After our night of storms, we left and headed to Fort Larned- the last National Park Service site that is on the Santa Fe trail. We have visited all 5 of them- Capulin Volcano, Fort Union, Pecos, Bent's Old Fort and Fort Larned. The boys were able to earn their Santa Fe Junior Ranger badge as well.
When this fort was in its prime, there were 400 soldiers stationed here- not to mention the families of some of them.
One of our favorite rooms was the hospital and the operating room.
The boys took a moment to sit down in here to work on their junior ranger booklets. This one had a scavenger hunt which was really fun. You had to identify the rooms that the items were in- the entire family had fun with this one.
Some of the beds had these tags on them similar to charts that doctors use now- although with much less detail. This one had a gunshot wound. The boys loved reading some of these.
Then we visited the old school house for the children of the people that were stationed here. We had to show the boys what a chalkboard was.
We also were able to talk to them about the dunce cap- they found that to be very funny.
This room was solitary punishment and the worst criminals would spend 8 hours a day in this tiny box. I hope they weren't much bigger than David or it would be really uncomfortable. The door to the closet would be closed and it was 98 degrees the day we were there. If I was going to be in solitary confinement, I would need it to be in the spring or fall.
We visited where the soldiers got their uniforms assigned.
When we left Fort Larned, we headed to Tall Grass Prairie in Kansas. I don't love the midwest, but I loved the farmhouse that was on this property. They had this amazing barn with an amazing barn smell that took me back to my childhood. My dad's parents had a farm and the barn smell always reminds me of them.
They had an area where the kids could climb on saddles on wooden horses and practice roping those same wooden horses. The boys loved trying to rope the horse- especially after the rodeo.
This was the farmhouse- it was 4 stories and very elaborate in the day. Oh my goodness, I could move in here today. It was breathtakingly beautiful and had so much character. It was everything I wanted in my dream farm house. It needed some work, but I would take it.
This was the original banister from the 1860s. It was gorgeous.
We started driving until we reached our breaking point of being in the car. We found a place that gave us a discount because of David being a police officer and it had a pool. The boys were in heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment