A Day of Exploration

"Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492..."

And thank goodness he did!  If it wasn't for him, this new land may never have been discovered.  :)  More importantly, we wouldn't have a wonderful federal holiday to enjoy!

Since Danny got to be home with us, and we didn't have anything we had to do, we decided to take our kids and go on an adventure.  There is so much for us to explore here in our new stomping grounds.  We haven't had an opportunity to discover much, what with me being pregnant and all.  So we were excited to have a day to do just that!

We started out by going to Fort Tejon State Historic Park.  Between 1854 and 1864, this U.S. Army fort protected people in the surrounding region from the social and cultural conflicts between American settlers and the California Indians.  We thought it was a really neat opportunity to expose our girls to some local history.

It took just over an hour to get there, so after we saw the cool cannon, lunch was next on the agenda!  We packed a picnic, and enjoyed our sandwiches in the wonderful Southern California fall weather.

We had our lunch right next to the jail and guard house.  We couldn't get Claire to go into the guard house (I agreed it was a little creepy), but Daddy and Sophie showed us just how fun the jail house could be!

So we joined in the fun...

Another neat thing about Fort Tejon were the awesome oak trees.  Some of them were over 300 years old, and they were massive! The younger trees, while not quite as massive, provided a natural playground for the girls.

Johnny found it all very exciting...

Next we went to explore the old barracks and officer's quarters.  It was neat to see the old construction, and how well the buildings have stood the test of time.  The inside of the buildings had been converted into a museum of sorts, with actual period artifacts and reconstructions.  It was really neat!  They even had some wax statues of soldiers that were SO "Night at the Museum"!

The rest of the time we spent just playing around the fort.  Unfortunately, Claire chose to spend a good deal of the remainder of our time sitting by herself instead of listening to Mama...

We felt compelled to continue having fun, just so she could realize what she was missing... :)

After the kids were all "funned-out", we decided to let them nap while we drove to Bakersfield.  It wasn't too far from where we were, and we hadn't been yet.  We found it to be a very pretty city, with a very nice Costco (we forgot something during our regular shopping trip), and it even had a California Pizza Kitchen!  We just had to take advantage of that...besides, it was dinner time!  We enjoyed a wonderful dinner there, and then drove a different route home through Tehachapi.  Danny, who is just like his Grandpa Lovell, loved the "long, pretty drive".  It really was beautiful.

Just like Christopher Columbus, we feel like we discovered a little more of this "new world" we're living in.  We're excited to take advantage of more of the sites Southern California has to offer in the future!