We went back to the Frontier Culture Museum on Saturday. I know, I know, it’s crazy. My husband was dismayed by my fascination with the place. “I can’t believe you want to go back,” he said. “This is so not like you.”

He didn’t really want to go. Saturday was going to be a glorious day, perfect for hanging around home and doing everything but digging the sweet potatoes that I was after him about. Plus, it was Fall Folk day at the museum. There would be food trucks and special activities and lots of people. My husband is not keen on crowds. “Why don’t we go on a day when no one will be there,” he whined. 

“Because,” I explained for the hundredth time, “I’ve been there when it’s empty and I want to see what it’s like when it’s busy. I want to see what the special activities are like. It will give me a better feel for the place. Besides, the kids are begging to go.” Which was a half lie. Only the younger two were pestering. My older daughter was longing for a do-nothing day, but I gave her no choice. (My older son had an all-day choir camp, so he was automatically out of the picture, but I think he would’ve been happy to come along.)

“Fine. Whatever you want,” my husband said.

Actually, I was a little worried that we’d be bored. We had explored the place so thoroughly only three days before. What if it was a total letdown?

I needn’t have worried. Last time we stayed for six hours. This time we stayed for seven and a half, and we didn’t even get to all the exhibits.

“I don’t get it how people can breeze through this place in just three hours,” I said to my husband. 

“Really, Jennifer? I totally get it it. Aren’t you watching people? They just walk in and walk out. It’s easy.”

We, on the other hand, took our good old time, plopping our butts down as often as possible.

It was marvelous fun.

In Germany, a cooper had set up shop in the entry room. He spouted facts while shaving wood and pounding metal rings onto barrels.

The kids and I flopped down on the benches surrounding his workspace and watched, mesmerized by his efficient movements and steady stream of information. “It’s so much fun to watch someone work when they know what they’re doing,” my husband commented later.

We arrived late to a musket shooting demo. The crowd was just starting to disperse when my younger son zipped onto the scene and shouted to the tall pioneer lad, “Are you going to shoot the gun?”

“No, hon,” I said. “He already did…”

“Oh, did you miss the demo?” the guide interrupted me. “I can do it again for you.”

And that’s how we got our own private little demo. Sometimes it pays to be late.

Afterward, the guide took took the kids to the other side of the property and so they could help him split some logs.

And after that we walked over to an older gentlemen had a whole stash of different fire-starting materials. He demonstrated all of them, and, in turn, the kids told him about when they were in Guatemala and set of firecrackers with a magnifying glass. Before we left, he let the kids choose from his collection of homemade arrowheads.

All afternoon, my younger daughter had been begging to go back to England. When we had visited that morning, she had helped with the laundry. She wanted to go back to visit with the woman who worked there (and who had, I learned, been working in that English house for the last fourteen years), but when we got to the house, it seemed deserted, the washtubs empty and only a few linens drying in the grass. I sat down on a bench to wait while the kids went through the house one last time. After a bit, my husband came out. “They’re sewing,” he said. “You might as well come on in.”

Sure enough, the children were gathered around the long table, mending the linens.

“Never in all my years here have I given a sewing lesson,” the good housewife crowed.

We lingered around the table, savoring the late afternoon sun and the peaceful quiet, the children’s narrow focus on needle and fabric a sweet reprieve after our day’s glut of activity.

So here’s some museum-going advice from an infrequent museum goer: When you visit the museum, stop and sink. Sink to the ground, sink into a chair, sink into your curiosity. Allow yourself to just be in the space, observing, listening, doing. You might not get to see everything, but you’ll go home filled up and tuckered out.

PS. And now I’ll stop talking about the museum. Pinky promise.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (9.22.14), hurdle-free molten brownie cakes, we love Fred, and vacationing till it hurts.

This same time, years previous: the big, bad wolf and our children, baking with teachers, candid camera, when the relatives came, thousand island slaw with roast chicken, I’m still here, and retreat.  

“I am such an idiot.”

That was the line that kept running through my head yesterday. I wasn’t miffed because I did something stupid (at least not this time), but because of what I didn’t do. What I did do was take my kids to a museum. What I didn’t do was take them there before now.

Oh, I knew about The Frontier Culture Museum all right. I have friends who say they go there “all the time.” Some of them even send their kids there for camp, or have older kids who volunteer there during the summer. And it’s not like the place is far away. No, no, it’s exactly 45 minutes from our doorway to their parking lot. And it’s cheap, comparatively speaking. When we purchased our tickets, the cashier rang us up and then said, “You do realize that if you pay five dollars more, you can get a family membership for the whole year?”

I thought it over. “You mean we can come back tomorrow and the next day and the next day? For a whole year?” Which was kinda rhetorical, but I wanted to make sure before I smacked down the forty-five bucks, which I did almost before she got done saying, Yes, my dear. That is exactly what I mean.

And all this before I had even seen the place. Basic math is quite compelling.

We had perfect weather and the entire place to ourselves, or so it seemed. I read somewhere recently that the best time to go to museums is right after school starts back in session: the summer crowds are gone and the teachers haven’t gotten around to organizing field trips yet. There were only a few other couples wondering about, and at the very end of the day I saw a mom and two kids. That was it. It felt like there were more volunteers working the place then there were visitors.

The website suggests that visitors allow three to four hours to explore. We spent six, and we were rushing things. The grounds are divided into the Old World (Ireland, England, Germany, West Africa, etc) and the New World (American Indian, the 1740s, 1820s, a schoolhouse, etc). The volunteers work on location. So, for example, when we happened upon the American Indian village, the volunteer was working on making reed mats for the wigwam’s roof. When pushed for details, he said that it takes about an hour to cut the reeds, since he has to go find and harvest them himself, and then about half a day to make one mat. And all this while using only period-appropriate tools.

When we arrived at the Old English house, not a volunteer was in sight so of course the kids immediately swarmed the place, exploring every nook and cranny.

Toss four kids several hundred years back in history and things are bound to get interesting. The long dining room table was just right for a fierce confrontation. Yes, all four could fit in the fireplace. And then they discovered the kitchen bellows and had a Miracle Max attack.

When I spied an English woman in wide-brimmed straw hat bustling down the road to the house, I hissed at the kids to Quick, mind your manners, and then we got the proper tour in which we learned about cheese graters, stale bread pudding, the old refrigerator that’s used for shelving in the locked bedroom upstairs, the geese named Benedict and Beatrice, the best way to tackle sheep for sheering, and the crown of thorns hanging in the kitchen to bless the fields.

And so it went. At the Irish house, we were entranced by the whole flax-to-linen process, the stone walls, the snoring, very huge, pigs. At the German house there was a well, sauerkraut in the making, and a mousetrap like none other. In the African village we found a snake (not an intentional part of the display, and kind of ironic, considering the entire area was located on swept dirt to keep away the snakes) and learned about growing yams. The boys helped the corset-wearing pioneer woman at the 1740s cabin turn sod for more garden space (in a weird, twisted way it felt like our assistance now eased their burden then) while she proudly showed me her tobacco crop.

By the end of the day, we were wiped. That night at supper, the kids regaled their papa with story after story, and today, refreshed after a shower and a night of sleep, I keep thinking about our next visit. Would Saturday be too soon?

This same time, years previous: in defense of battered kitchen utensils, the quotidian (9.17.12), the potluck solution, cornmeal whole wheat waffles, and hard knocks.