in the backyard, etc. It was really ideal.

After graduation our trip began in earnest. Seven of us piled into our Toyota Sienna, which seemed WAY too small for such a trip. Everyone had luggage at their feet and behind their head and on their lap. It was kinda stressful, to be honest. We put the pedal to the metal and headed to St. Louis, Missouri, stopping only to purchase a DVD player for the car. It had become clear by day 3 that we were gonna need one if we hoped to spend another 6 weeks on the road. We slept at a Drury Inn that night, which was really nice. We had never stayed at one before. They had free popcorn and sodas in the lobby, and serve a free dinner and breakfast every day. They had some suites, so we only had to book one room, which was also great. The food was kind of meh, but it was FREE. And it was on site, which was awesome. No one wanted to get back in the car that night to find dinner.

The next morning was hot, and very bright. There was some construction going on so we had to park a few blocks away from the arch. The parking garage was right by Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals. I have many fond memories of attending Cardinals games there as a girl, so it was nostalgic for me. My dad was a big Cards fan. I am glad I did some research BEFORE going to the arch. I had not realized it was such. a. big. deal. There are days that it is sold out, y’all. Admissions are timed. You have to get tickets in advance. Thankfully, it was under control and we had timed it perfectly so we could go up in the arch, watch the movie (which I recommend highly–it was really informative and made this trip actually educational as well as fun), and visit the gift shop. There is supposed to be a great museum, too, but due to the construction it had been moved off site, a few blocks away, so we skipped it due to time constraints. We had only budgeted a half day for the arch before heading to Galesburg, Illinois, my home town.

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall, 1882

Our family recently completed a 6 week long cross country road trip. We traveled from Atlanta, GA to Jackson, Mississippi and from there to Chicago, IL. After a week in Chicago my husband flew home and I traveled on with 5 of our kids (ages 4, 6, 12, 15, and 17) all the way to  Maine and back to Atlanta. I had big goals for keeping a journal on our trip, but I was too busy having fun with the kids (and driving 6,000 miles) SO….it didn’t happen. Now I am in a rush to record some of these precious memories before I forget the details.

I’ll start with posting my goals at the beginning of the trip, and the rest of the posts in this series will cover where we went, what we did, and where we ate!

Goals for the trip

To rejuvenate and be refreshed–to REST.

This year marked the half way point of my homeschooling career–16 years down, 15 to go. Adopting a child with some significant special needs almost 4 years ago have made the last several years extremely busy. I spend a lot of time driving, doing therapy, teaching school, keeping house, and trying to keep all the plates spinning.

I was tired. Really tired. And I have not had much time to really enjoy just being with my kids for quite awhile–many of our interactions had become focused on getting school done, rushing to get out of the house for an activity, and me correcting their behavior or telling them the bullet points on their to do lists. My husband offered me this priceless gift–the chance to go away for SIX WEEKS, to step back from my many responsibilities and put all of our kids activities and therapy on hold so we could spend time just relaxing and reconnecting. He referred to it as “the summer of Molly”. He sacrificed not only money but time with me and the kids so that we could have this opportunity. I can never fully express how valuable and precious this time was for me and for the kids.

To have fun with the kids, make fun memories and break out of the rut of having most of our one on one time devoted to school.

I wanted to spend extra time alone with each child, as well as enjoy doing fun things together as a group. I have one “easy” kid who doesn’t get a lot of time and attention from me because he always does everything “right” and just floats under the radar. I have other kids that need a lot of help with school or therapy, or a lot of correction, and many of our interactions focus on their particular needs. All of that is important but I wanted a chance to just enjoy being with them, appreciating their individual personalities, and loving on them in ways that are meaningful to them. My 6 year old had been expressing a great desire for me to take an entire day off to just play with her and spend time together and I was having to look at my calendar and see when I could pencil her in….um, how is two weeks from Saturday? This was a chance to set cooking, cleaning, school, activities, and all the other pressures aside.

Rest, by William Adolphe Bouguereau

To change our family culture to one that is supportive and cooperative.

We are under a lot of pressure and many of our interactions with one another had become rushed, and over time, even rude. I felt like my kids were often not speaking respectfully to one another, and we had all grown very impatient with one another–a symptom of the many days when we seem to have more things on our schedule than what we really have time for. I have always believed that when people aren’t getting along or treating each other as kindly that it is good for them to spend MORE time together, rather than less. It gives an opportunity to really work on the issues and confront them head on. By the end of Day 1 we had dubbed this trip our “Family Sanctification Journey”. Being crammed together in the car with too much luggage showed us just how far things had digressed. One major focus needed to be improving the way we treat one another, and growing in patience was another area we wanted to change. To help achieve this goal we listened to various Christian audio messages, prayed together about these issues, and worked hard to change our thinking and our habits. Some people say it takes 40 days to change a habit, so we set out to do just that.

To play games and have down time to relax together, to laugh, and to have some times with NO agenda.

This may seem like a silly goal, since it should go without saying. Since I am a “maximizer” it was important for me to write this down and articulate it to our family. I don’t enjoy playing games much and I HATE having no agenda. And when I have an agenda, I want it to be full–even overly full, if possible, because I like to “maximize” my time and get as much done as possible.

I sure do get a lot done, but Maximizing can also be stressful. And when faced with the opportunity of planning a long journey, with very few specifications (other than budget and a couple of locations which were “must do”) the temptations to maximize were many. Planning such a long trip with  many interesting field trips along the way was, for me, a homeschooler’s dream! But during my planning and even more so once we were underway, I maintained a commitment to keep the kids involved in the decisions about what we would do on any given day (giving up control and compromising when their goals were not the same as mine). I was also committed to letting plans go when they interfered with our broader goals of relaxing, having fun, changing our culture, and having some unstructured time. I could have easily filled the time with “must do’s” and “must sees”, but we had to let some important sites remain unseen to accomplish our bigger goals.

Also, life happened. If we were having fun one day and decided to spend extra time at one place, it meant another place may have gotten squeezed out of the schedule. Case in point: Boston. We went to Boston Burger Company (thanks, Guy Fieri and Food Network–it really was a highlight). But we didn’t do (gasp) anything else there. We skipped it all saved it for another time because we were having too much fun relaxing at Cape Cod to leave for a day of planned field trips.

Ekvall Knut The Reading Lesson

To read together, about the places we were visiting.

I am a homeschool mom, after all. I brought a ridiculous amount of books along on this trip so we could read most nights about something we had done that day or something we would be doing the next day. We didn’t finish all the books I took as there wasn’t always time or energy to read…but we got through a lot of the books I took, and we will be working through the others this summer. I LOVE that kind of synergy–it was one of the truly exciting parts of this trip for me to be able to plan neat field trips and then read books to enhance and enrich them. When my bigger kids were young we read a TON and that was my favorite part of home schooling. In the past few years I have been pulled in SO many different directions that I haven’t spent nearly as much time reading to my younger set as I wanted to, and this was an opportunity to seize time for reading and set another new pattern that we can, with the Lord’s help, carry forward from here. It was SO GOOD to stop feeling guilty for not reading and instead to start doing it!

To redeem the time in the car

My kids have tablets and ipods and, of course, they like to play games on them. And we bought a DVD player for the car before we started our 6,000 mile journey. But I did not want ALL of our time to be consumed by things that separate us from one another and which don’t engage our brain or imagination. I had a goal of redeeming the time in the car. My kids were not too excited about it, I admit, but thankfully they are compliant and go along with my ideas without much fuss. I took some school work along (which we didn’t do much with, I admit) and some great audio resources (which we thoroughly enjoyed!) We listened to R. C. Sproul’s series Chosen by God together, and the Lord used it to really encourage us. We are also reading Sproul’s book Everyone’s a Theologian and we had some opportunities to read that aloud, too. We began a series on church history (by Robert Godfrey), which I am hoping to finish with my older teen boys in the fall. I also wanted to listen to one book our rising Challenge A (Classical Conversations) student needs to read in the fall (we chose The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe). I had hoped to listen to more audio books and sermons, and I had envisioned some serious License Plate spotting games, but that didn’t materialize. Instead, we filled the time with conversation and that turned out to be even better than what I had planned.

