Valley Forge visit

Last Monday we had the joy of being able to go to Valley Forge.

We started out in the Encampment Store, reading books! I bought a few, and a CD of period songs that a group in costume was performing. We got to try hot chocolate, which didn’t have milk but had spices mixed in (Ravinia added cream). It is much like Mexican chocolate that is sold at Trader Joes.

Then it was time to sing Happy Birthday to George Washington and he cut the cake with his sabre!

It was a delicious cake, and most of the crowd had been ushered out to the outdoor pavilion for cupcakes and a taste of Martha Washington’s Great Cake (recipe starts with 40 eggs! fruit and nut pound cake that must serve hundreds). We were in the far back of the crowd, so Ravinia was among those who came close to the ladies cutting the birthday cake, and we got to taste that (our favorite).

While we had been reading books in the encampment store, other kids had been signing up to join the Continental Army! They now stood in two lines facing each other while George Washington reviewed the troops.

I overheard him tell a girl with braces how if he had those when he was young it would have helped him later in life!

So many children signed up that there weren’t enough (fake, wood) muskets to go around. They had advertised learning to hold a musket correctly. But there they all were, in two big trash barrels, and guarded.

Here, by a Quaker who consented to pose with Ravinia! Another guard, not in uniform, said they’d have to report the lack of ammunition to the Continental Congress. (Well, that was realitic.)

After most of the crowd had moved off to watch their kids learn military formations with a drill seargent (Von Steuben?) we took this picture with George and Martha.

Then we drove around the rather large park, and I remembered how much I love Pennsylvania, even in this quiet wintertime without snow.



The cannon and its view:

We saw the inside of two cabins, listening to how the troops lived

and could even sleep 12 to a cabin, although it might usually be 8 or 9

Here’s the old stone house George Washington rented, and Martha made homey. It will be waiting for us to come again, because we were too tired at the thought of climbing that hill and we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap.

We stopped at the chapel,

and listened to the CD on the way home,
getting sort of lost but finding an alternate route,
which went past real houses,
so beautiful,
among woods, though wintertime spare
so real,
and I was happy to be in Pennsylvania.

Ravinia was happy when we arrived, to feed the Canadian geese.