Italy: Amalfi Coast Day 5: Pompeii

I've been a little slow to get to our last day in Italy, but I'm excited to share our wonderful trip to Pompeii. It was absolutely a historical highlight of our vacation, especially for the kids. We had to return to Rome for our flight the following day, so we had booked our same driver (yes, that driver) already for the drive from Amalfi back to Rome. Because Pompeii is on the way, we'd planned to stop for a few hours.

National Geographic Museum: Indiana Jones + the Adventure of Archaeology

With two archaeologically-obsessed children in our home, I knew that we had to make our way to the National Geographic Museum to catch the Indiana Jones exhibit this summer. I hemmed and hawed beforehand whether to let them watch the first Indiana Jones movie, but decided I'd better err on the side of avoiding sleepless nights and wait. And since our kids are also totally obsessed with history and ancient cultures, they were perfectly fine not knowing the first thing about the actual movies -- they were able to pick up on things right away. The exhibit is enormous (which is unusual for that museum), largely due to the fact that so, so much of it is done via "personal video companion." But there are also a ton of historical and cultural artifacts to view. So, be prepared to spend a lot of time in there!!

Scottish Rite of Freemasonry: House of the Temple

Right before the end of our summer break, we snuck in one of our most favorite field trips of the season -- a visit to the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry House of the Temple for the Southern Jurisdiction. How the heck did we find ourselves there? Well after our trip to the Library of Congress, I thought the kids would get a kick out of watching some of the National Treasure movies, which discuss Freemasons at length and their involvement in supposed conspiracies. Not only did the kids love the movies, but they immediately became incredibly interested in Freemasonry and, well, treasure hunting. Then I remembered that we had several important Masonic buildings in the area, including The George Washington Masonic National Memorial. We deeded to keep it slightly low-key to start -- I wasn't exactly sure what the deal would be with touring with kids. So we went to the nearby Scottish Rite Temple.

Keep It Local: Antietem National Battlefield

It must be clear by now, but mom and dad have created two little history buffs. Mom finds this hysterical because history has never been her strong suit (remember our drive down to VA and Colonial Williamsburg last year?). It's not for lack of interest, but she just has a finite room to remember things and that's not the stuff that sticks. Fortunately we remember pretty much everything, so we help her out now. In any event, we are both big fans of historical sites -- Kane particularly so with war sites and presidents. And partially because I'm interested myself and mostly because I'm the best little sister in the world, and always like to make Kane happy, I too have taken up an interest in such things.

So we were both excited when mom told us that our spelunking trip was close to Antietem National Battlefield. After we rocked out our trip to the cave and ate lunch, we drove just about 15 minutes away to check out the site of the bloodiest one day battle in American history. While there are more involved guided tours available, we were a bit tired from Crystal Grottoes and so we planed to try for the self-guided driving tour. We went first to the visitor center, which showed a great short movie on the history of the war and the site. The movie wove together on-site reenactments with commentary from historians -- it was really well done and kept our attention (mom loved that we were able to identify actual site locations later on our tour from watching the reenactment -- it really added a nice layer and primer for our imaginations).

After the movie we poked about the small museum at the center, but we didn't spend a lot of time there -- we wanted to get outside. But we made sure first to pick up our Junior ranger packets and our passport books. You might recall from our visit to Fort Washington Park a few years back, that the National Park Service offers two awesome programs for kids:

1. National Park Passport Stamps Program -- in which you can collect in a passport unique stamps from almost all of the 397 national parks; and

2. The Junior Ranger Program -- many national parks offer activities for kids that allow them to earn park badges. Antietem also offered a Junior, Junior packet for kids under 6 years old.

We've been to several National Parks, but had yet to partake in either of these programs. This time, we picked up passports from the gift shop and Junior, Junior Ranger packet from the rangers. We then did the self-guided driving tour around the site, stopping at a handful of important spots to get out and explore. It was a beautiful evening and it was totally amazing to walk out in the fields and imagine the scenes that played out there. Plus, we scored our first Junior Ranger badges.

And as if spelunking and civil war battlefields weren't enough for the day, we decided to make the drive over to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia for dinner. It's a little touristy, but we had a great time and, especially given how unexpectedly close it is to DC, it's definitely somewhere we'll head back to check out further.

Phew. That was a lot of activity for a Sunday!

Keep It Local: Spelunking at Crystal Grottoes

One of mom's most favorite summertime activities growing up was the various spelunking trips she took with her family. As she reminds us every time we board a plane for vacation, when she was little, family vacations meant road trips (which she happened to love). And that meant breaking up a trip with stops at a whole variety of roadside (or somewhat off road) attractions, including caves. So mom has had spelunking on our list (and both of our official Summer Bucket lists) for a while. But she was a little worried that one of us (me) would totally freak out underground and in the darkness. So she was hesitant to trek out to Virginia to a large spelunking trip.

