Franconia and Other Events in this Busy Month

Let’s see…in the past 30 days, I have:

*Attended a magic show

*Been to five different US states

*Visited the site of the Boston Massacre, and seen Samuel Adams’ and Paul Revere’s grave site

*Toured the Old State House in Boston

*Walked on the Freedom Trail

*Been on four airplane trips

*Stayed at the family cabin for five nights

*Visited two state parks: Interstate and Myre-Big Island, and spent the night camping at the latter one.

*Attended a wedding reception

*Became Vice President of Education of my Toastmasters club

*Celebrated Independence Day

*Had my yearly eye exam and bi-yearly dental check-up

*Visited the Sod House on the Prairie, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, and Laura’s home site on the banks of Plum Creek (and actually waded into Plum Creek)

*Attended the Family Festival in Walnut Grove

*Watched four movies, and every episode of the new season of Arrested Development

*Read four entire books (not counting another hundred I read to Isla)

*Not worked a full week of work

So, yeah, a busy month – and that’s only including the activites I directly participated in. The rest of my family also had lots going on (e.g., my son attended a week-long class at the Science Museum). There were also some negative things, too, such as the hit-and-run that took out our car’s sideview mirror, and the clogged toilet that necessitated a professional plumber’s services. But let’s not dwell on that stuff.

Instead, I want to mention one other activity I did in the past month: I – along with my family – visited the Franconia Sculpture Park.

We visited this while on our way to the family cabin, which is about 20 minutes beyond this attraction. Everytime we’ve driven to the cabin during the past ten years, I keep thinking, “Hey, we should stop there,” but we’re always under a time constraint, or the weather is terrible. This time, thankfully, we had no such limitations.

Touring the park is free, and there are guided tours every Sunday (though you can probably skip that). They do accept cash donations. The majority of the sculptures are made of metal, though a few feature plastic, wood, and cement. Most sculputres are several times larger than a human, so it’s quite overwhelming.

Among the sculputes we saw were a barn suspended in midair, a huge conglomerate of old pipes and chains that kids can play on, and a car made out of cement. Actually, when we came upon the car, one of the tour guides asked if anyone wanted to guess how much it weighed. Owen guessed 700 tons, and then a bunch of other people laughed. Turns out, the car weighs 80 tons, so while Owen was quite far off, I at least applaud him for not being too cowardly to even hazard a guess, like the adults who laughed at him.

The tour guides invited us to climb on and touch most of the sculptures, so that was fun for the kids.  

On the day we visited, there was standing water all over the park, and the walking paths are little more than flattened areas of dirt, so our shoes and socks got soaked.

After the tour, there were Icees for sale for the rock-bottom price of two for a buck.

I highly recommend the attraction for people of all ages and economoic brackets.

Next time we head tot he cabin, I want to stop at the minigolf site we pass everytime.