Memorial Day Pre-Parade

On Memorial Day Mom wanted to take the kids to downtown Waterville to see the parade, but she didn't want to get caught up in a parking mess. Her solution: Park at the Winslow town office and walk across the Two-Cent Bridge to Waterville. The plan seemed perfect as we strolled off down the nice, quiet, uncrowded path towards the bridge.

This asphalt path and rock wall are brand new, so it was cool to check them out too.

However, Mom's plan fell apart when we arrived down at the river.We hiked back up, got back in the car, and drove around to the Waterville Head of Falls area. It was still about 30 minutes before the start of the parade, so the traffic wasn't bad, and there was plenty of parking.

We decided to head down to the west end of the Two-Cent Bridge and throw some rocks in the water (one of our favorite pastimes).For those who don't know, this footbridge was built over 100 years ago to get mill and factory workers across the river. The toll when it opened was two pennies, hence the name.If there's one thing we like to do, it's throw rocks into water........and the bigger the better!But we still had a parade to get to, so when we heard the band warming up we (somewhat reluctantly) put down our rocks and headed in that direction.Sure enough, the Waterville High School marching band was tuning up.......the boy scouts were getting ready to march.......the fire trucks were ready to go.......and, of course, some of Maine's own soldiers were standing ready. These guys came to attention when Mom asked to take their photo...that was pretty cool.And then came the reason that this blog post is called "pre-parade" and not "parade". It turns out that 1. Emily doesn't like crowds or loud noises, 2. Kate is perpetually hungry, and 3. Mom has a limited tolerance for whining about items 1 & 2, so we skipped the parade and headed home, thereby avoiding parking problems altogether. Maybe next year we'll actually get to see the Memorial Day Parade!

Fort Knox and the Oven Lovin'

On Saturday night the kids had their first-ever sleepover at Nana's house! All three cousins slept over too, so it was quite the event. Emily and Kate were very excited for the sleepover, but not as excited as Mom and Mama (although our house seemed extremely quiet and empty without them).

We had planned a big family adventure for Sunday morning: A trip to Fort Knox! Mama rode her bike there from Winslow (50 miles!), but Mom slept in and stopped at Nana's house to pick up the girls on the way up to the Fort.

We passed the Penobscot Narrows Bridge right before the entrance to the Fort (the old suspension bridge is on the left, and the new cable-stayed bridge is on the right), but we didn't have time to go up in the observation tower.We finally arrived at the Fort, which was built in 1844 - 1869 to defend Bangor (further up the Penobscot River) from the British. Although the cannons were never actually used in a war, it was a pretty effective deterrent to invasion.

Nana and the cousins came along on the adventure too, so we had quite the group.

We arrived just in time to greet Mama, who had a great ride through Waldo County.Of the kids, only Sebastian had never been to the fort before, but Emily and Kate could barely remember it since they were pretty small the last time we were here.The Fort walls are made of granite, and the grounds are kept very nice (it is both a State Park AND a National Historic Landmark, after all). We were kind of surprised that there wasn't a huge crowd there because of the holiday.From the kids' perspective, probably the best thing about the Fort is the tunnels. There are no lighting fixtures inside the structure, so the corridors and hallways are all pretty dark. Mom had remembered to bring flashlights for everyone, so they had a great time running around exploring.This is where the advantage of having the cousins along comes in....Mom and Mama don't have to keep up with the little ones because Alana, Lili, and Sebastian are all watching out for them too. Perfect!The group of Lili, Seb, Mom, Emily, and Kate pretty much explored every nook and cranny of the Fort.......while meanwhile the group of Mama, Nana, and Alana were busy with a very special project: Baking pizza!

Last week Mama had seen a tweet that Fort Knox would be firing their original oven for Memorial Day Weekend as a demonstration, and besides baking bread and cake, they would also allow anyone who wanted to bring their own items for baking.

Well, if you know Mama and Nana then you know they both love to bake, and this oven event was all they could talk about. They had prepared home made pizza dough and all the fixings, and were both pretty excited to actually bake something in the giant oven.Of course the pizza had to be pepperoni, since the kids were the ones who were going to be eating it.Here is the oven and the nice lady (Miss Rose) who was doing the demonstration. We had been worried that there would be a big line of people wanting to use the oven, but apparently not everyone was as excited as we were (or maybe they just didn't hear about it). Behind Miss Rose you can see the big stack of firewood needed to keep the heat on--although the oven doors are small, the oven itself is 15 feet long and 10 feet wide, and can bake up to 400 loaves of bread at one time. That takes a lot of wood!Miss Rose wasn't sure if the oven would be hot enough to bake a pizza (something that the original oven designers probably didn't have in mind in 1863), but here is a peek at the bottom of the crust when she pulled it out...perfect!

Here was the moment of truth--the pizza looked good, but would it taste good too?

By this time we were all ready for lunch, so an eager group of taste-testers assembled......and it was delicious! The crust was perfectly done, and the pizza got high marks from this very discerning crowd.Mama and Nana were both quite proud, as well they should have been.We went ahead and baked a second pizza too, and then we had enough to share with Miss Rose and Ranger David also.After lunch the kids wanted to go back into the tunnels, this time with Alana too.......and Emily really wanted to show Mama everything--we could tell she felt like an explorer who was discovering it all for the first time. Of course Mama has been coming to the Fort since she was about Emily's age, but she let Em show her around anyway.On our way out we decided to explore "Battery B", which protects the north end of the Fort and is connected via a long underground stairway.The kids really liked this tunnel, because it was dark and damp, and felt like we were going under the river. There were also lots of "secret passageways" to check out.We finally emerged at the bottom to a nice (and close) view of the river.Seb and Lili found a perfect place for throwing rocks in the water.Emily and Kate were starting to get pretty worn out by this time...the sleepover at Nana's had not really provided any of the kids with a solid night's sleep, and all the physical activity at the Fort had made them pretty tired.

So we said goodbye to Nana and the cousins and climbed into the car for the ride home. The girls stayed awake just long enough to eat an ice cream bar....

...and then it was lights-out for the rest of the ride.