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