martinzoo

Today we had a field trip to the Shirley Plantation.

Have you ever been with a group of children and adults who had NOTHING to say: no input at all…. no comments…. no ooohhhs or aaahhhhs? Well as of today, we have. There was only one voice to be heard today, GB’s. He asked lots of questions and made lots of comments. And every time he opened his mouth, I was worried that he would talk about aliens, or military, or anything off-topic. But he surprised me. He asked great questions. In fact the tour guide said she was going to change her dialogue to incorporate some of his questions. When we left she told me that he was extremely well behaved and a joy.
I wish the weather had been more cooperative. It was extremely windy, we’ve had gusts up to 40 mph. It practically blew me off the bridge when I was stopped for a construction crew. And it was cold….brrrrrr! So all the activities that were planned for outdoors were canceled. We’ll have to go back in the fall to do those.

The Shirley Plantation is a residential, working plantation. The Hill-Carter family still owns and lives there. They are the 11th generation to occupy this house since it was built in 1723. They occupy the top two floors of the main plantation house. We were allowed to tour the bottom “museum” floors. The plantation has been in existence since 1613 when the King of England granted 5000 acres of prime Virginia land to Sir Thomas West, who was married to Elizabeth Shirley. The plantation has really unique architecture in the “flying staircase” which looks exactly like a staircase with no visible support. It’s ingenious.

This is GB in the root cellar…… he was really cold…..

GB trying to pump water in the pump house.

This beautiful tree was over 350 years old.