Field Trips....

Went on a fun field trip today.  We have started school as I am trying at least to get a little ahead of the train that is coming down my track this winter and so while we still have some fun summer activities planned we are also beginning school!  I love field trips!  They are one of my favorite things about homeschooling is the ability to make real life applications to school and go and see and do things that are so applicable to life.  We last year studied about lots of gold rushes and gold mining and that sort of topic.  One near and dear to my family as Dad was a geologist.  We went to Idaho City today and explored around there with some other homeschool kids.  So much history.  A small town now that once was the biggest city in the Northwest.  A true boom town.  Once the capital of Idaho.  It was fun roaming around and exploring.  Explaining the different parts of mining.  What a dredge is and what it does.  How a stamp mill operates.  Surface land rights and Mineral rights.  Just lots of different things.  It was fun.  We all had fun.  It was odd too.  I could almost see my Dad there with us, as he totally would have been there if I could have asked him.  Explaining all these things.  Showing them how to pan for gold.  Doing all the things that I know about, but that he knew so well.  We would have had such fun roaming through the cemetery wondering together what the stories of some of these people were.  Natives of other countries.  Coming here to die over a century ago in some small Idaho wilderness area mining boom town.  Interesting times.  Fun memories.  Life is interesting.