A Visit From A High School Friend/Daniel Boone Homestead

Last weekend, a friend from high school and her family were out on the East Coast and came for a visit.  I will admit I experienced a bit of a shock when I calculated just how many years it had been since high school and how long we had seen each other. We met them at the Daniel Boone Homestead, and then they stayed with us for three days. Lucky for both parties, no one turned out to be ax murders or chain smokers which is always a possibility when you haven't seen someone for 15 years or so. The Daniel Boone Homestead was pretty nifty. He was born in a log cabin (which is now the basement of the main house) and lived there til he was 16. News Flash! Daniel Boone was not a fan of a coon skin cap, preferring to wear a chapeau made of beaver felt. And! He was not at the Alamo. That was Davy Crockett. Just so you know.

My nature exploring boy found a bird nest in the tall grass as soon as we got there. He also picked up his first case of poison ivy, which was fortunately mild.

The blacksmith shop, which was really, really old school. I am used to the blacksmith shop at the farm which is dated back 100+ years, and this one made it look positively modern!

A conestoga wagon used by pioneers: this sucker is huge! I was not picturing something quite so big. And apparently it was designed by early Pennsylvania Dutch (Amish).

Here was one of the houses on the property. It has something to do with German architecture. There is a small window that they would build on every house so that when someone died, their soul could 'escape'. The roof was made of wood slats.

This is the sight of the Daniel Boone house. The next owner built this house after Squire Boone and his family moved out. It is still something like 300 years old. Check out that picket fence!

Here is the cellar, which was part of Daniel Boone's cabin. 

At the edge of the cellar was the spring, fed up through the ground and into a trough. The docent said that still, they mostly drank beer, wine and something else I can't remember...to avoid getting sick from the water. 

Moving along, I took them up to Washington's Crossing, so we could stare at the closed doors of everything in the park. Hello?! Doesn't anyone do touristy things on a Monday? Apparently not. But it was still nice. 

While I think this picture is cute, adorable even, and induces me to want to seek out those squishy little boy cheeks and kiss them, I realize it is a bit of an irony to have your kid pose on an instrument of death and destruction. At least he was at a safe distance from all the goose bombs everywhere. I think everyone took home a little souvenir courtesy of the geese and stuck to the bottoms of our shoes.

And here we are, my friend and a few of our assorted kids.