To attend church somewhere every week that we were gone

We managed this all but one Sunday when circumstances arose that prevented us (ahem Acadia, Maine…you are large and kinda remote). We were truly blessed through visiting several different local congregations from Mississippi to Virginia and points in between.

Homeschooling my oldest son has always been a breeze.  He learned to read when he was 3, and my greatest educational challenge with him was poor penmanship.

I was not prepared for the struggles I faced with our second son.  He wasn’t ready to read at age 3.

Or at age 4.

Or at 5.

Or even at 6.

Some days I felt like I was a failure, and other days I thought he wasn’t trying hard enough.

School wasn’t fun for either of us.  It was disappointing, frustrating, and exhausting.

We had him tested at age 7 and found out that he is dyslexic.  At first I felt like I had been punched in the gut.  I worried we would continue to struggle together for years.

But we didn’t!  In fact, his diagnosis was the key to unlocking his tremendous potential, and the turning point in his education.

Here are some ways we turned things around:

• I knew that working one on one with my son would be his best chance at success, so I stopped entertaining ideas about putting him in school and going back to my easy life.  I committed myself to home schooling for the long haul and started figuring out how to do it better.  I read and researched and tried different methods and curriculum in each subject until I found some things that worked for him.
• We began thinking outside the box.  Some of our new methods were unconventional (such as learning through games), but it didn’t matter.  I was tailoring his education to suit his needs, and we started seeing success for the first time.
• I stopped doubting myself as a teacher and him as a student.  I am grateful that my son never suffered the embarrassment of struggling in a classroom setting, but I confess there were days when my attitude discouraged him. I became more patient and more positive, viewing each challenge as a solve-able puzzle instead of an insurmountable obstacle.  We both gained confidence and began to enjoy school more, approaching difficulties as a team.  This had a positive impact on our relationship as well as on our school day.
• I began to employ a two-pronged approach of remediation and accommodation, which allowed him to move forward in areas of strength while continuing to work on areas of weakness.  Before his diagnosis we spent all our time working on the things he couldn’t do well and never found time or energy for other things.  Our new strategy meant that at least part of every school day was enjoyable and felt productive.  His self confidence grew, and he had more energy to tackle things that were difficult.
• We began using audio books for history and literature.  He began to truly enjoy learning for the first time.  Audio books changed his life so much that we built a website (and a home business) dedicated to helping kids get inexpensive access to the best educational books.

That little boy is a teenager now.  We are still successfully–and happily–home schooling.  Through the use of audio books and other technology, he is an independent, thriving student. He doesn’t have quite the same love for school that his older brother has, but he likes it just fine.  Some things are still hard, but it is no longer a daily battle.  Even the challenges have turned out to be blessings in disguise, shaping our son’s character in wonderful, God-glorifying ways.

I’m so thankful that we stuck with home schooling!!!  The fruit of it is sweet and vastly outweighs the challenges and frustrations.

This traveling exhibit showcases over 300 Biblical artifacts.  There are ancient fragments of Scripture from the Dead Sea Scrolls, papyri, early translations in many languages, rare and beautifully illuminated manuscripts, early copies of the Pilgrim’s Geneva Bible and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Wycliffe’s New Testament, a Coverdale Bible (the first legal printing in English) and so many more.

This fascinating exhibit is very interactive, and it held my children’s attention.  As you move through the exhibit, you get the feeling of moving through time, as each room is decorated to reflect the time period of the manuscripts it contains.

There were many animatronic figures which moved and spoke, including St. Jerome, Queen Anne Boleyn, John Knox, and William Tynedale.  There were also several activities for children, such as writing with quill and ink, using a block print to make a Bible page, and (my kids’ favorite) turning a replica of Gutenberg’s printing press to produce a page from the book of 2 Samuel in Latin.

An audio tour on iPod is included with the children’s tickets (it costs an additional $3.00 for the adult audio).  My children really enjoyed wearing the iPods and listening to the audio tour.  The children’s audio program includes a scavenger hunt which kept them moving forward, listening and looking for answers to questions regarding the exhibits.  There were also many videos throughout the exhibit, creatively done to introduce each room’s theme.  In one room, video technology was used to portray Martin Luther debating with Erasmus and Johann Eck. Videos and animatronics were very lifelike and realistic.

