Yesterday was another busy day of playing tourist. I’ll tell you what, being on a permanent vacation is hard work! 🙂
We spent the day touring Old Sturbridge Village, a look at life in rural New England in about 1830. The village is a collection of old buildings moved here from all over New England, where historians in period costume tell you about life in the 19th Century.
Before we started our tour of the village we stopped to admire the beautiful quilts on display at the Visitor Center, and an awesome collection of antique clocks.
It’s easy to get lost in time as you tour Old Sturbridge Village, but I guess that’s the point after all, isn’t it? We stopped for a while to chat with these two young girls who were dying wool in pots over an open fire.
As most of our readers know, Miss Terry is fascinated with fibers, so she really enjoyed our visit to the carding mill, where wool is processed to make it ready for spinning. These giant machines take in piles of raw wool at one end and it comes out the other as roving ready to spin.
And what’s a New England village without a covered bridge?
If you get tired of walking, you can always hop on the free horse-drawn carryall for a narrated ride. It’s your choice with this ride; you can sit in back where it’s really bumpy, or you can sit up front and hope you don’t come away with “freckles” from the horses.
As we walked through the village we stopped to watch these young ladies going about their chores, and then a group of children and adults enjoying a round dance on the village green.
This fellow was demonstrating how to load and fire a flintlock musket, and everybody jumped when he pulled the trigger.
Terry had a nice conversation with this lady, who was demonstrating both a loom and a large spinning wheel.
In yesterday’s blog about Mystic Seaport, I said that I have often thought I would love to play the role of a country editor at a living history attraction. By the time Terry was finished talking with this lady, she was saying that she would love to have her job! Have we found the next chapter of our lives, if we ever hang up the keys? Don’t worry, that’s not going to happen anytime soon. We’re having way too much fun!
Many of the old homes were furnished in period style, from the very comfortable home of Salem Towne, a wealthy farmer and businessman (top), to this working man’s more modest house (bottom).
Other buildings were filled with collections of firearms, textiles, lighting devices, glassware, and all sorts of other interesting things.
Everywhere we went in Old Sturbridge Village we found something new to delight us. And being dedicated readers, the bookstore across from the Visitor Center was yet another delight. Though we both have Kindle’s, many regional history, travel and reference books are not available in digital format. And we found a bunch of great books to bring home with us!
After a very busy week of playing tourist, today we’re going to kick back at home and relax a little bit, get caught up on some chores here, and get ready to move on down the road.
At this point, the plan is to leave here Sunday or Monday, stop in New York for a couple of days, then head back to Elkhart Campground to get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal ready to go to the printer before we have to go up to Michigan for Terry’s annual visit with her oncologist. And as soon as that’s done, we’ll pick up the new issue of the paper, get it mailed out, and then it will be time to go to Celina, Ohio for our Gypsy Journal Rally. Someday we really have to slowdown and sit tight for a while to recharge our batteries. But I don’t see that happening until after the rally.
Thought For The Day – You don’t have to attend every argument you are invited to.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Oooh me and Terry would be side by side oogling all that fun fiber stuff!
You two need a vacation, thats all there is to it!! Looking like we will miss you once again as we are going to be in Elkhart this weds. ourself at RV Capitol for some work being done on the fiver. Possibly we can find you in MI when you get here.
What a fun place to visit…thanks for sharing…have heard of this, but never made it that far yet!