Our Mini-Trip

I guess we've done a lot of half day trips this summer - going places nearby so that we could be home for naptime and stay on schedule, but today we went all out and spent a whole day out and about. We went to the Pioneer Day Festival at the Pioneer Museum and Village in Dade City, Florida - which is no where near Dade county!

It was a very nice day in a place very unlike where we are about to return to. Although the museum was not away from town, it had a sort of summer camp feel to it.
Both of our kids were delighted to find some of their favorite things there! Annalise loves horses (actually I think Annalise just loves animals, she is a pretty big dog person already).
And Caleb...kind of, sort of...is into trains.
And of course he cared nothing about this big swirly lollipop.

















These pictures are from the 1860s fashion show.



The guy dressed as a soldier had just come from a civil war reenactment at Gettysburg - where there were over 25,000 participants! The actual battle didn't even have that many soldiers.

The "village" part of this place was made up of historic buildings that had been brought to the property and restored. Here's Caleb in the schoolhouse.
I like how the old schoolhouses were so patriotic!

There was a civil war reenactment as a part of the festival too. The soldiers had their camps around the village.
The Confederates march through town.
Posing with a soldier.
Here is the battlefield where they held the reenactment. There was no actual battle at Dade City, so they actually made up a sort of script for the battle. It was supposed to be "of the same sort" of battle as most civil war battles, except that the field was very small, so the armies were much closer to each other than they would have been in reality.
The battle began with the rebs approaching a Union camp and then pulling back as the Union soldiers began to fire at them.
There was a whole lot of pops and booms and smoke.
I noticed that the Union stood close together and fired on command...
while the confederates were more spread out and fired at will.

It was a blazing hot day and for all the booming and popping, there were no casualties until the very end of the battle! Rob said it was very interesting how all the fallen soldiers seemed to get hit in the shade.

Some other things we saw...there was so much I did not photograph.
It was useless to try to tell Caleb that this engine was not a train engine.
Old shoes.
Old tractor.

We succeeded in thoroughly exhausting both Caleb and Annalise!
Annalise gives our adventure a thumbs up :)