Watch this brief video for a visual introduction to Passages:

Each of us took away favorite memories from the exhibit.  It was rewarding for me to see my oldest son translate a portion of Scripture from an ornate copy of the Latin Vulgate. My favorite parts of the exhibit focused on the Reformation and the translation of the Bible into the language of the common man.

I wish this wasn’t a traveling exhibit, as I would love to take my kids there again and again.  The owner of this exhibit (Steve Green, President of Hobby Lobby) has built his collection to include over 40,000 exhibits, which will become a permanent exhibit at an as-yet undisclosed location.

If you live near Atlanta, you have one more week to see this amazing exhibit.  It will be in Atlanta through June 30th.  A staff member told me that the next location for Passages will be Charlotte, NC, so watch for it if you live in that area.  The website has not yet been updated with the Charlotte information, but more information should be posted there soon.  The exhibit will likely be in Charlotte for a few months, so the next location after that has not yet been announced.

This field trip was encouraging, inspiring, and educational. Thanks to Carrie at Our Full House for this awesome give away!

Our younger boys have been longing to dig a trench in the backyard so they can play World War 1. They had visions of digging at least 7 feet deep and lining their trench with boards to make it just like the trenches they saw in our WW 1 books. This weekend they got permission to start digging.

My husband didn’t think they’d get more than about 1′ deep in our Georgia clay before giving up. Never underestimate the will of a boy to carry out his plans! They have been digging all weekend and last night they hit the water table.

Their glorious trench is about 4′ deep now, and filled with water which bubbled up from the ground. It is a muddy mess! But they are so proud. They are bummed about the water, because they had visions of sleeping out there.  I’m glad nature spoiled that plan so I didn’t have to!

It has been hard to find WW 1 replica costumes online. One of the boys took an old plastic army helmet and used cardboard to fashion a brim around it. He covered it all with silver duct tape and he is pleased with the result.

We bought this helmet at our local army store. It had originally been worn by the Italian Civil Air defense in WW 2, but its shape is reminiscent of the WW 1 style helmets, and our youngest son is thrilled with it.

Whenever the boys needed a break from digging their trench, they prowled around the yard fighting imaginary Germans. One of the boys pretends he is a British Tommy, one is an Anzak (Australian New Zealand Army Corp) and the third is an Italian. Occasionally I wandered out onto the deck shouting in German, and tossing imaginary grenades over the rail to keep things lively.

I love educational vacations!  I wish I knew a good word for them.  Veducations?  Vay-keducations?

Anyway, we’re having one right now, and it feels so good to be able to hatch two birds from one egg.  (My bird loving kids don’t like it when I say “kill two birds with one stone”).  We are relaxing and rejuvenating, as well as doing school.  You gotta love it!

Right now we are in San Francisco.  Yesterday we went to Alcatraz, the famous inescapable prison on a large rock island in San Francisco Bay.  We loved walking through the old prison and listening to the audio tour about famous inmates, prison life, and escape attempts.

We discovered something else new yesterday:  the National Parks Junior Ranger program.  The kids were each given a booklet to fill out while they were at Alcatraz.  After answering all the questions, their booklets were stamped and they received a special Junior Ranger badge.  Everyone was motivated to listen and learn on our tour, and they all felt very proud of their badges.

I had heard of the Junior Ranger program before, but we had never tried it.  I guess it seemed to me like it would take too much time to fit in all that extra learning, LOL.  But it really didn’t take that much extra time and it was very worthwhile  The kids were actively engaged learners, and their experience was enhanced by both the information gathering and the badges! Even our five year old was trying to learn all he could and answer every question in his booklet.

The entire area of Alcatraz island is also a bird rookery, and this is hatching season!  So we also got to see some new birds, most notably the Western Gull.  Our avid 10 year old birder thought he saw a Black Oystercatcher and was ecstatic….but excitement soon led to the teary eyed realization that it was just a Pigeon Guillemot (also a new bird for him, but apparently not as rare as the Oystercatcher, so it didn’t hold the same cache for him).  His disappointment abated when he learned that the Pigeon Guillemot is not some cross-breed pigeon, but actually a member of the Puffin family.

