Back to North Carolina and its outer banks..... Nov. 11th, 2010

Going back to North Carolina now....I know I keep going back and forth between past and present, but that's just the way it goes.  It's important to me to make sure I get it all in on the blog even if it was ages ago, that way it's all on record.  Sorry 'bout any confusion.

North Carolina didn't only include the Wright Brothers. No, no, it involved some other sightseeing adventures as well and an almost disastrous RVing experience to boot!  But you'll have to wait for the next entry to get those details....

Since all public campgrounds on the outer banks were closed by the time we got there in November, our only option was a RV park.  OK, so at least it had beach access.  That usually means the beach is an easy couple minute stroll from the park.  Great!  We were looking forward to utilizing that beach as we were so wiped out from sightseeing each and every day for the past 2 weeks.

So, as soon as we got settled in our site we headed for the water.  As you can tell it wasn't exactly swimming weather but we wanted to play nonetheless and Labra of course would enjoy the water no matter what the temperature was.



So over the small ridge we go fully expecting to meet the water on the other side.  Unfortunately, this is what we saw,



A sheer 20 foot drop to the actual beach.  Oops!  It seems the last hurricane took out the direct access in this location....funny, no one mentioned that on the phone when we made the reservation....

But, us being us, determined and unrelenting that is, we found a way to get down there.  You try telling 3 kids and dog, sorry guys, no water for you today.  Oh, and tomorrow too.



Our calm approach quickly turned into wild get all wet and frozen kind of play....



Though not everyone desired to get soaking wet and freeze their cookies off,



Don't think he didn't get wet, he did.  Just not as entirely as the other two.  They just can't resist water, just like the dog.....

By the end of all that play a nice warm shower and some bundling up in front of not one, but two, heaters were a must.  Good thing we had electricity.



As the weather wasn't conducive to being beach bums, we had to find some indoor activities to keep us amused.  We looked up various museums on the Outer Banks and settled on the Aquarium for starters.  It was a cute little place, with an emphasis on little.  Little as it was though, the kids enjoyed it.

One of the highlights was watching the shark tank being cleaned by divers and actually interacting with one through the glass.  He came over and showed the kids a shark tooth he came across.  They were absolutely delighted!



Being a small aquarium with very few visitors during our visit the kids got to choose which short film they were interested in watching in the little theater and got the touch tank all to themselves.



We finished off the visit by strolling along the grounds of the aquarium and taking in the beautiful sunset on the water,



Oh, and by riding sea turtles...



The next day some new adventures beckoned though we started with a quick makeshift game of soccer,



We had read about a cool Graveyard Museum down on one of the southern islands and we decided to head there.  Graveyard as in shipwrecks and such of course.  Very cool!  What began though as great excitement quickly transformed into great disappointment when we got there and found the museum closed.  For no apparent reason too!  No sign no nothing when it was supposed to be open according to their website and all the signage.  Many boo hoos later we decided to make the best of it and ride the free ferry further down the outer banks AND go see the ponies.  Yes, the fabled outer banks wild horses.  I'll go into what they are in a bit but first, the ferry!

This was our second free just for fun ferry ride on this trip.  Talk about a different and exciting activity for the kids, they loved it!  I must admit it is pretty cool just hanging out on a boat in your car.  A little boring at times, but it's nice not to have to move at all sometimes :-).



Friends were also made on that ferry ride, friends that Analyzer still keeps in touch with today.  These girls, though local, were also taking the ferry for sheer entertainment so I guess we're not that strange after all...

All the kids enjoyed catching the view from the deck, running up and down



from the deck to the little indoor waiting area upstairs where they hung out as well.



Watching the gulls and pelicans follow the ferry closely was a cool thing to watch.



Actually, they were really following the nearby fishing boat.  The fishermen throw some of their catch into the water to get the flying predetors away from them for a little while.



And finally, the ponies.  Formally known as The Ocracoke Ponies.  Ocracoke is the island these ponies are found on, one of the most southern islands of the outer banks.  I have to say, the experience was a little disappointing.  Basically what you see is this -



Not much in the way of ponies except those far off in the distance.....not to mention they're not exactly running free....

