With Matthew away on tour with the high school band and Kevin shadowing their travels in his role as an emergency food back up plan for him, Malia and I have been home alone for the past few days. Malia was out of school on Friday and today, so we figured we would take advantage of that and have a little outing of our very own. We decided to take an expedition to This is the Place Park as neither of us had been there. Yes, I have lived right here in the valley for most of my life, but sometimes I forget to be a tourist in my own town. That just means there are new and exciting things to do close to home! We had originally planned to go on Friday, but it was cold and rainy on Friday and today’s weather outlook was much better. I was ten degrees warmer and while rain was still predicted, it would likely not be the freezing rain/sleet we were pelted with before the weekend. So this morning we headed out for our girls’ day.
It ended up being a perfect day to go to the park. The weather cooperated and we had jacket temperatures with sun and no rain until we left the park after lunch. Since it was a workday, the park was not too busy. In fact, I think besides Malia and me, the only visitors were nineteen school buses worth of kids on field trips. That may sound daunting, but the park is big enough that even the hefty crew of kidlets didn’t make it feel crowded.
There were lots of things to see and do in the park. Even on a weekday morning when not all the activities were running, we got to see someone spin wool into yarn, watched a tinsmith working, and stepped into a working blacksmith shop where they were making metal S hooks. We also spent a bit of time perusing a candy shop. We skipped the historically accurate horehound candy, but I did try some maple sugar candy. We also skipped some not historical but pretty nasty looking Crick-ettes and chocolate covered bacon and opted for a few gummi candies.
I did come away with an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for the incredibly prosperous lifestyle we live. We saw 8’x10’ log cabins that housed a dozen people (literally) for years. We caught a glimpse of the daily activities that were required to simply sustain life. And I asked Malia numerous times if she needed to take a visit to the outhouse. In terms of physical comforts, we are incredibly spoiled. I guess that was the big take away from the day because Malia expressed similar feelings.
We definitely want to visit again another time. We left after lunch because we were both tired, and there were lots of things we didn’t see. Maybe next time we’ll let the boys come along. 😉
And…because we didn’t need to eat Matthew friendly today, we had some delicious cheesecake bars to end our day on a sweet note.
