Thursday, May 21 – Friday, May 22 (aka: Reliving Our Childhood Field Trips)
We got off to a pretty early start Thursday, which was hard to complain about given the absurdly beautiful weather. Raechel and I took the girls out for some playtime, though for the most part they were just hanging out in the shade. Of course, as we tried to leave they started to get silly and run around, which had become one of their little rituals — along with playing the best in the kitchen when everyone left the room. Silly dogs!
Afterward, we assembled all the dogs in the living room and James took some photos of the group of us. (You might remember we had took a similar set of pictures last year.) The dogs were quite funny, especially Yancy who pretty much refused to stay still, but we did end up with a few really cute shots as you can plainly see. Oh, and it’s no accident Raechel and I were wearing the same shirt — mine was one of my birthday gifts from her and James. And apparently we are both quite well deserving to sport them!
Not long after that we set out for the long drive to Old Sturbridge Village. Not surprisingly we all tweeted a bit about our destination which ended up starting a conversation about past field trips and continuing the idea of reliving our childhood ones next year by visiting the aquarium in Mystic. Yes, really. Don’t hate, it’s going to be awesome. Anyway, strangely enough even though we were all reminiscing about memories of previous trips to Sturbridge, or the lack thereof in James’s case, none of us expected the large crowd of children on their respective field trips! And let me tell you, there were a LOT of kids there! Yara was actually quite good — as she’d been throughout the entire trip! — and was hardly bothered by the massive short humans trotting around. She wasn’t too appreciative of having to sport her head collar, though, but I felt it was best to be safe than sorry later if she did get super distracted.
We walked around and looked in the various buildings. I was actually surprised how few Sturbridge people were around at first, but just as I was about to say that we entered the pottery building and were greeted by the farmer there. He was really nice and threw a pot for us quickly, which he allowed me to observe close up and get nice and muddy from. After, he remarked about Yara, noting that he missed seeing dogs now that the Village had changed their policy to only allow for service animals. (I have some indistinct memories of Augi and Eli romping around during one of the trips Dad, John and I took when I was very young — Trouble may have even been with us but I can’t remember precisely.) I was actually quite taken aback at how easily he lapsed out of his 1830s character and mentioned it much later to my father who noted that perhaps I didn’t recall that happening before since the staff probably work to maintain their characters for children. There were a few others that we ran into who remarked about Yara or noted something outside the realm of the 19th Century, but thinking back I’m pretty sure none of them did it in front of any kids so I’ll have to side with Dad on this one.
Anyway, we milled around and eventually came across a paddock with a few sheep and lambs. Yara was especially interested in the lambs near the fence, but for the most part during the day she was content enough to do her people supervising thing and just check things out. She seemed completely uninterested in the horses and oxen we came across later, but perhaps it was because she wasn’t close enough. However, she was mildly interested in the lake (or whatever body of water it was) in the Village, but not so much as to really matter. She does seem to have developed a strange fascination with bodies of water which is rather amusing.
We stopped for lunch soon after and from that building worked our way towards the exit, stopping in some more buildings and checking out the General Store and Gift Shop. Then it was back in the car and on the way back to the house. We let the girls have some more playtime and ate a quick dinner and then headed off to see Terminator Salvation. Thankfully, we’d decided to go to the bigger theater a bit further from the house and this time it was a much nicer theater experience. Though, there was a moment of near panic when the concession stand was out of pretzels, but we did manage to get one thing of pretzel bites right before the previews started. The movie itself was . . . ok. Honestly, I still don’t think I’ve formed a complete opinion on it. But we all were in agreement that we were glad to have seen it in the theaters and equally pleased to not be in the uncomfortable conditions of the previous Saturday.
Friday was another gorgeous day, even though it was somewhat marred by it being my last in CT. The three of us started the day off by letting Yancy and Yara have one final romp in the pen. Raechel and I then took the girls for a walk, as we’d done Tuesday afternoon. This time we walked a tiny bit further and I think we broke Yancy because about 2/3rds the way back to the house she laid down in the road and refused to get up! It was quite funny.
Anyway, once we got back to the house we finished up a few loose ends we’d been working on during the week, including eating a cupcake, finishing Galaxy Quest (which we’d been watching in intervals throughout the week), and making tapioca! Well, okay, James made the pudding, but I did help eat some of it! Then it was off to the train station. :-(
Not to leave you with the bittersweet good-byes before my next and (hopefully) last post, I present the following videos for your enjoyment:
