Acadia again!

Saturday, August 13

Today we did a touch tank talk and got to see and touch a starfish, a sea cucumber, a spider crab, a sea sponge, clams, mussels and a snail. The sea cucumber has cells that allow it to bulge and be flexible. I saw one turn into the shape of a snake's head and then into a ball. The starfish has little scissor-like bumps on its back. One starfish got put on dad's arm so that the ranger could show us how it grabs onto things.. When it was pulled off, it had grabbed hold of his arm hair and pulled out a couple of pieces! He said it felt like a bandaid when it gets pulled off. The colors on a starfish are for camouflage.
One type of snail will climb up onto a mussel and lick with its tough tongue that contains an acid. It eventually makes a hole in the shell. Then it will suck out the mussel and eat it.
Later in the day, we went on a carriage ride and I got to drive the horses for an hour! Mike, the driver, was very nice and put me up on Bea before the ride so that I could see how tall she is. Bea and Homer are brother and sister Clydesdales. They have the same father. Bea is grey, and Homer looks like a small Budweiser horse. When we started to head to stable on the second half of the trip, the horses knew that dinner was waiting. They started to walk faster and faster. Mike helped me hold them back. It was so much fun! I think it was the best day of the trip so far!

Homer and Bea eating dinner

Acadia National Park

Friday, August 12

Today we went to Acadia National Park and we hiked the Ocean Path. We saw one of the few sandy beaches in Acadia. The water brings the sand in and onto the beach in the spring. Before winter, the tide takes all of the sand off the rocks and back into the ocean. It leaves the beach with only rounded rocks called cobblestones.
When we drove up Cadillac Mountain, we had a hard time finding a parking spot. It had a gorgeous view. After that, we went on a hike with a ranger. We learned that this area was French, then British, and then it became America.

Cornish, New Hampshire

Monday, August 8

After we ate pancakes for breakfast, we went to Augustus Saint-Gauden's house. It's a national park site. He married a woman named Augusta, and they were called Gus and Gussie. One year they were looking for a summer house, and his friend offered them an old inn that was spider-webby and rundown. Gus didn't like it, but Gussie did. She thought the barn could be made into a studio where he could work on his sculptures and she could work on her paintings. They rented it and eventually bought it.
We also went to Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Park. All of the men named in the park, Marsh, Billings and Rockefeller, were conservationists. They took care of the land and wanted to protect it. Marsh could not see well when he was little. But he could see all of the de-treeing of the forests around his home. Billings became wealthy, and he replanted a lot of those trees around the home. When he died, his wife and daughters planted many more. Rockefeller married Billings' granddaughter, and they helped to preserve a lot of the land in our country. They turned the land around the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller home into a park. I thought today was very interesting. It made me think about how I can help protect nature and how it is handled.

Cabot, Vermont

Sunday, August 7

First we enjoyed some apple cider doughnuts. Then we went to a creamery called Cabot. It is famous for cheddar cheese. This creamery makes all of the cheddars, yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese and Monterey Jack cheese with the Cabot name. It takes 10 gallons of milk to make one pound of cheese!
Dairy farmers who participate in Cabot usually have 45 cows. When the milk truck arrives, the milk is tested for antibiotics. If it tests positive, then it is thrown out or given to pigs.
We also visited a maple sugar farm. We got to pick some blueberries, and the theater where we watched a movie about how to make maple syrup was a woodshed! On one of the sugar shacks, there was a real goat on the roof. We had some maple ice cream. I thought all of the tastes today were so good. My favorite was the darkest maple syrup, called Grade B.

Stowe, Vermont

Saturday, August 6
Today is my dad's birthday! We celebrated it by going to an apple cider mill and having lunch at the Trapp Family Lodge. The Trapps were made famous by "The Sound of Music," which was about them. We found out that Dad's birthday is the same as one of Maria Von Trapp's grandsons, who still works at the lodge.
The Cider Mill made cider by putting mashed up apples into a stack of trays and draining the cider through cloth.
Back at the campground, I had some fun doing laps on my bike. Now we are going to have some cookies from the Trapp Lodge!

Lake George

Wednesday, August 3

Today we went on a beautiful boatride on Lake George. There was one island that was all wilderness. It's name is Dome Island. We also saw some private islands, and others were tent-camping islands that anybody could reserve and use. We saw some pretty stacked stones by one of them. The place where we turned around is called Paradise Bay.
We also went to Fort Ticonderoga, where we saw some pistols that were given to George Washington. The museum also had a piece of Martha Washington's wedding dress.
This place changed hands between France, England and America. It was located on a very important place for an army to control because it's where a lot of big cannons were. At one point in the American Revolution, George Washington sent a man to get the cannons from the fort and bring them to Boston.

Stockbridge, MA

Monday, August 1

Norman Rockwell is a famous artist. We visited a museum about him and his paintings. He was born back in the 1800s but his artwork is still loved today. His first job in painting was a picture for the Saturday Evening Post. He loved to paint children in different circumstances. He painted in the Navy and then he came back and started up again with the Saturday Evening Post.
We also went to the Van Buren National Historic Site. The site is his former home, called Lindenwald, which he bought while he was in the White House. It served as many things after it left his family: nursing home, restaurant, tea room, antique gallery.
Both things today were really cool, and I learned a lot.

Saratoga

Sunday, July 31

Saratoga National Historic Site is where the British were majorly defeated for the first time in the American Revolution. The general on the British side tried to get some soldiers to Albany, overtaking forts on the way. But they were stopped at Saratoga.
The Americans had cannons and gunmen on a big hill. The British knew that they went that way, they'd be ruined. They decided to fight the Americans in a different direction. The British general, Burgoyne, couldn't push through them and had to surrender.

Buffalo, New York

Tuesday, July 26

President McKinley was shot by crazy man, Leon Czolgosz, after giving a speech at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. Doctors thought he would survive, so the Vice President went on a planned vacation with his family. Eight days later, the President's wounds got infected and he died. Mr. Roosevelt arrived in Buffalo eleven hours later. He had lunch, then went to Mrs. McKinley to comfort her, and then went back to his friend's house to take the Oath of Office and become President.
Roosevelt's first thing as President was to declare a day of mourning for Mr. McKinley.