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Tired teens near the end of a hike at Swallow Falls

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Greetings from Deep Creek Lake!

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“I mean, laws are social constructs anyway, but they’re more mutable in Adventure Time.”

Wembley has been trying to convince us that Princess Bubblegum is a war criminal.

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So, the very best thing about homeschooling is getting to spend so much time with these goobers. But the SECOND best thing is living a life where learning stuff is really fun and exciting. We’ve been thinking of this trip as our Art and Architecture trip, but our first day was focused on geology and dinosaurs, which was the most lovely bonus!

We visited Dinosaur Ridge, where the world’s first Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus specimens were found! There is a small indoor exhibit (the Discovery Center) and a trail, where you can find SO many very very cool things. We saw trackways and actual fossils still imbedded, evidence of the inland sea that would have covered this area in the Late Cretaceous, courtship marks, bulges believed to be the underside of footprints, and an incredibly rare raptor track—there are only 12 known raptor track sites in the world!

There were also a bunch of really incredible geological things, including these two: volcanic ash layers and this amazing large spherical concretion!

Click to embiggen the pictures!

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…and photography! Both Wembley and Mokey discovered panoramic photos while we were at Red Rocks, which was really cool. Ondiru and Wembley worked on the trippy photo above looking at both Ship Rock and Creation Rock from an unusual angle, with the sky in between. There are just so very many cool photos to capture!

I really like this one of Mokey’s, where Creation Rock is peeking over the edge of the finished stairs. And Wembley took this other really cool one. It’s not a digital filter. There are a bunch of concession stands at the upper circle and Wembley noticed the reflection of this tree in one of the off duty menu monitors. I LOVE it!

Mokey also took tons of gorgeous pictures of the sky & clouds

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Field trip to the Maryland State House with the homeschool co-op today.

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Today’s science project: steam-powered styrofoam boats. Here they are in dry dock. We discovered that the flame needs to be inside the coils, which is why two of the boats with smaller amounts of copper tubing have birthday candles, because they fit better.

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“What is it that the child has to teach?

The child naively believes that everything should be fair and everyone should be honest, that only good should prevail, that everybody should have what they want and there should be no pain or sadness. The child believes the world should be perfect and is outraged to discover it is not.

And the child is right.”

— Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

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Science!

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We were the only people on the plaza and they had more fun chopping up icy snow than I could have imagined.

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Snow day

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Today’s science/engineering project: a hydrolic earth mover

This took three hours, starting from sitting down with all of the materials arranged in front of us.

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At the American Visionary Art Museum. I have become that middle aged parent with no decorum about taking pictures with my family.

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How did this happen?

(Preschool school pics & B’nai Mitzvah pics hung in the upstairs hallway.)

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In the bird’s nest balcony at the American Visionary Arts Museum

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Playing Pictionary with twins

Wembley:

Mokey: “Evolution!”

Everyone else: [stares]