On Monday, Pam and I dragged the kids to Harvey, New Brunswick to tour Briggs and Little Woolen Mills. I really like their yarn so was very excited to discover that the mill was only about an hour from the cottage we've rented. Briggs and Little has been in operation since 1857. Now, of course, it is fully mechanized but still covers the basic steps of yarn production that a home spinner would have to do: washing, picking, carding, spinning and dying.
The very nice people who work there were preparing for their end-of-season pizza party before their summer shutdown but we were still able to do a self-guided tour (and ask lots of questions) and shop, shop, shop in the store. I picked up a beautiful skein of handpainted yarn that will become a gorgeous scarf for me as well as yarn to knit a poncho for each of the girls.
And although it might seem that this activity was just for Pam and I, the kids were totally into it. And I'm not even kidding.
From Briggs and Little we drove about 15 minutes down the road to a place I heard about pretty much through my entire time in museum school: Kings Landing historical Settlement.
It lived up to the hype in spades.
It's a collection of buildings from the 1850s up to around 1900 that were saved when the banks of the St John River were flooded in the 1960s. The settlement sits on the banks of the river making it one of the nicest historical villages I've ever been to.
And the people. Oh, the people. They were the friendliest bunch of interpreters you could hope for. Almost all the buildings were open and they were all staffed. It felt as though we had the place to ourselves since normally the village normally isn't open until later in June but opened earlier this year because of Congress (the conference John is attending). Which meant we had the full attention of every interpreter. It was the perfect afternoon The best moments included the kids eating fresh-out-of-the-Dutch-oven cinnamon buns and each of them taking a turn spinning flax.
We ended the day by having dinner in Fredericton with John and Jim.... at Mexicali Rosa's no less, which we found pretty funny given what a popular Ottawa chain it is.
The kids all crashed hard last night. Except for Henry who has decided to eschew sleep this week. Which explains why this post is lacking in my usual pizzazz and charming wit. As well as editing and spellcheck.
Today the kids actually swam in the lake... twice. And we decided our plans for Thursday, our day at the Bay of Fundy. When I get a decent Internet connection , I'll share those plans. Very excited!
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1 comment:
king's landing? pat would be proud. sounds like you are having a great trip!
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