Funk Family Tours: Harper's Ferry

Perhaps you are all tired of my constant praise of Harper's Ferry? If so, too bad. Here is another Harper's Ferry post. Paige, of course, has heard of my love for Harper's Ferry. She wanted to experience it for herself, and I do not think she was disappointed. It was my third trip, and I'm already planning the next one.

Shall we just get the obligatory train chatter out of the way at the beginning? Beckett had a fabulous time in Harper's Ferry. I think we saw 5 trains.

Every time we heard a train Beckett and Nate ran up these stairs. Doesn't Beckett look smashing in these sunglasses? No? Well, they are no more. B broke them on the way home and mourned profusely.

I try not to think about how many times Nate has let my son stand on train tracks.

We also got ice cream/ custard/ slushies (for the Funk boys) from our favorite ice cream shop. They liked it. We ate it in my favorite courtyard.

Now I want to do a little comparison for everyone. Below you can see what the Funk boys did during the ice cream-eating portion of our trip. 

 And this is what my kids did:

I think they each had about 3 spoonfuls of ice cream, and they NEVER stopped moving. The Funks? They each ate an entire slushy.

So, we arrived in Harper's Ferry late in the afternoon due in part to a late start on our end and in part to horrendous traffic in Frederick. On the plus side, we came late enough that we did not have to pay to enter the park. On the down side, all the museums were closed. I think we were all okay with that. We spent our time doing the outdoorsy stuff. We looked out at the Shenandoah and Potamac rivers. We admired the church and the cliffs. We walked across the bridge.We sat on this bench.

And then we threw rocks in the river. I want everyone to keep in mind that we had four boys with us. Four. This portion of the time was a huge success because all boys love throwing rocks in the water.

Because it was so fun the first time, let's do another comparison, shall we? Here are Paige's kids throwing rocks into the water. Notice how far away they are from the river. Notice how placid and peaceful they look.

 Now here are my kids:

Beckett is doing his crazy, excited arm flap and fake giggling. Felix insisted on practically sitting int he river, and throwing rocks into the water apparently turns him into a complete maniac.

Paige and I felt extra good about our trip to Harper's Ferry because just the night before we had gone to my book club where we discussed Richard Louv's The Last Child in the Woods and here we were, the very next day, with our children in nature.

All that rock throwing had worked up an appetite so we went and ate dinner on one of the restaurant patios. Felix was crazy during dinner (he is consistent), so he got to go on two walks with Nate during our dinner time: while we were waiting for our food and while we were paying. Apparently the walks included knocking on people's doors and sitting in the road.

We thought it was a pretty fabulous day with fun-filled, boy-friendly activities, but as we were loading up the car to go home A told us his favorite part of the day was getting gas at the gas station.
It must have been a really exciting stop at the gas station because we are pretty sure he loved everything else we did too.