Conner Prairie

Well, since it was snowing, we hung around the trailer during the morning and caught up on mundane things.  Then we decided to drive up to Conner Prairie about noon, since it seemed to have stopped snowing.  We figured we'd go into Indianapolis to the Children's Museum there if the weather turned bad.  But, although it was really cold, and there were occasional snow flurries, we made out all right.  After all, it wasn't as cold as Boston!  A huge plus was that just about everyone else stayed home and we practically had the museum and grounds to ourselves.

 

Conner Prairie is a living history museum about pioneer life in the early 19th century.  Indoors there were exhibits about the Indians in the area and about the pioneers moving west.  We learned about toys and dress and farming, and about making log cabins... the log cabins were such a huge hit (mostly with Daddy) that we bought our own set of Lincoln Logs in the museum shop.

 

Outdoors at Conner Prairie, we visited "Prairietown," an pioneer village set in the 1830's.  Like Williamsburg, the museum has actors working around the town and in the various buildings who do not break character and even asked the girls to help with chores.  The the Inn and Tavern we learned that they not only sold wine and whiskey, but they sold "spaces" in beds upstairs.  That's right, 2 or 3 people would sleep in each bed, and your spot was only 12 cents.  The innkeeper let the girls feed the chickens and then they helped sweep the porches.  We also visited the weaver's house, the schoolhouse, the Dr's house (which was by far the fanciest), the mercantile, and the potter's house.  At each stop the girls got to hear and see how people lived then, and got to help with chores, bringing firewood in, and sweeping up.  We learned that the children usually only attended school during the winter, because there was too much work to be done the rest of the time.  We learned in the mercantile that shoes were made uniformly (not right and left).

 

We also got to see the Conner House and farm, much as it was almost 200 years ago.  The barn was filled with animals and the girls got to pet and feed most of them.  They had a goat that was nursing a baby lamb that was the third in a set of triplet lambs.  They also had twin lambs, and some calves and a lot of baby chicks.  They were waiting for the piglets to be born any day. 

 

In all, even with the bad weather, we had a great time at Conner Prairie and were glad we added it to our plans.