It has been a lot of walking, and San Francisco has more hills than I dared imagine.  But so far this 7 months pregnant mama has been keeping up pretty well!

Today we plan to walk on the Golden Gate Bridge and to see the giant redwood trees at Muir Woods before heading to Yosemite National Park.  The boys are very excited about earning some new junior ranger badges along the way!  And I’m excited about another great “Veducation” Day!

During the time we were preparing for our trip to Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, we were also reading the book Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry.

Misty of Chincoteague, 60th Anniversary Edition

Misty is about a Chincoteague boy who participates in the annual wild pony roundup on Assateague. The wild ponies can still be found on Assateague and my boys were dying to see them.

The boys knew that Chincoteague and Assateague were both barrier islands just off the coast of Virginia, and they begged to add that as a stop on our trip. We were already 10 hours from home in Williamsburg; the trip to Chincoteague was just 3 hours further. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to take advantage of their excitement and create memories that would last a lifetime.

We had to cross the huge Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to get to Virginia’s eastern shore.  This bridge tunnel is known as one of the “seven engineering wonders of the modern world.”  Once across, we still had quite a ways to go to reach Chincoteague, which was accessible by crossing a small bridge.

All lodging and restaurants are on Chincoteague.  We stayed at the Best Western, which is the hotel nearest Assateague Island National Seashore.  It was reasonably priced and the rooms were very clean and nice.  There was a free breakfast daily, with waffles, eggs, bacon, biscuits, cereal, pastries, yogurt, fruit, bagels, and juice.  The hotel had bikes available for rent, though none were small enough for our preschooler, and other bike rental shops were closed since we went during the off season.

It was easy to drive around the refuge.  Chincoteague and Assateague are both very small, with basically one  main road through both.

I’m so glad I listened to the boys and took the time for this “side trip”, which turned out to be a highlight of our vacation.  We went to see the ponies, but ended up also seeing lots of shorebirds.  For this birdwatching family, that was a huge plus.

It was fun to walk along the beach, climb the dunes and see the ocean.

There are two visitor centers on Assateague and both were very educational.  We caught several glimpses of the ponies from the car, and even stumbled upon two wild ponies while walking along one of the trails.  It was nerve wracking and a little too close for comfort for me, but the boys were enthralled.  It was very special to be so close to them!

Having read all three books, it was also a highlight for us to sit in the hotel after a busy day and watch the movie Misty, which was filmed in Chincoteague and Assateague.  There were copies of this re-released 1961 DVD for rent and for sale at a local video store.

If you head to Chincoteague, don’t miss out on Famous Pizza or Island Creamery.  The pizza at Famous Pizza was homemade and delicious, as well as very reasonably priced.  Island Creamery had dozens of flavors of homemade ice cream.  Our 7 year old is already planning to take his children to Island Creamery one day!

Many things were closed since we were there off-season, including the Beebe Ranch and Pony Farm.  We weren’t able to see the now-captive ponies, which are Misty’s direct descendents.  That was fine with us, though.  Just as at Yorktown, we preferred seeing the “real thing”, out in the wild.

If you’re a fan of the Misty books, or heading to Chincoteague, the Misty of Chinoteague Foundation has a great educational website for kids.  

These books are not available in the public domain, so I don’t have them on My Audio School.  Instead, we purchased these audiobooks from Audible.com.  The boys listened to the first one before we left, and the two sequels filled the long hours on our drive to Virginia.  Now they want to read everything by Marguerite Henry!  I just brought her book Benjamin West and his Cat Grimalkin home from the library, and we have Justin Morgan had a Horse on CD.  Both will undoubtedly be “devoured” soon!

Our day at Yorktown was slightly miserable because it had snowed in the night and, being Georgians, we didn’t have any boots.

Nevertheless, we enjoyed Yorktown so much that our family went back for an extra day at the end of the week so that we could see things we had missed the first day.