Cue Crystal Grottoes in Boonsboro, Maryland. Mom found it kind of randomly and, given that it was privately owned, wasn't entirely sure if it would be hokey and random (like our trip to Good Knight's Enchanted Kingdom a few years ago). Then she saw it was near Antietam National Battlefield and figured if we could loop that in, it would be worthwhile. And it turned out to be awesome!

It is a little expensive, but it was just our size and speed. You go about 45 feet underground, but no elevator is involved and the tour lasts just about 1/2 hour. Our tour guide was a local high schooler who had literally tunneled red clay out of the cave with his bare hands, and he was eager, knowledgable and friendly. We learned a bit about geology, a bit about the cave's history, and a bit about what it's like to grow up as a quadruplet in a small town. And he put up with Kane's running list of questions, which is worth a lot of money in any of our books. Plus, if mom's memory serves correctly, the size and scope of this cave (and perhaps the fact that it's privately owned) made for a much closer-up view of the various geological features than she's seen before.

We were both champs and even thought it was fun when our guide turned all the lights out -- it helped that there were no bats present.

If you have younger kids and are interested in spelunking, but have concerns similar to mom's, this would make an awesome foray into cave exploring. We hit up local Boonsboro for lunch and treats before heading on to Antietem and found a good number of decent spots to eat (we ate at Dan's Restaurant & Tap House, which had a good selection of local brew and a nice kids menu). If you're in the market for a super easy day trip (the cave is just about 1 hour, 15 minutes away), we highly recommend it!

p.s. it's really hard to take good photographs in a cave

Keep It Local: Washington Monument

The Washington Monument just recently re-opened to visitors after being closed for repairs since the August 2011 earthquake that shook DC. And we were sure to get advanced tickets for our very first official day of summer break! Mom picked an 11 am tour start, just to make sure we didn't need to rush out of our jammies the very first day of vacaye.

We got down to the Mall just after 10, which was perfect because parking along Constitution opens up right at 10. We ran around a bit, but it was HOT out. So we scooted over to the correct waiting area by 10:30 -- perfect timing to be in the front of the 11 am tour group we booked (mom cannot stand waiting in lines). After about 5 minutes, Cam decided she HAD to go to the bathroom, immediately. That meant losing our spot in line since mom had us by herself, but she figured it would be quick. And we were. But the throngs of other 11 am ticket holders were faster and we returned about 10 minutes later to a huge, long line. And that meant that we waited until 11:30 basically to get our turn to head in. We were hot, thirsty and ready to get our history on.

Fortunately it was worth the wait. It's actually not much of tour, but it is insanely cool to go up 500 feet above the city (although slightly claustrophobic). You do get a little history from rangers on the elevator ride up and down, and there are some displays as well. We thought the coolest thing was getting to compare today's views outside the windows to the historical photographs of the same view back in the day. We also loved getting a peek at the stones donated by each state -- you get a relatively quick view on the elevator ride down.

The Monument's summer hours are 9 am to 10 pm, with the last tour beginning by 9:45 pm. The National Park Service gives out about 2,000 tickets for tours each day, with half of them being released the morning of from the on-site ticket window starting at 8:30 am (but word is the line grows long before that and tickets go quickly in summer). You can also make advance reservations online for a small fee. All tickets are for a specific time and we suggest getting in line a half hour before your tour starts (and having someone hold that spot!).

New historic site visit? Check. Bring it, Summer Bucket List.

Keep It Local: Fort McHenry

Last summer, after reading "The Flag Maker" and as part of my general history kick, I became a bit obsessed with the War of 1812 and the Star Spangled Banner. So after our visit to the American Visionary Art Museum, which you can read about right here, mom thought we'd make a quick trip out to see the nearby Fort McHenry (the defense of which led Francis Scott Key to pen our national anthem). It was a HOT day, but we loved poking about the fort and imagining what it looked like defending B'more back in the day. There are several programs available at the Fort and we jumped in on the end of one that played out the great battle with props. But neither one of us was in much of a mood to stand still and listen. Instead we took to exploring by ourselves. There's not a whole lot to see, but it was fun nonetheless. And with spring breaks coming up, we thought it would be good to share a  little side trip that would be a good add on to visiting another Baltimore attraction (you can see our other B'more visits here).

You can find the Operating Hours for the Fort right here. Here's to good weather for spring break!

(this pic kills mom. note Cam's British skirt)

not exactly the bunk beds we've been wanting