These Banker Ponies are descendants of the Spanish Mustangs that somehow ended up here on the Islands on their own, i.e., without their Spanish conquistador humans.  How?  Well, that's where myth and legend take over.  Could they have been shipwrecked?  Like most animals brought over they swam ashore, did they just swim off on their own?  No one knows for sure.  But what we do know is that they're here and we all love a good mystery.  Today, these horses are kept in various locations on the islands for their own protection. Though penned up they are still considered wild in the sense that they are not 'used' by humans.  Even when they did have a working relationship with the natives they roamed free to care for themselves. Today they also wear no shoes and continue to demonstrate some of their genetic wild instincts such as gathering together in a group for safety and socialization.  OK, not sure if I'm totally convinced about how wild they actually are, but it's a decent argument.  I think and hope that the horses one may be able to see up at the northern end of the outer banks, the Corolla herd, are more impressive.  It seems they really do run free along the beaches.  Unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to check those out.

After a very quick and slightly disappointing visit to the horses, we headed back to the ferry and to our next stop, the Cape Hatteras light house.  The tallest traditional light house in the world!

Back from the blogging dead....and Wrapping up DC, November (!!) 2nd, 2010

Instead of going into a lengthy explanation here as to where the heck I've been these past few months, blog wise, I'll just jump right in and pick up where I left off back when things were rolling along quite nicely....DC.



In case you missed it or are wondering though, I did explain here the general reason for our 'stagnation' in TX. We have now officially been back on the road for almost 2 weeks and as you can tell, have a whole lot of catching up to do.  So let's get right to it.

On one of our last days in DC we hit the Capitol again.  This time with a real camera in hand.  The last time we were there we had also done the official White House tour.  One cannot bring a single thing into the White House, let alone a camera.  As I was desperate to get some decent photos of the Capitol, back we went.  We also popped into the Senate and House galleries this time around.  One needs a special pass from your congressperson to do so and now we had one.  However, since you cannot bring any food into the building and we were loaded down with snacks for the day, only the kids and I went in while S waited outside with the food....Oh, and of course one cannot take pictures inside, so nothing to show here for the visit either.   So many restrictions......We did have a very educational time in the galleries though, despite them being completely empty.  Everyone was back home since it was election day!




From the Capital we crossed the street to the Supreme Court!



The court was in session that day but one doesn't get to see them in action.  We did get to peek inside the courtroom once they were done for the day but of course, you guessed it, no pictures allowed......

The hallway displays were photographable so we had to get this one in.  The first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor!



At this point I'm probably mixing up my days here but in the effort to wrap up this town I'll boil it all down to the basics and combine two days in one.  Since our last two days were basically spent rushing around from one end of the Mall to the other trying to get 'it all' in, it seems appropriate anyway.

Though we did not get around to visiting the Library of Congress, we did visit the National Archives.  No, no pictures there either.  Despite the measly two hours we got to spend in there, we did get to see the most important stuff.  Oh, like, the Declaration of Independence!!  The Bill of Rights!!  The Constitution!!  Oh My!!  After we hit those highlights, we roamed around as time permitted and by chance came across Charles Ingalls' homestead file from 1886!  That was super cool.  We could have spent many more hours in there as there's a heck of a lot more to see and investigate, but the hour was late and the doors were closing.

At one point during those last two days we raced around getting all our Jr. Ranger needs taken care of.  We quite literally ran from one of the museums over to the two ranger stations we needed to go to.  We had to get there before they closed and we were cutting it very close.  I think I mentioned this before, but there are two different badges one can earn in DC: The Presidential Park badge and the the National Mall badge.  The older two did them both, it really was a bit too much for Whirlwind, but he was given an honorary badge anyway :-).





On our way from one station to the next (no, they are not right next to each other) we got a chance to glance at the White House from the back one last time.  Lucky for us we got there when we did since 5 minutes after our gawking session began the police came to clear everyone out.  Soon after that we saw President Obama's motorcade zoom by and we understood why.  That was a treat.



Though we absolutely loved our time in DC, we were thoroughly exhausted and glad to be packing up the car to head back to our campsite for the last time.



Our adventures in DC had come to an end but our stay had not.  Our next grand plan was to head up to the City of Brotherly Love for the day (yes, it is a 2.5 hour drive each way) AND maybe even pop over to Valley Forge.  A pretty lofty goal which we unfortunately did not fully achieve as you'll see.  The weather though had other plans, so the next day we spent hanging out a local library and playing board games in the RV while watching the rain come pouring down.  The universe was smarter than us.  We really did need that down time to rest up a little before heading out on a long sightseeing filled day in Philadelphia.

American Indians and American history, November 1st, 2010

After two days of rest we were back to our sightseeing mission.



On the agenda today were the National Museum of the American Indian and the National Museum of American History. Ambitious, I know.

Gotta study that map so we know where we're going and what we'll see.



