Locust Grove (Cultural Pass #2)

Last week, we went to another stop on the Cultural Pass--Locust Grove. It's only about five minutes from our house, but we've never visited (except for a book sale a few years ago). It was built by the brother-in-law and sister of George Rogers Clark (William and Lucy Clark Croghan), and has a museum, main house, and lots of outbuildings.

They've created more kid-friendly tours for this summer to accommodate the kids using the Cultural Pass, but it was still a bit of a challenge to keep Lewis away from from roped-off areas and from touching and sitting on things he wasn't supposed to. The outbuildings/grounds were beautiful, though, and that was the best part of the visit (in my opinion). [And Emily, Juni would LOVE it, as it was a little reminiscent of Little House on the Prairie.] They were setting up for a wedding the day we were there, and it would be a gorgeous setting for that. 

We had a little time to burn before the tour began, so we went outside:

 'Oh, look, a house! Let's go there!'

 That would *not* be the tour we were allowed to go on, though Lewis got up to the porch before we caught up to them.

 One of the outbuildings

Some were pretty obvious in their purpose, while others were kind of a guessing game (like this one). Some signage might be helpful, or maybe there's a map that we didn't see. 

 There were slaves working at the house back in the day, and this was one of the family's living quarters.

On the other side of the same building was the kitchen.

I didn't get many pictures inside the house because flash photography wasn't allowed and because I was busy trying to keep my child from touching/breaking anything valuable. Before I knew flashes weren't allowed, here is Lewis in the boys' bedroom (I think there were four sons who shared this room):

  
And then, ahhh, outside where things can't be broken:

 Lewis in the herb garden (with the woodworking shop in the background)

 This is where Tonya said it was like Little House on the Prairie--the boys took off running down this neverending hill to the cold house and the creek (where they stored food).

 They kept leaning out this window, which dropped straight down into the creek below.

We climbed back up the other side of the valley to the stables, which were nothing but hay bales and a wooden cut-out of a cow (lame).  

Best attempt at trying to get the boys to pose on the back porch :)

:)

We wrapped up the morning with a picnic in the shade. It was a nice place to visit, though I think the house tour would be better when Lew's a little older. But, nothing was broken, and I think he got a little bit of knowledge and experience from it, so I'll consider it a mild success.