Day Thirteen (9/26) & Day Fourteen (9/27) Hillbilly Hot Dogs and Health Royale

Day Thirteen (9/26)

It started out as a weird, foggy morning. Don worked outside at the picnic table all day today while we did schoolwork. We did our usual bookwork, including writing in journals. Today, they had to write a story pretending they were soldiers in the Civil War. I guess everything that they have been learning about how hard their lives were has sunk in. At the end of her story, Gabriella wrote: "I broke my arm and they had to cut it off."  But I am very impressed with how much they are learning on this trip, about history and even their regular subjects.The one on one attention goes a long way. Gabriella even started working on fractions today!
The kids and I took a walk around the campground. There are more people here than I thought, but some of the sites in the back are right up against the highway. I don't know how those people sleep at night! We stopped at the playground, but the equipment was mainly for younger kids. We checked out the camp store and Gavin asked about the advertised game room. Turns out it's just a room with board games in it. Much less exciting than he was anticipating. The owner said they have a walking trail and he marked it for us on a campground map. We made it about half-way before giving up. There was no actual trail - we were basically just going around the perimeter of the campground. It not been cut back at all, so I got to wrestle all of the pricker bushes and burrs to make a path for the kids. We did get to see some huge fish jumping in the pond. After, the kids and I sat outside when the sun came out and read together.
After lunch, we did a camper clean-up: bathrooms, floors, rugs, etc. It's kind of nice to be able to clean the whole place in less than an hour.
In the evening, Don took the kids fishing in one of the stocked ponds while I prepped schoolwork and watched "Chopped." They were gone quite a while, but had no luck. We headed to Hillbilly Hot Dogs for dinner - yet another place from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. It was a funky little place, and we had it pretty much to ourselves. The guys working there were very friendly and entertaining. The kids sang and clapped along with the Hillbilly Hot Dogs theme song to get free ice cream for dessert. We spent the ride home trying to keep Gabriella awake so that she would be able to sleep at night.


Day Fourteen (9/27)

We did schoolwork in the morning, then drove into Charleston to the Clay Science and Art Center. What a fantastic place, though the neighborhood is not the greatest. The best part was that we got in free with our misci membership.
Their new dinosaur exhibit was awesome! The kids' (and Don's) favorite part was a video game simulation where you were a dinosaur trying to survive.

Gabriella spent quite a bit of time playing with build-your-own dinosaur figures. She made a friend named Zachary that spent the rest of the afternoon trying to follow us around :-)
Another highlight was a Hollywood Squares style game show, "Health Royale," about health and the human body. It was really impressive - it had its own studio room and people could take turns being contestants. Each body part was animatronic and most were based on celebrities.

Notice "Pelvis" on the middle right

There were also lots of hands-on experiments with water, sound, bubbles, etc.

The kids managed to get most of the room wet with this contraption

You know those pin-things in a frame that you put your hand on? This was a full-size version. And that's Gavin.

Bella blowing a gigantic bubble

Don giving the arms a workout

Gabriella's turn hoisting herself up

We attended a short program about reptiles. We didn't get much info out of it, but the kids got to touch snakes and turtles, so they were happy. We did a quick walk-through of the art museum upstairs before we left. Some of it the kids weren't too interested in, but they got to experiment a little bit with color.
After we left, we went to a Steak 'n' Shake for dinner. We don't do too many chains, but we really like this one and have visited one in Iowa, Indiana, Florida, and now West Virginia. The milkshakes are sooooo yummy! Everyone else in the place was heading to a big high school football game. We've noticed that no matter how poor a community appears, every high school has a huge stadium with lights.
When we got back to camp, we discovered that a lot more people pulled in for the weekend, and we now have a neighbor on one side, so we had to find another place to park the truck.