Thursday, August 07, 2008

Summer Trip '08, Part III

Part I
Part II

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On Ramona's birthday (though we'd celebrated it the week before our road trip, she actually turned six on the day after New Wave Pizza) we hit the road and found our way to Falling Water. We bought only grounds passes for the family (touring the interior of the house wasn't in the budget) but we didn't regret it. We had a delightful time on our self-guided tour. At times, my girls were as enamored of the local plant life as they were of the astonishing creation that is this house. Here they are checking out something at the base of a tree:


and here's a little something that Anne-with-an-e stopped to admire, wondering if it was Indian Pipe (though now that we've researched a little further, it looks too colorful. Pinesap? Anyone? I wish I had a better camera .... )


We spent an extremely pleasant couple of hours wandering, talking, marveling. Then, we took off for Gettysburg.

Atticus took the scenic way, Route 30, which was lovely, winding and rolling, and well, just a little bit quease-inducing after awhile, which prompted us to put Anne-with-an-e in the front seat in order to avoid any major catastrophes. Poor thing gets that from me. Ramona was delighted by this near-brush with carsickness, though, because it meant Mommy got stationed in the backseat with her. Bring on the guessing games! Bring on the songs! Bring on the joy of traveling right next to one's favorite companion! But, don't make Mommy look down for too long, or she'll be the one with the catastrophe!

After a long, scenic, long, winding, long, lovely, long drive, we got to Gettysburg. Whew. We checked into what we would later call the "No, That Would Be Too Much Service" hotel. We raced the kids straight to the closest restaurant before it closed, dropped many crumbs in the area of said restaurant that had already been vacuumed (I'm sure we had someone groaning) and Atticus secretly informed the waitress that it was Ramona's birthday. They brought her a free dessert and sang "Happy Birthday" to her.

She was adorably embarrassed.











Next up:
Atticus's dream of Gettysburg comes true.

3 comments:

MacBeth Derham said...

Indian pipe. A non-chlorophyllic true plant. And it is a good photo!

Karen said...

Sounds like a wonderful trip. I laughed and laughed at your description the long, lovely, long drive and the hotel service reference (or lack of service rather). You have a way with words!

Karen Edmisten said...

Thanks, MacBeth! Cool. As we looked at photos on the internet, all the Indian Pipe ones looked so white, and this one looked a little more yellowish, so we weren't sure.

I'm so proud of my budding naturalists!

Thanks for chiming in! Anne is pleased, too. :-)