Mary Draper Ingles trail trip

This past Friday was the annual Mary Draper Ingles' trail field trip. To better prepare us for this trip we bought, and watched, Follow the River. To be honest I was hoping that with the girls watching this movie maybe they wouldn't ask so many questions. Have you ever noticed how many questions a kid asks? It's a lot! I don't want to hinder their education by not answering them all....but geeze, sometimes I just want to look around ya know....without taking. ;-)

We were excited that some of our family got to come along with us! My sister-in-law, and her 3 sweet kiddos came too! We learned how they used to draw with iron ore, 

 

 And even got "tattooed"!

 We were shown the appropriate dress code for the 1700's.

 Learned about a few of the foods they would have eaten...

 And NOT eaten. Mary would not have ever eaten an avocado or banana. Oh how I would miss my daily banana. 

 CHICKENS!!!! I am up for any field trip that has chickens!

 They showed us how they made salt. We stayed extra long at this booth, for it had a fire. It was freezing this day. The girls kept reminding me that last year we wore shorts and were looking for shade the whole time. Guess they thought I could do something about that....but alas I was not answering questions this day....just looking around...LOL

 Princess #2 wanted to show that she could still climb a tree. It was at this very field trip, last year, that we almost drove off and left her. Lucky for her that Princess #1 said, "Isn't that Sadie up in that tree?". The car was quickly placed in park as we looked around to make sure no one saw that we would actually do such a thing. :-o

 People were so resourceful back then. How I wish our culture was a little bit more like that. They never wasted anything, and found a use for just about everything, even old bones. Well...I do throw one to the dog every once in a while.

 "Indian" showing how to load a gun.

 Isn't this an awesome picture? I just love how you can see the river in the background.

 Princess #1 was able to help demonstrate how a captive might have been "secured" if he was unwilling to cooperate. Thinking about using this trick at home. ;-)

 Princess#3 was able to show how a young child would be marched through the "streets" showing that they had been captured and added to the Indian's family.

 We also learned that if you put your coat on backwards, it's warmer. ;-)

 Princess #2 didn't get to demonstrate anything. Thinking she might have been up in a tree somewhere. ;-)