Last Saturday, we set out on an adventure....
Tera has had a fascination with the history of Sgt. York lately and plans to do a history project about him. Since his birthplace is only 2 hours away in Pall Mall, TN, we've wanted to make a visit for a while. Well, we finally did it...in rain and fog all the way. We stopped for umbrellas just in case.
Carsickness runs in my family and each one of our children has succumb to it at least once...except Michael. Now, he's a member of the elite club. 2 hours of winding roads and McD's for breakfast in the car did not sit well with the boy. We were thanking the Lord we had a change of clothes/water/towel in the car and for Daniel helping contain the mess out of self-preservation. We had to strip Michael down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and headed on for the last 7 miles to our destination.
We started out at the York General store with a video about Sgt. York's life. Sgt. Alvin C. York was a WWI hero, capturing 132 German soldiers almost single-handedly in the Battle of the Argonne Forest. The room that houses the video is like a mini-museum with lots of documents and photographs.
I love this old letter box!
The home that was gifted to Sgt. Alvin York and his wife, Gracie by the state of Tennessee in recognition for his service is a short walk across the street. All the contents in the home actually belonged to the York family. All original.
This man pictured with Tera is Andrew York, Sgt. York's son. He works as a park ranger at his parent's home, the one he grew up in. He was one of the nicest men. Mr. York invited Tera to play on his father's piano and gave her an autographed copy of a booklet containing some of his father's diary and timeline of the war. (All because he knew she was doing a project on Sgt. York) You should have seen her face light up when he gave it to her!
Grist mill
We did not let rain keep us from having a picnic or wading or skipping rocks! The water was cold and clear. Just as we finished, there was a torrential downpour.
There are two ways to get to the burial site of Sgt. York. One involves a .5 mile hike from the home and a suspension bridge. I don't really like bridges at all, but I was willing to be adventurous. It looked pretty safe from the pictures. We tried to hike from the house and then hit a ton of mud...I mean, a ton. So, we turned back. You can also drive to the burial site, so that's the route we went this time. We tried to hike back from the cemetery just to the bridge, but again hit tons of mud. We'll have to try to get to the suspension bridge next time, we go.
Burial site
Michael was just wore out....
We saw this little guy on the side of the road in Lenoir City, by a busy road. He sparked the debate of groundhog vs. beaver. No prominent beaver tail that we could see. What do you think?
I'm so glad we didn't let rain and fog and carsickness keep us from making some very cool memories!