Field Trip

In December during Christmas break I took Bowman and Tenney to The National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, MD.
Frederick is about an hour and a half from Alexandria. On the way there we drove by POTOMAC, MD famous for being the hometown of JUSTIN RODERICK!!! We also drove by many places Justin went hiking, camping and other stuff when he was a little boy boy scout. I know all of this because Justin pointed all of this out to me one day when we were driving in that direction and he thought I was not listening :).
Our drive to Frederick went very well. We found the museum and parked in a parking garage and walked over. The weather was not to cold or rainy. The museum cost 6$ for me and for Bowman and Tenney it was free ( kids under ten). They had a path they wanted us to follow. I really liked the museum and learned quite a bit. I also learned why I think that it was free for kids under ten...Bowman and Tenney were a bit uneasy in there. They had went there before when they were a couple years younger and got scared when we walked back in they said we have been here before and we got scared. I said well you are bigger now so you wont get scared this time because you know none of your fears will come true. I wanted to read all of the exhibits but both girls were worried that the mannequins were going to come to life..Well Tenney was and Bowman kept perpetuating it by saying "oh I saw that one move" and Bowman gets in moods sometimes where everything that I want to do is LAME.... so whe I was reading she was like lets GO!!... somethings I was able to glean from the museum were
there were SEVEN black civil war surgeons they trained in Canada or other places
there were several lady doctors too.
there were mannequins in different states of war that we could look at and press something and listen to them talk. We listened to a Dr. tell people what to take when they were sick, like this was a re-make of a camp where people were sick. Interesting that most of the stuff that the Dr. prescribed to them back then was is either illegal or a known poison now. We saw a diorama or men being hurt on the battlefield. learned about what they used for medicine. how they helped people wounded in action when action was still going on. there were hospital mannequins and because it was right after Christmas they even had the hospital part decorated for Christmas. There was a morgue part with morgue mannequins. It was very informative. I thought that the girls would like it because there mom is a Dr. and they LOVE gross creepy stuff. There mom thought they would like it and her boyfriend...well who cares what he thinks but he thought they would like it to...but they couldn't wait to move onto something else.
They did not have magnets...BOOOHOOO:(
the girls are VERY into getting french frys while they are out and about so I asked the older lady behind the desk where was a good place to get frys she directed me to a place called Wags. Another lady in the office said isn't that bar??? she said well it is not so much of a bar during the day...So I walked down to Wags and walked down a set of stairs and walked into a BAR... I said no this is a bar...we are not going to eat here I mean it was so dark inside I could barely see... like no I am no bringing kids here sorry... So then we walked over to Five Guys and got lunch. Then walked around by the bridge and looked at the ice. There were a lot of strange people and homeless looking people hanging around by bridge near the center of town. So the girls asked if we could go.
On the way back to the car we stopped an amazing toy store called The Dancing Bear it is all not battery operated. We had a nice time in there looking around
We were almost to the car when Tenney bumped STRAIGHT into a stop sign it went BOING...I said ARE YOU OK???? she rubbed her head and said yes I said do you want me to get you some ice she said no she was OK I said OK SHE DID NOT EVEN CRY... she is SEVEN what a brave little girl. On the way home she said a couple of times to me, Keli my head still hurts I said I know and you may get a bruise. It will hurt for a couple of days but then you will be OK.
On the way back home I somehow got on the wrong road and was headed to Baltimore but I got off in Damascus and found my way back home right in time to hit a bunch of traffic. I dropped the kids off at their dad's house and that was our field trip.