Tell me you know that song!
It is a John Denver song, but has been covered by just about everyone… and their dog. Here’s one of my favorite versions (sorry John, but I like it better than the original… 😬)
So, for Memorial Day, we went to West Virginia. And I can tell you that it was fairly heavenly, as the song would suggest. But, it would have definitely been higher on the heavenly scale if it hadn’t been so dang hot and humid. It gave Jonathan and me some serious Philippines vibes.
Harpers Ferry (no apostrophe, I checked) is a historic town located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers where Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia meet.
We were specifically going to check out Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. And also the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail are in Harpers Ferry. The town is pretty close to being the midpoint of the trail. So, we wanted to go learn a little more about the AT, since the kids are so interested in it.
We arrived, parked, and went into the Visitor Center to get maps and to chat with the Rangers to see if they had any particular recommendations for us.
They suggested that we take the shuttle down to the lower town (which has been reconstructed by the National Park service) to check out the historic site. And they gave us some pointers for some kid friendly hikes as well.
And so, we went and hopped on the shuttle, which dropped us off right in the historic town.
We started by walking through some of the old buildings. And we got to learn a little bit more about the importance of this little place.
The village of Harpers Ferry, in large part due to its proximity to two major rivers, has long been an important transportation hub and manufacturing center (specifically the manufacture of small arms). During the Civil War, it was the northernmost point of Confederate-controlled territory.
But before the Civil War even began, abolitionist John Brown sought to initiate a slave revolt in the Southern states by taking over the US arsenal located in Harpers Ferry. His efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, but this was an important prelude to the Civil War itself.
Cute Story. I went and wrote “Run a boardinghouse” on here. Unbeknownst to me, Jonathan had previously come over and written “Innkeeper”. We would have been soulmates even then. 
I loved the dry goods store. 
It was fun to look at all the items that would have been available here. 
This is a very helpful map! 
Let’s go check out the river!
So yeah, Harpers Ferry was an important place. For a lot of reasons. And the Park Service has gone to great lengths to try and recreate the town as it would have been at the time.
After we had walked through a bunch of the historical buildings and looked at the displays, we decided to go down and check out the Shenandoah river.
I will admit that we had kinda been hoping to find a good spot to stick our piggies in the water. But, there really weren’t any good spots nearby; the banks dropped off and the water got deep quickly. The one semi-decent place we found to wade was crazy slippery then it got deep fast. Plus it was a relatively fast moving river. So yeah, that was a no go. But it was still lovely. Once we realized that wading was a no go in that area, we decided to move along.
At this point, we got separated. I had the twins, and Jonathan had the older kids. In hindsight, I should have realized that our water babies would have wanted to try their luck at another part of the river. They ended up at the point, where the Shenandoah and the Potomac come together. And they got to dip their piggies in the water a little bit.
The twins and I ended up on the upper part of the bank, we started to walk over the bridge into Maryland, but the twins were unaccountably nervous about the bridge. They kept telling me “Oh, it’s so dangerous!” Eventually, we made our way back and waited for the rest of the crew to join us.
We were all getting pretty overheated by this point, so we took a minute to sit in the shade and rehydrate.
And then we decided to walk to Maryland all together. This time, the twins didn’t even bat an eye or mention that it was scary at all.
Over on the Maryland side, we sat in the shade again for a bit. The bridge is exposed to the sun the majority of the time that you cross over. And we were all getting overheated again. We are just used to 75 degree Seattle summer with very little humidity.
And so, we decided that ice cream would be an excellent notion once we got back across the bridge. And so, after we’d taken a small break, we headed back over. And made our way straight to an ice cream shop.
At this point, we decided that it might be a good idea to call it a day. To be honest, we weren’t really prepared for the heat. And that could be a bad thing if you push it. I was a bit concerned about our little Isaa guy, he was pretty flushed. So, we made our way back to the shuttle stop.
And then we got on the gloriously air conditioned bus.
Honestly, it is crazy to me to think that people lived here for ages without air conditioning and with the types of clothes they were expected to wear at the time: corsets?! layers of skirts!? It makes me wanna cry just thinking about it.
We got back to the car, and turned it on to let it cool down a bit before we hopped in. According to the car it was 93 degrees outside and the humidity was 45% 🤮🤮
Once the car cooled down a little bit, we all hopped in and headed back to D.C.
And several of the kids promptly fell asleep. And honestly I did too.