We had come the day after the Day of the Dead celebrations here at the museum but at least we got to see the display.



We learned that the Day(s) of the Dead is actually Nov. 1st and 2nd.  This ancient middle American celebration welcomed back and honored the spirits of the dead for an entire month in late summer.   The Spanish colonizers attempted to end this ritual, but when that failed they decided to integrate it with a Christian tradition; All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, on the first two days of November.  Just one example of the many ways in which Spanish and English colonizers tried to alter and eradicate these indigenous societies.  Of course, we'd be seeing a whole lot more of that today.

But before we got to that part of the story, we explored the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

We saw extensive displays of many tribes and nations.



Watched (many) animated Native fables and allegories.



This was by far the element that most caught the kids attention.  The displays were extensive yes, and they included some good dioramas and video recordings of people today talking about their heritage.  But for the most part, I found this museum not to be very kid friendly.  A real shame, since given our intense interest in all things native back in South Dakota a few months ago, I was really hoping this would pick us up where we left off.  For an adult who wants to wander for hours to learn about it all it's
a great place to be.  I wish I had the opportunity to really give it the attention it deserves, but with three kids constantly trying to push forward, it wasn't meant to be. 

Despite the relative lack of focus on our part, we did manage to connect to various elements, especially the ones that were familiar to us from South Dakota.  The concepts of east/west/north/south, and their deeper meanings, for example, seem to be practically universal to the indigenous populations of the Americas.  They put a slightly different twist on it, but the bottom line is very similar, at least as far as we could tell.

Another thing that we managed to focus in on a bit was the North American Indigenous Games!



We thought that was pretty cool.  The games, which began in 1990 and have been a huge hit ever since, include modern sports as well as the more traditional canoeing, archery and such.

Finally, we moved on to the tragedy of it all, or, "The Storm: Guns, Bibles, and Government", as one display put it.  There were entire nations in existence that have been extinguished from this earth.  Nobody knows their names or the languages they spoke anymore.  "Nine out of ten Native people perished in the first century of contact between the hemispheres.  One in ten survived." (From the 'All my Relations' display)

One in ten.  That's staggering.  Absolutely staggering.

To make matters worse, if that were possible, for most of the last century the government defined who was a Native.  The government!  Thankfully, in the 1970's the Supreme Court passed that responsibility on to the Native communities.  But, there's still a problem.  The Native community may now define and determine membership in said community, HOWEVER, the government still defines identity!  How?  By issuing Certificates of Degree of Indian Blood.

Really?!  The government is defining to what degree someone is Native or not?!  There is actually a number on their identity cards as to what percentage of Native blood they are!  Again, really?!?!? This all sounds very Hitleresque to me.....but it's true.

Wow.  Just.  Wow.

The whole question of Native identity is a charged topic, to say the least.  The fact of the matter is that it can be an extremely arduous process to establish one's Native affiliation for the purpose of federal recognition, especially if one doesn't reside on Native lands.  That's just not right.  Not right at all.

To sum up our experience here I'd like to quote from one of the exhibits:

"Defining who and what Native Americans are became an obsession that lasted for centuries.
Like everyone else in the world, the identity of individual Native people is shaped by many factors - including family, culture, and the larger world around us.

Unlike most people, we have also had identities imposed on us.  Outsiders have tried to define and label us ever since Contact five centuries ago.  Europeans generally believed indigenous peoples were inferior. That belief and its consequences survive in both explicit and subtle forms in the 21st century." Jolene Rickard, guest curator, and Gabrielle Tayac, NMAI 2004


Moving on to.......though at this point it does seem like quite the juxtaposition.....the National Museum of American History!

I can't tell you how great it is having all these amazing places so close to each other.

My expectation of the museum was so totally different from what it actually is, in a wonderful way.  I thought it was 'just' history, mainly revolutionary perhaps.  Nope!  It's so very much more!  It's all kinds of history, of the 'serious' kind and of the more playful kind, it's just wonderful!!

Case in point, the first thing we saw:



Yes, it's the real deal.  We'll see more of that kind of stuff later but for now, we focused on some science.....and creativity. Aren't they one of the same?!

The official name of this area is called....get ready......"Invention at Play"!  Really.  I kid you not.  It all boils down to play, creativity, inventions, and how to foster all three!  Just up our alley.

Let me quote, again:"...Invention at Play investigates the role of play....(the) "work of childhood" - in the creative impulses of both historic and contemporary inventors.....Through play, children gain important creative-thinking abilities, physical skills, and knowledge of tools and materials.  And although tools and materials change over time, the habits of mind fostered by play have persisted in the work of inventive adults throughout history...."

