Day Trip to St. Gen.
We had a fun field trip earlier this week as part of a local homeschool group. The plan was to start off in the morning at Fort De Chartres in Illinois and then take the ferry across the river to St. Genevieve for the afternoon.
I printed out some directions from Google to the Fort realizing they were different than what we were given. Our directions were shorter, but also got us off the highway for a nice view of the country side. It was really beautiful too. The trip through the hills and trees with all kinds of birds was pretty cool. Then we opened out into the lowlands and farms. There were a couple of blue herons wading in the receding flood waters of the fields. It was a beautiful day as well. At least, until we were about a mile from the fort and our last road was under water! Oh well, back to the regular route, good thing we left in plenty of time.
The fort was pretty cool. It’s from the 18th century and has been partially rebuilt on the old foundation. Only 1 building on the site was still orignal and intact, the rest has been “removed” for other uses over the years by local residents in pieces as the flood waters aided in deterioration. Neat place to stop and visit for an hour or two like we did.
We had some lunch in the picnic area there and then had originally planned to take the ferry across the river. Of course, with all the rain this year, the river was too high and we were forced to drive down to Chester and back around.
We made it over to St. Gen. around two and stopped in the visitors center. We had arranged for a tour of the Bolduc House. There were plans to see more, but with the extra driving our schedule wasn’t quite going to work for that. I was very impressed with the detail the tour guides covered the construction of the houses. The details of the mortise & tenon joints, the vertical log construction, the wrap around porches to control sun, the opposing windows & doors for breezes, and even the dirt back yard as a fire break from the cooking kitchen.
We did get a chance to walk around the town some before dinner. There wasn’t much going on for a weekday afternoon in a tourist town so that was pretty bland. We did get a chance to stop by and sample some wines and bring a couple of bottles home with us.
It was a fun trip and a beautiful day for it. I think we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 60-70 kids & adults total (including a rented school bus full). It’s always fun to go on field trips with homeschool groups like this. It’s good to watch 16-18 year olds who are comfortable being around adults and much younger kids. They are always very helpful with keeping the younger ones in order and letting them know when it’s time to be quite and listen, and when it’s okay to be wild and noisy.
