Events of Friday, October 22, 2010

          Do you know those days that you just want to stay in bed and sleep some more? I experience that a lot. At home, Daddy would wake us up by turning on an overhead light, hoping that this would wake us up. But often, this was not the case. We would continue sleeping for a few minutes until he would come back and use the technique of voice and touch to wake us up. Now, in the RV, the siblings take care of the rest of the process, once Daddy turns on the light. But today, I guess we were all really tired. At 7:00, Daddy turned on the light and then left. Ben woke up and went on a run, but the girls slept on. Half an hour later, Daddy came back, just to find us fast asleep. He woke us up and we slowly got ready for the day. We had breakfast in the Walmart parking lot in which we had slept, and then drove 27 miles to the Plimoth Plantation.

          There, we bought a family membership and headed on into the large theater for the orientation film. Many school groups were taking field trips to the Plimoth Plantation and we skillfully avoided them throughout the day – or at least tried to. We watched the movie and learned a lot about what we were going to see. The Mayflower came to this region in 1620. As most of you might know, they arrived at the beginning of winter, and lived in the boat all winter. The winter was extremely hard, and half of the colonists that had come over perished of cold, hunger, or sickness. In spring they started to build their village, and the settlement began. They would not have called themselves pilgrims, for they considered themselves colonists. But they weren’t all English – many of them were from Holland and, surprisingly, they were of several different religions. Overtime they developedThey had a good relationship with the Native Americans. At Plimoth Plantation there is a living recreation of a colonial village and a Wampanoag homesite as well as a craft center and a barn full of rare breed animals.

          A reproduction of a Wampanoag  homesite is located near the settlement. After the video, we walked to this homesite. Here, modern-day Native people dressed in traditional dress, work and talk to visitors. We first went by a young man who was in charge of an area for games. One particular interesting item was a Wampanoag doll. The Native people did not require children to do any work. However, dolls helped motivate girls to learn many skills they would need later on in life. They would learn to sew dresses for their doll, apply face, arm, and body paint, and take care of the hair in addition to enjoying a toy. However, the doll did not have a face. The Wampanoag People believed that a face encouraged vanity and idol worship. After that, we went into a couple of native dwellings, including a summer lodging and a winter lodging, and talked with Native women that were all working on bags. We then walked over to a women cooking over an open fire. We talked with her for a while and learned that the small chicken-like looking things on a stick over the fire were actually quail, flavored with garlic and onions. In two other pots, there was cherry tea and cranberry porridge, a cornmeal porridge flavored with cranberry and sweetened with maple syrup. After talking with the cook for a while, another lady came along – carrying her baby. From the looks of it, the little baby boy was just a little over a year, and he was so cute! We talked some more and then left the Wampanoag Homesite for the 1627 English Village.

          Here, costumed role players, speaking the English dialects of Shakespeare’s day, portrayed actual residents in the colonial Plymouth. They talked with visitors as if the year was 1627, and, as soon as we walked in, we started to enjoy it. First we went to the forge, where a man and his son were making nails. We thought this was really cool, and stayed there for quite a while – partly because it was warm, and partly because it was interesting. The process of making a nail begins with a rather skinny piece of iron. The iron is then stuck into a bed of hot coals. A pole is now pushed up and down, working some bellows. These bellows add air to the fire and make the fire larger and hotter. After a few minutes, the piece of iron is pulled out of the coals. The timing process is tricky, for you do not want the iron to catch fire. If it does catch fire, the result is something like a sparkler that is used on the Fourth of July. The nail maker then puts the hot part of the metal on a hard metal block and pounds it with a hammer until the nail is the shape that is wanted. Then the end of the iron rod is stuck through a hole and yanked off the rest of the rod. The head is then pounded flat, and the nail is made. We left there and walked to the center of the village. In each house that we visited we talked to the role players and questioned about the whereabouts of our ancestor, John Howland. Just to let you know, he was the guy who fell off the Mayflower, but, luckily, he grabbed onto a rope and was hauled back up. Many told us the whereabouts of his house, but, unfortunately, we never found him. In one house, we were invited to sit by the fire, and we talked and stayed in the warm house for quite a while. Soon enough, it was time for lunch, and we went back to the RV for lunch. As we ate lunch, we watched the school buses slowly leave, and we rejoiced with each one.

          After lunch, we visited the meeting house. The upstairs of the meeting house housed about twelve cannons, which were directed in all directions, protecting the whole plantation. We finished up the village, and headed to the craft center, a building in which artisans demonstrated their skills. We saw an elderly Native American making porcupine hair headdresses, the most popular Native American headdress in all of North America. By the looks of it, there used to be a woodworker and a tailor there, but they had left. However, there was a potter, working on a dish called a colander, which is a bowl-shaped kitchen utensil with holes in it used for draining food such as pasta and rice. We played with a watering can in a bucket of water and discovered that it was quite useful. It had one small hole on the top and many small holes on the bottom. This was divine for watering a large space or just a tiny plant. After that, we walked through a small exhibit on the diet of both the Wampanoag people and of the Pilgrims. We finished exploring the craft center and then headed back to the RV. On the way, we stopped at the Nye Barn. This barn houses many rare breeds of animals that would have existed in Colonial times. We even saw two baby goats, also known as kids. Soon we were finished and walked back to the RV and drove to Bourne Scenic Park, where we would be camping for the night. It was indeed scenic, and we happily explored and got ready for the night. For dinner we had taco salad and Mommy’s yummy Spanish rice. For dessert, we had ice cream with blueberry syrup on top. With full tummies and minds full of facts about Pilgrims, we happily settled down for a cold night.