How can we get these fans to spin?



How can we make this work?



Can we see sound??



Thank you Mr. Alexander Graham Bell....

Two of my favorite quotes from this highly interactive exhibits were:

"I don't draw a line between play and work." - Newman Durby, Inventor

"I didn't have the notion of being an inventor as a kid - I was too busy inventing." - James McLurkin, Inventor


On our way to the science lab we ran into Julia and her kitchen!



Analyzer didn't know who she was, but she does now and she sure is fascinated!



We all got a huge kick out watching Julia's show, including the boys.  She was just so funny, whether she meant to or not :-).  The most intriguing part, in a morbid kind of way, was the whole roasted piglet.....What a sight!



There's no way on earth we could go through the entire museum in a single afternoon, so, we made our way back here two days later.  However, for the sake of continuity, I'll keep the description of the time we spent there in this entry.

I did say we were on our way to the science lab didn't I?  We spent a tremendous amount of time in there on both days.  Here, we were introduced to Snapkits, our new absolute favorite toy (which we now have in our possession), if you can call it a toy.






Electric circuits are 'the bomb'!  How many 5 year olds do you know who scream out in frustration "I'm NEVER gonna make a closed circuit!!"?  I don't think I knew what a closed circuit was until I met S, and even then it was only years later.  I don't even think I could explain it today!  All I know is that you have to have one for electricity to work.  Never really felt the need to understand more than that.  Nope, you guessed it, I am NOT the engineer in this family....

In addition to developing our engineering skills, we did some experimentation, of the scientific kind -



I have no recollection regarding what the heck they were doing, but they all enjoyed it and participated in each and every step.





And, of course, no day is complete without an extensive world politics discussion...



There was so much to see in this place that there's just no way I could capture it all on film.

There was laundry to be done in Ipswich (One of the early settlements of Massachusetts Bay Colony),



Presidential speeches to give,



Old old OLD musical instruments to admire,



First lady gowns to admire.  From new -



to old - that's Martha Washington's dress!



Popular culture icons to chuckle at,




I do hope most of you recognize these.....see ** at the end if you don't.  They didn't mean anything to the kids of course, but I sure got a kick out of them!

The kids did however get a kick out of this,



One of several items from the Lion King on Broadway!

There is also plenty of serious stuff in this museum of course.



This was a surprisingly extensive display focusing on Jewish immigration between 1820 and 1890.  Quite honestly I had no idea so many immigrated so early.  Among other things, it included information about Jews in the civil war. Fascinating.

The slave cabin really drew the kids in.



In addition to the display pictured here, there was another diorama depicting two very young slave girls talking to each other about their work, why they couldn't play, what the 'miss's' wanted, etc.  The poignancy was palpable.  It was here Inventor made yet another one of his quiet but insightful remarks: "Boy, a lot of people do horrible things to other people....." Ain't that the truth.

The Presidents gallery was a real draw for us.  Here we have some of Washington's belongings.



Lincoln has his very own gallery.  In it we got hung up on these items:

His hat, the real one.



His suit.  The real one.



The dress is of course Mary's.  Look at the difference in their sizes, practically comical!  In fact, Lincoln himself described them as "The long and the short of it"!  They apparently were opposites not only in the physical realm.  He was always the frontier man and she extremely formal, he was often withdrawn and she was explosive.  They were both very moody.  Even with these apparent conflicts, they were each wholly devoted to each other and their family.  Inseparable.

And finally, Lincoln's blood.  Yes, his real blood.



I bet you can guess what an impact this particular item had on the kids.  Inventor still mentions this anytime someone brings up Lincoln or his trip to DC.

I had no idea until our visit here that Lincoln's assassination was part of a much greater plot to assassinate many national leaders and send the North into major chaos.  A total of eight people were charged in this conspiracy.  John Wilkes Booth was just one of them.

Of course, there was a section in the museum about the American Revolution. We zipped through that one since we've done so much with it already.


There was money, the nuclear program, plastics, the modern kitchen of the 50's, first laboratories, industry, inventions, transportation (from old to new, cars to boats), farming, Car Talk (with the Magliozzi brothers), changing communities, the presidency, popular culture, modern warfare, and So. Much. More.

So many, that it's simply impossible to cover them all.  You'll just have to visit yourself!  :-)



**Those are Archie and Edith Bunker's chairs in case you're still trying to figure it out!