Nine beautiful puppies have arrived!

"It's the Pits!"

Learning the ropes

The Pitman

The historic sluice

A beaver lodge

Garter snake hunting a chipmunk

This is the first day of our trip narration that I will have to divide into two posts. In the morning we visited Historic Mill Creek. On this trip I received an english lesson from Isaac. I always thought that historical was a dumb word, because it was just the same as historic but with an unnecessary suffix. I am properly ashamed. Historic means that it has an actual connection with history, as in "This trail was actually used in colonial times." Historical means that it is representing history, as in "I am wearing clothes made to look like 18th century garments." So we're not sure about the name of this site, since it is the actual location of the previous mill but has been entirely reconstructed according to original design (as far as they know). I think I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

We enjoyed this site for several reasons. First, the interpreters were very good. We've been at many recreated forts, homes, etc. and sometimes the interpreters totally ignore you, sometimes they answer questions very grumpily, sometimes they admit they don't really know anything, and sometimes they're drinking Pepsi. Anyway, these interpreters were very good at explaining the history, and obviously very interested in the subject. In the first two pictures, Isaac volunteered to be the "pitman" in a pre-sawmill technique to saw logs into boards. We were told that this is the origin of the term "It's the pits!" because the pitman had to saw all day with sawdust flying into his eyes. Isaac supports that description.

We also enjoyed our visit because Historic Mill Creek is a state park with a park naturalist and a nice set of trails overlooking an operating beaver dam. We had a nice overview of local wildlife with the naturalist, then went for a nice hike. We didn't actually see a beaver, not surprisingly for the time of day, but we saw the dam and lodge and a nice little snake along the way. It became really buggy however, so we walked pretty fast on the way back (having bought some "natural" bug repellent at the park store which didn't pass muster). Sam fell asleep in the stroller, giving us a chance to walk through the park history displays at leisure.