Our ten-dollar Homeschool Days ticket from the Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation gave us 5 days of access to both Jamestown Settlement and to Yorktown Victory Center.  The ticket price includes a 2 hour guided tour and a 1 hour grade-level classroom experience.  These are musts, in my opinion, so register early enough to take part in the classroom experiences if you are thinking of going to Homeschool Days in the future.

We started our day with a walking tour around the Victory Center.  There was a re-created 1780s farm, complete with a house, kitchen, tobacco barn, crop fields, and herb and vegetable garden.  We enjoyed looking around the farm, especially warming ourselves by the indoor fires as we spoke to costumed interpreters about life on the farm.

The boys especially enjoyed the re-created Continental Army encampment, where we learned from historical interpreters what it was like to be an American soldier in the Revolutionary War.

The bitter cold, wet conditions gave me a new appreciation of what it must have been like to be a soldier (I thought of those who served at Valley Forge, with no shoes or appropriate clothing or housing).  We were grateful that we could get a hot meal at lunch in a warm building.  At the encampment we saw little tents meant to hold six soldiers, and a pot of beans (which would have been served 3 times a day).

The men that fought the war to gain our independence paid a high cost, with many privations.  At least the nasty weather gave us a deeper appreciation of that.

There is also a beautiful museum with many displays about the Declaration of Independence, the Siege of Yorktown, and the impact of the war on the lives of several ordinary people.

In the afternoon, the children each attended another hands-on classroom experience, similar to what they were able to do at Jamestown Settlement.

The K-2nd grade class examined tools and materials that would have been used on a small Virginia farm to explore what life was like at that time.  My youngest son absolutely loved grinding salt with a mortar and pestle and pretending to write with a quill pen.  Costumes were brought out at the end of the class and he enjoyed dressing up in a colonial boys’ outfit.

The 3rd-5th grade class had lots of fun solving a mystery by analyzing primary source documents and reproduction artifacts.  In the process, they learned about the lives of ordinary 18th century Virginians.

The oldest group attended “Life of a Private”.  My teenager was selected as the “Private” in question, and he got to don all the clothing and gear of a Continental soldier, even holding a real musket.

We really enjoyed our day at Yorktown Victory Center, but I must say that the highlight for us was the end of the day, when we drove over to the Yorktown National Battlefield.  There was only just enough time before dark to walk around the snowy battlefield, but the boys loved every minute of it.  They ran the full length of the field, each one undoubtedly engaged in a battle in his own mind.

We knew that we had to go back, as we had only scratched the surface of what there was to do at the National Battlefield.

On the last day of our trip we had planned to get an early start for our last destination, Chincoteague Island (of Misty fame), but we decided to leave a little later so that we could head back to Yorktown National Battlefield.

There was no charge to walk around outside on the grounds, but the museum inside cost $10 for ages 15 and over.  Again, just as at Historic Jamestowne, I was able to get this fee waived by filling out some paperwork about the educational purpose of our trip.  Here is a link to the requirements for getting a fee waiver.

We explored the museum, which was small but very well done for children.  There was a ship to walk through, a children’s exhibit area, and several of George Washington’s artifacts.  There was also a movie, which we enjoyed.

My favorite part was touring the battlefield.  We purchased a CD in the gift shop for $5 and set out in our car.  The narrator on the CD and several well marked signs told us exactly where to go.  At each stop, there was dramatic narration about what had occurred in that location.

A highlight for us was walking around Redoubts 9 and 10, which were seized from the British by the American and French infantry on October 14, 1781.  We extended our driving tour beyond the main sites and took an alternate route which led us past fields that had housed equipment, a military hospital, the camps of various generals, and more.  It was a very pleasant drive and led us to imagine what it must have been like to be on those very fields at that turning point in history.

We returned to the Visitor’s Center and ran around the battlefield a bit more.  The boys could have spent all day just doing that, but we had to hit the road for Chincoteague Island.

I think the reason this was our favorite place was because of the sense of history we felt, standing on ground that had played such an integral role in our nation’s history.  This was not a re-created village.  This was actually the real deal.  The Yorktown National Battlefield is less than 10 minutes from the Yorktown Victory Center, and should definitely not be missed.