Old World Wisconsin

Call this the weekend of Dan.

On Saturday I dragged the family down to Eagle, Wisconsin to watch a Civil War Encampment at Old World Wisconsin.

Old World, host of school trips galore, is a massive 576 acre museum that includes 65 buildings from the 1800's that have been moved to the site from locations across the state.

We got out there around noon, and you know what: we missed dang near all of the civil war stuff. The re-enactment was of Sherman's March to the Sea, and as part of the atmosphere the action moved from settlement to settlement as the 'raiders' foraged for food.

Well, when you have three kids (and a 16 year old cousin) with you, it's pretty hard to catch up with a roving band of Yankee marauders :)

It didn't help that two minutes into the trip we got sidetracked by a restroom stop and a tree frog YaYa found outside.

We then boarded a tram toward the German settlement, alleged locale of the next raid.

I've seen the whole place a half dozen times, but it still gets me going. The kids alternated between fascinated and bored, as expected, but for the most part kept their cool.

You can tell your kids are city folk when they go ga-ga over a few horses.

Love this fence.

And this garden

The kids got a chance to see chickens and oxen up close

Finally word came that the Yankees were coming. That was at 1:15.

Around 2 o'clock there was a small amount of gunfire - a smirmish at best - and some rebel cavalry fled the area.

That's it.

Whoo-hoo.

So we boarded a tram into the village, where there's 19th century shops (blacksmith, etc) and a Union encampment.

Unfortuantely, Old World was also hosting the North American Angry Hornet convention. The da** things swarmed the whole village and were bold enough to land on some of us.

So adios any desire to see the Civil War stuff, and on towards the restaruant back at the visitor center.

But . . .

On the walk back we passed the schoolhouse, and we stopped in just in time for an old fashioned square dance.

At first just the Mrs. and YaYa took part, but Middle Child quickly hollered 'me go dance too' and joined them.

As the 'shy' one, you wouldn't expect her to take center stage, but low and behold she was one of the first few 'women' to sashe (sp?) up the aisle

and bridge the rest of the group

All this was done to a host of genuine applause from everyone in the room. No one expected this allegedly shy little girl to take the reigns the way she did. I couldn't stop beaming!

Then it was YaYa and Mrs. turn

They had a blast!

On the way out I saw some children's toys laying outside, and we took it upon ourselves to play Sticks and Hoops.

Now we'd never played before, and it not only looked boring but hard too, but it turned out to be both simple and a blast. All you had to do was get the hoop rolling, then follow along and whack it from behind with the stick.

We even had a race across the meadow

Note: not all the pics loaded. Check back later for more hoopstick pics! It's worth your time! (UPDATE: they're all there now)

At the restaurant I dined on Buffalo meat. Yum.

As a P.S., on the way home YaYa so impressed a gas station clerk with her maturity that the Mrs. overheard her telling other folks about her (unaware she was YaYa's Mom).

Ha - wonder what she'd think of her on a bad day :)