Although the trip to Ft. Ridgely started out with a delay, it was overall a success! The instruction letter said we were supposed to stop at the contact center to get a vehicle permit for the day. So at 8:40am we rolled up to the center and... there was an "Out of the Office" sign on the door. Shoot! We were supposed to be checked in by 8:45 and the clock on the sign said they'd be back at 8:57. So we waited. And waited. And then three New Ulm buses pulled up... and left. And three vans from another school pulled up... and left. And we were still sitting there. Huh. Should we stay or should we go? We sat there until 9:57 and still no sign of anyone. And then I gave in and drove up to the meeting site.
One reason the builders of the fort chose this location was because the landscape was wide open (you could see friends and enemies coming from a long ways away). It also let the cold wind blow without stopping. There aren't many buildings at Fort Ridgely, leaving us out in the open with the wind. Brr!
Since my class is so small, we were paired with two other schools as we went to the stations. We didn't make it to all ten stations. The ones we did go to were really interesting (our group never made it to the boring ones...). We played a game about the water cycle, learned about shoe-making in the 1800s, listened to explanations about the artillery used during the civil war and about differences in uniforms (higher up officers have larger colored piping on their pants; color of braid on the uniform tells which branch they belong to: green=medic, red=artillery, yellow=cavalry, blue=infantry; this was so you could tell where someone belonged from far away on the battlefield). We also discussed fish and how they would've caught them (and other ways the rivers were used).
The last station we were able to get to was one by the wildlife people; they taught us about fighting prairie fires. They picked a student and dressed him up as a fire cadet. The suit is made of special material (synthetic fabric) that won't melt in the high heat of the fire. People fighting the fires wear cotton or silk underneath so their clothes don't melt. Prairie firefighters use this thing called a water bladder to carry water into a fire. On the end of it is a handle called a "trombone" because you pump it like a trombone to shoot the water out. They also carry a mini-fire torch... something filled with lighter fluid that drops little drops of flame on the ground wherever the user aims. This burns up the fuel and can make a barrier between the firefighter and the fire. The last thing the kid had to do was use the fire safety tent. It looks sort of like a very thin green cocoon sleeping bag. He had 30 seconds to get tucked into the bag and roll so the opening was facing down. He did it! With 20 seconds to spare (And he thought he wouldn't be able to do it!)
After that, it was time for the live cannon demonstration. The cannon they were using could reach 1.25 miles away... that's across the river! They didn't use live rounds, so of course it didn't go that far. They had an aluminum "shell" containing gunpowder that they shot off. Picture the scene in the movie Sahara where Dirk and Al are firing the cannon. That's pretty much what it was like (except the people were dressed like Union soldiers and there wasn't as much dust and yelling).
My kids were super cold after that; they asked if we could eat lunch in the car. So we did. Then we drove over to the gift shop and made some purchases. Man those kids can blow through money! One boy kept asking Ms. J and me if what he was thinking of buying was a good deal or not. Then he couldn't decided between a walking staff with an eagle carved in the top or a wooden bow and arrows. He went with the walking staff. There was one with a turtle carved on the top; they wanted me to get it and put it next to Joe's tank.
The other boy was all about the candy. Yesterday, I convinced him to get some Pop Rocks at End-O-Line; he'd never tried them before. The whole way home he kept exclaiming over the popping in his mouth, "It feels so cool!" and "Miss H. I'm so glad I bought these!" Well today he called me over to the candy rack and asked which kinds I thought he should buy. He'd picked out these rock-like things. They ended up being sort of like gushers. I spotted some of those wax bottle candies, the ones with the liquid inside. I remember my mom got us some one time; she had liked them when she was a girl. So I recommended them to my student. Then he convinced the other boy to get a pack. On the way home they were eating them. "Whoa! These are so good! Did you try the blue one? That's the best!" "Yeah, the green is pretty good too." "I'm gonna try a red one now... wow, this one tastes really good too! They're all the best!"
After the gift shop we still had some time to kill before heading back to school. Originally, I had intended us to go on a nature walk on some of the trails... but it was too cold. So we snuck in on a few of the stations we missed in the morning. We watched the farriers trim a hoof and then the 5th graders pet the horses while I chatted with the farriers. The two girls in my class have horses and this farrier does all the footwork for their horses. So he was asking who their parents were. We got around to talking about where I was from and when I mentioned Fulda, the second farrier perked up a bit. He asked when I graduated from Fulda, and when I said the year he was surprised. I guess I'm a lot younger than he thought I'd be. He said he'd gone to school with some guys from Fulda. Before he could mention their names, it was time to move to the next session.
We still had a little time left and there was a station that looked sort of interesting with no people gathered around it, so we walked up and asked if they could do their spiel for us. The watershed people said yes and we got to play with their water table for a while. It was filled with tiny plastic beads meant to act as sediment. They carved out a river bed and turned on the water so we could watch the erosion. The 5th graders had seen something like this at the Water Festival they went to in 3rd and 4th grade, so they already knew the tricks to it. The guys running the show still let them put branches and rocks in the river to see if they could stop the erosion. It was pretty neat!
And then it was time to leave Fort Ridgely. We were a little early back to school, but we found ways to occupy our time. After school I was finishing up some stuff when a parent came in looking for historical items for the 150th anniversary. No one had set aside items found during the cleaning day last weekend, so she wanted to dig around in the loft between my room and the gym. She brought her two boys with her and the preschooler got bored fast. He kept calling me "Miss Hinz". Actually, everything he said began with, "Um, Miss Hinz..." Very polite; not easily entertained. His younger brother must've just learned to walk (well, he was pretty proficient at it). That one kept getting into everything. He went in the closet, peeked into the game cabinet, tried to dig around the garbage can... I've realized my classroom is not young child-proof. Then their mom kept calling me to come look at uniforms and tell her how old they were. I told her I probably wouldn't be much help since this was only my second year here. She was quite surprised; she thought I'd been around for five years! Huh, I must look old today or something.
By the time she waded through the loft and the basement, Mr. E and his class were back from their class trip. He stopped in to see how our trips this week had gone and to talk about his a little. And then he scolded me for staying at school so late. "Em, I thought I told you you weren't supposed to stay after 5?" Anyway, it's long past 5:00 now, so I think I'll end here.
Aha! The balloon activity for tomorrow: make a card for next year's students about what to expect next year. They weren't too enthused about that one. Oh well. Ms. J will be subbing tomorrow, and that's pretty exciting in and of itself.
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