Sunday, April 11, 2010

april ten: north, by seventy-seven miles

Thanks so much everyone - your well-wishes surely saw us cured!   : )

Friday we had planned to go north a ways to an event called Baby Animal Days at the American West Heritage Center.  Like most U.S. states, ours has a pretty rich history.  Everything has a history, after all.
Ordinarily this really isn't my thing, as it seems that the state (and community) kind of stuff its history down the throats of the non-enthusiasts, making it even less tempting.
But I am fascinated by the romance of The Old West, and the Baby Animal Days is a once-a-year event, lasting for three days.  Mountain men and baby bunnies and outlaws are quite our thing.
Saturday, thankfully, we felt quite well enough to go!

We started our adventures by checking in for the Treasure Hunt, where we learned a bit about the pioneer's trek, including monumental rocks and supply forts.

Trevelyn had an idea on our drive north that he wanted to be in a horse race.  I let him know that I was sure they wouldn't let anyone just "race" on a horse - particularly children that had never been on a loosed horse.  (But that we could check into riding lessons this summer.)  We did find something quite as thrilling to a little boy - a mechanical bull.


woho!

There were a few undesirables; bouncies - one slide for a dollar (?!!), reptiles from rescuers, there were supposed to be some dwarf african frogs for sell - they had sold out, and a couple of other non-period things like that that were okay for the babes, but tacky and commercial to me.
So we saw the baby american alligator, and held little turtles, paid a dollar to hold a bull snake - and [rolls eyes] another dollar to take one! picture... so not cool after our superduper cool bull snake adventures of last year - and visited the baby bear from Bear World in Yellowstone National Park.


We had lunch -which included french fries - and visited the General Mercantile for a lollipop, and then we moved on to the good stuff.






There were chocolate icecream cones,
wallowing (quite literally) around with kidlets and piglets
(lots of that)





cotton candy (made before your eyes)
covered wagons,
train rides
pony rides

and candy shot from canons.

 
  panning for gold
- found fool's gold (iron pyrite)






 


An interesting day,
filled with lots of goodly things.

17 comments:

  1. Awesome - we love pioneer villages - absolutely love that bicycle!

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  2. what a cool place!!! it looks like you had a great time! i'm glad you got out of the house and had some fun.
    happy sunday
    lisa

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  3. Looks like so much fun...this is what I had in mind when we attended that terrible Maple Sugar Festival!

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  4. Oh Wow!!! We are definitely moving to a home near yours!!! This looks like the funnest day ever!!!

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  5. Wonderful photos of a day full of fun and excitement. cheers Marie

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  6. Looks like you guys had so much fun. Your pictures are great. I would love to take Isaac to a pioneer village. The one around here might only be open to schools...(figures...right?)I'll have to look into that. Glad you are on the mend. -Debbie

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  7. Thanks for the posting steph, love the pictures and enjoy seeing what you all are up to!

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  8. lots to see! yeah, i'm not much of the 'cheesy not quite accurate historically but doing it to sell crap' kind of person either, but your day looks like there was enough of the good stuff to balance it all out. my favorite shot is where you can see mountains...don't get too many peeks! :)

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  9. That looks fun. Reminds me I need to stop by your blog more!

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  10. omigoodness, that looks like fun! Love all the photos!

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  11. I sighed when I came to the "candy shot from canons" photo..
    what a great day!
    I have some cotton candy and farm animal photos to post soon too

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  12. I still remember this great Little House on the Prairie episode in which Laura spends, like, the entire summer panning in secret what turns out to be fool's gold. Good times.

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  13. This was an awesome post! I can't wait for our Renaissance Fair this year. We also have a place called Naper Settlement near us that is a small-scale version of what you guys went to.

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  14. The face on sweet T while riding the bull is pure awesomeness :-)

    We will be making cotton candy at Maeve's party this weekend. I loves me some cotton candy!

    And a cannon that shoots candy? Love it!

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  15. Wow awesome place and sweet farm friends... but that bull...freak-ily real looking!!

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  16. This blog post was eye candy for me! Wow! I want to go!

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Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts!