thank you Groupon

[rikibeth]

When the offer for half price tickets to Plimoth Plantation came through, I discovered that neither eternaleponine OR my own kid had ever been there. (I thought there'd been a school trip. Nope, only Old Sturbridge Village.)

As my weekend plans got b0rked by being unexpectedly in charge of the kid this weekend, eternaleponine suggested we take advantage of yesterday's nice weather and go. So we did.

You know what the really awesome part about Plimoth Plantation is? I mean, when I was 12, I thought it was the costumed interpreters, but now?

YOU GET TO TOUCH EVERYTHING.

You can lift the lids of chests and open cupboard doors and sit in the chairs and pick up the child's skirt that's hanging on a peg to admire the cartridge pleating and the two rows of growth tucks. There's salt in the salt boxes near the fires.

I have a terrible time keeping my hands off the display objects in OTHER living history museums -- it's very hard at, say, the Harriet Beecher Stowe house, where they have a focus on domestic management because of her book with Catherine Ward Beecher, NOT to pick up the assorted mid-Victorian kitchen implements BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DO, and they're sitting right there...

TOUCH. EVERYTHING.

Whee!

Comments

[witchchild]

omg, I've never been there either. Sturbridge yes. Didn't even know this existed.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

You can get a combo ticket that lets you into the Mayflower II as well. REPRODUCTION TALL SHIP. Whee!

[gailmom.livejournal.com]

I'd LOVED Plimoth Plantation. :D

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

I went there on a school trip once! I'm glad to hear it's still awesome. One of the things I got to pick up while I was there was what turned out to be a very real severed chicken's leg. Dare won, I was able to buy one of those corn husk dolls with the proceeds.

[paper-crystals.livejournal.com]

Have you read The Partly Cloudy Patriot? Sara Vowell writes about going to Plymouth Plantation with her niece.

I LOVED Plymouth Planation when I was young. I think I went there for my birthday once and dressed up in the best that I could do for period clothing.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I haven't been to Plimoth Plantation since I was a kid.

When the girlies are older, we should take them. ::nods decisively::

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

They actually had a free corn husk doll making activity in the Wampanoag homesite part of the place. I watched while eternaleponine and The Kid made them. The awesomest part of THAT was when a young guy came by to hassle her about "have you made me a doll yet?" The Wampanoag interpreters aren't role-playing historical characters, they're modern guides in traditional clothing, so the young guy sounded like a surfer. ;-)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Definitely wait until they're five or six -- I hadn't been since I was 12, and they've improved it since then.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Plimoth Plantation also has the cool Wampanoag village that is run with input from the...Wampanoag.

I looooove living history. YAY

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I want to reconfigure my house to work like the Wampanoag houses with the curved ceilings and the bulrush mats so I can use convection and get the place up to 85 degrees in winter. SQUARE HOUSES ARE COLD OK?

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

COLD HOUSES ARE NOT FUN

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

We live in a 1950ish crackerbox duplex with totally inadequate insulation and expensive oil heat. Can you say set-it-at-62-and-live-with-60? There is a reason I live on hot tea in the winter.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

That describes my place as well! Though the landlord *finally* switched over to gas heat. I'm hoping this winter will involve less pitifulness. We had the thermostat at 58 or 60, electric blankets, and a space heater for warming up the living room. SAD FACE

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Funny, I thought the opposite, when I was a kid there was much more going on, more role players, more things to see and do. We went a few weeks back and it was a ghost town. We saw maybe a half dozen role players, mostly women and one guy walking in circles with an ox.

Talking with the people at the Wampanoag homesite was great, They were very knowledgable and willing to discuss contemporary American Indian issues as well as historical.

[shadowflyer.livejournal.com]

This winter is going to be brutally tough. The dialysis tech today told me I had to cut down on my tea intake because I'd gained so much water weight over the weekend.

Sad. Panda.

[kittenmommy.livejournal.com]

That sounds awesome! And yes, I know how tempting it is to TOUCH ALL THE THINGS. I can barely keep my hands to myself in places like that, LOL.

[eternaleponine.livejournal.com]

Did you go for school when you were a kid? I can't help thinking they might make sure to have more people around when they know school groups are coming in.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Actually I went with a school field trip and on a family day trip when I was a kid, in the late 1960's. Then again as an adult in the early 1980's. On those visits it seems much more populated with role players doing things like cooking meals, chopping wood, building structures and gardening.
Just this past summer we went on a Saturday when I would have expected it to be very busy and although there were lots of tourists around, there were few role players and most of them were just sitting around talking.

[eternaleponine.livejournal.com]

Hm, interesting. There weren't that many people around when we were there, but then, there also weren't that many visitors.

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

Wow I haven't been there since I was 10. It was a blast, but it has become way expensive over the years. It's nice to know little has changed. And yes, interactive museum-y places are fun and sadly rare except for children's museums.

And now I have to wonder about other Plymouth attractions that I would visit as child - like Cranberry World, and does it still exist.

[delerium69.livejournal.com]

Now I'm also wondering whatever happened to *my* corn husk doll? I imagine it was tossed years later.

[bigbrotherinlaw.livejournal.com]

It's a living history recreation facility, rather than a true museum. They don't have anything that's really old, just stuff made like the old stuff.

Happiness is.