Day #158/175 Days Field Trip

We were out of the house far earlier than we normally are to head to the coast for the day. A fellow homeschooling mom had put together a fantastic and large (!!) outing for area homeschoolers. The group I had signed up for was starting the day with a tour of Colonial Pemaquid in New Harbor. The boys & I had never been and it would help add to all the Maine history we have studied this year.

This is our guide, Don. He had a very dry sense of humor and I didn't see him smile once. I assume he must like people and children to spend his free time guiding tours. Or he could just like history. I'm not sure I'd assume anything about him. We were split into two groups. One group would start at the fort with Don and the other would stay at the village with the park rangers. Don asked for the "smartest" group and I instantly raised my hand as did some of the children in a fun manner. He instantly deadpanned..."I'd like the more humble group." I knew we'd have fun. 

I think the kids were a bit afraid of him. All of the adults enjoyed his humor. Although I will admit to quickly snapping this photo with no flash and acting a tad nonchalant when I was done. I don't think he bought it.

This is the fort of many names. It was called Fort Charles and then Fort William Henry and finally Fort Frederick. Don had lots of great information and with the humor he interspersed kept the kids attention. 

We eventually headed into the round tower or "flanker" to have a look from the top. Immediately inside, however, we encountered this....

Enemies used to hide behind the rock and attack the fort. Eventually the flanker was built around it. This is only a replica of what would have been there at the time. Well, the rock is real, but the building around it is not the original flanker from the 1600s.

The view from the top of the flanker.

I left my purse locked in the truck. Lego-Man found a lone quarter in his 

pocket and was some happy about it!

A quick silly photo of the three boys

Don showing us the proper way to "Huzzah!"

What is left of the village - mostly just foundation stones.

We spent quite a bit of time outside as one of the rangers (who I heard had a degree in history and a minor in communications - it comes in handy when doing this sort of thing every day). She explained what life would have been like for the villagers, how they earned a living, and how they settled here and grew.

Inside the museum.

I liked how all of the displays like this had the artifacts and then a painting depicting how they were either made or used. We spent some time inside the museum exploring all the different exhibits. It's not huge but it's very interesting. 

Diorama of the village

We then headed back outside so that Don could do a demonstration on how to load and fire a flintlock gun. 

As a further example of his humor, he called my nephew over to guess how much the gun weighed. He handed it to him and said, "It's a number between 9 & 11." My nephew promptly answered, "12!" He did quickly correct himself to 10 - poor kid.

Showing the premade cartridges

Firing

While exploring the Colonial Pemaquid site I did stumble across a video of Don from two years ago explaining how to load the gun. Although, he didn't rip the cartridge paper with his teeth on the video he did for us today.

Immediately following this we ate a hurried lunch and then headed to the docks for our afternoon adventure. We were heading out on the Harding III Puffin Cruise to go to Eastern Egg Rock to hopefully spot some puffins. 

The rain held off thankfully.

The boys had a great time on the boat.

Our first official puffin spotting. 

Then it took off. I wished I had a longer zoom lens for this trip.

Flying over the island. This little bird made an entire circle before we lost it

in the mass of birds on the island.

Researchers cabin 

There were lots of cormorants there. 

Tons of laughing gulls who were very noisy!

But not as many puffins as I had thought. The morning cruise only saw one. I personally saw about 4-5. A few were just standing on rocks on the island and I really have no way of knowing if it were 4-5 different ones or just a couple who were going from the rocks to the water. They are very tiny birds and we had to stay far enough away to not scare them which made them hard to see - even with my telephoto lens. They were almost impossible to see on the standing on the island with a naked eye.

Thankfully one decided to do a fly-by of the boat and we were on the top deck.

After this we headed over to see some harbor seals. However, my battery died on the way there and I had taken my spare out by accident. I took 268 photos of the day so I suppose I'll have to make do with those.

The boys loved the field trip and we all had a great time.