Field Trip Friday: Atchison

  This week we received a "guest" in the mail. Flat Darcy (a flat traveller from our Homeschool Swapping Adventures group) came to stay with us for the month.  She is from the great state of Texas.  So, since the kids & I were headed up north again this week, we decided to see a piece of famous Kansan history - Amelia Earhart's birthplace.
  My mom's family is from Atchison area.  My gggg-grandpa John McNemee settled in Atchison in 1855 when there were only 10 log cabins in town.  Atchison was a primary entry point to Kansas during territorial days and has a ton of history!  Our first stop was to eat lunch down by the Missouri River.  The city has really made this area a nice place for recreation now.  Not far from where we pulled off was an interpretive area for the Lewis & Clark Trail.

Mookie & Darcy on the Missouri River near the Lewis & Clark trail

They also had a great veterans memorial & had a piece of the section of the aft deckhouse superstructure of the battleship U.S.S. Arizona.  This thrilled Bubby to no end!  It even had a place you could actually touch it.

Next up was the birthplace of Amelia Earhart.  I was wary of attempting this because Shorty DID NOT SLEEP on the way to Atchison & so we were facing the early afternoon in a small museum with a toddler in need of a nap:/  I was so glad we followed through with our plans though.  What a beautiful house!

the kids and Darcy in front of Amelia's birthplace

I told Hubby when we got home that if someone told me I had to pack up and move to that house without prior notice I would!  It sits on the bluff overlooking the river and is beautifully restored.  Amelia lived here for approx. 10 years.  It was her grandparents' house & her father traveled alot with his job.  The two oldest kids took the self guided tour paper & walked themselves through while I chased the toddler around.  He didn't really try to get into anything, he just had to keep moving.  Mookie especially loved the house. She loved all the pretty things in it:)

Mookie's favorite room (she loved the window seats!)

I think I should have ran him up and down the back porch steps a few more times!

On the way out, I asked them if they could stand the hour and a half ride home while wet.  They thought they could, so we took an unplanned trip to the free spray park we saw on the way up to the Earhart house.  This turned out to be the highlight of the trip, you can't go wrong with kids & water!

Shorty hates being sprayed with water, but he warmed up to the idea and had a blast! 
We came home totally tired and happy:)