Airborne and Special Operations

Here in NC right next to Fort Bragg we went to the Museum of Airborne and Special Operations. Without these brave guys we wouldn't have made it through many of the wars we were involved in. This place had a ton of things to look at. We could have learned so much if we had had more time and patience. I only read a smattering of the info boards there was so much detail. The displays were very well designed and fun to see. Did you know the army used these gliders to deliver men and jeeps and whatever other supplies they needed. They dragged them behind a big airplane and then let them quietly float on in to where the supplies were needed. Later when the opportunity arose they gathered them back up by dropping a line down as they slowly flew by and pulled them up into the sky and returned them to the ship. There were helicopters, an airplane and Parachuters overhead as we walked through the years of war scenes. Did you know that some of the hardest obstacles they didn't expect were the hedgerows? They were growing there for hundreds of years of sturdy bushes that didn't want to be crushed by tanks and provided the opposing forces with great protection at all of the corners. Did you know in Vietnam they wore this type of sole so the natives thought they were natives? I am so thankful for people who are willing to give their time and lives to protecting me and my freedoms. Oh, the many blessings I have been given, just by being born here and now!

~Anna

Our family covered 4000 miles this month in our van. We got to see a multitude of wonderful things in God's amazing world. I am so thankful we live here in a country where we have the freedom to travel as we wish and see so much. I just pray our country can remain great! The trip ended up being quite educational. We took several historic type tours and then life in general is very much a learning process.

I am going to blog about our field trips along the way here in the next few days, I hope. I had hoped to start sooner, but while I was absent blogger changed some picture up loading processes that I couldn't seem to figure out so, this morning I finally took the time to go in and change some settings and now I upload pictures the way I did when I first got this blog. At least pictures are going up.

~Anna

Touring a Hog Farm

Well, we went to visit Grammy and Grampy and while we were sitting around talking about all the neighbors and what had been going on in the area since we were last back to visit. Grammy mentioned a descendant of the people who had originally lived on this farm, in the old farm house, had called and wanted to come out to see what was still here. Turns out, all of the house is left, they just built hog barns around it. The house has been used as storage. It was like a bee in Margaret's bonnet, she really wanted to see this old house. So when it was about time for us to leave, Grampy took us up there in his truck and we had a tour. It has been the home of raccoons it looked like for sometime. After we felt our way around in there for awhile. We checked out the rest of the place. We saw the farrowing house and how it worked. We saw where the piglets grew into pigs, where they got their first shots and surgeries. Here, Grampy is standing on the pit where everything in the yard drained or was scraped and then when it was full they transferred its contents into the honey wagon and hauled it over the fields. Liquid gold. Or something like that.

We hadn't intended on taking this tour, but it sure was fun spending the time with Travis and Grampy in a place that held a lot of memories for them.

Remembering An Evening's Walk

We started with a picnic

 Eating lots of pop corn

 And drinking lots of water.

Then we wandered over hill and vale,

Up ancient stairs of crumbling concrete.

By prehistoric rhinoceroses, which we all took a turn at conquering! 

~Anna, remembering the evening of August the 27th, 2010.