"Alexa,
Yesterday we went to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller. I am sending some pictures. The first couple show the Badlands area of Alberta. I think they are called the “Badlands” because they are bad for ranching, bad for farming and not much good for anything else. It is here that many of the dinosaur finds in Alberta have been made.
Most of the Tyrrell museum sets up displays of the bones of dinosaurs found all over the world. There a few displays where they have done the dinosaurs up as they might have looked if they were alive. The next picture shows one of these where the dinosaur seems to be looking at me. If you could see the bigger picture you would see that there is a huge dinosaur looking at him for lunch.
No visit to the dinosaurs would be complete without a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and here is ours. Next is a Camerasaurus, a great dinosaur for a photographer. It is a huge plant eating dinosaur. To give you some idea of the size, the next picture shows me on a Camerasaurus thigh bone. To get an even better idea of the size of some of these use animals the next picture shows me standing next to the leg bones of an unnamed dinosaur. When he’s that big I just call him Sir!
Another favourite of mine is the Albertasaurus, a smaller cousin of the T. Rex. Here we have pictures of him with and without his skin. He is named for the province where he was first found, Alberta. He may be the smaller cousin, but he is still pretty big.
Our last photo from the Royal Tyrrell is of a modern Bison, what we here in North America call a Buffalo. I include this because I hope to soon be going to Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump, a place that shows how the local natives gathered the buffalo and their parts for use in the daily lives of the aboriginals.
Once we finished with the museum we went into downtown Drumheller for lunch. There are statues of dinosaurs all over town, so we decided to have lunch with an Allosaur. What you see in the picture isn’t exactly what I thought they meant. It was much more fun riding the Triceratops. Almost like being back in the Stampede.
Take care and keep well,
F. Stanley"
Those were fun! Although poor Stanley nearly got eaten for lunch! :) And upon viewing the submitted entry, I see this site is once again eating some of the pictures for lunch and doing some cropping in some places I'd rather it not. I hate when it does that. I'll have to see if I can fix them later.
Okay! So I had posted recently about how Anne DeGraaf, the Chief of Interpretation at Morristown National Historical Park in New Jersey, had tried emailing me a "Flat Stanley Packet" after being contacted by my sister, Alexa's Aunt Robin. However I had been unable to open it as it was a Word document and I did not have Word on my computer. My sister tried converting it for me and was unable to do so. She sent me a printout snail mail which was great because then we could see all the text and pictures. But it didn't help in regard to being able to post it HERE, even though at least we'd be able to keep it.
So, the other day I installed Microsoft Word on my computer (it will come in handy for other reasons, too) and was able to download the document. Now that it is saved on my computer, I tried copy and pasting the text, which I had no problem with. But I also tried saving the photos so that I could upload them, and that I DID have a problem with. I was not able to do it. So I am going to have to post the text without being able to post the pictures. Which is unfortunate because it was loaded with great photos. But here is the text:
"Dear Alexa,
The staff members at Morristown National Historical Park in Morristown, New Jersey recently opened an envelope and a cute little boy named Stanley came out! He asked us for an adventure here in New Jersey. We put him in the park’s magic time machine and sent him to live a day at the Wick Farm in Jockey Hollow. We sent him to December, 1779…"
(Here there was a picture of an old farm house).
"Henry and Mary Wick lived in this farm house with their youngest daughter Temperance. On December 1, 1779 the Continental Army rented the Wick's large farm and house for a winter encampment. Approximately 13,000 soldiers camped on and near the Wick Farm. General Arthur S. Clair of Pennsylvania rented the Wick House as his temporary home and office. He lived there for six months with his two Aides De Camps (army secretaries).
Stanley woke up in a bed at the Wick farm. It was very cold so he went to the open hearth and tried to light a fire."
(Here there was a picture of Stanley in an unlit fireplace).
"Since he is so young, Stanley was afraid he might burn himself. However, he learned that in the 18th century (more than 200 years ago), children as young as two-years-old started fires in the morning. He was very careful and with the adults' help he got the fire lit."
(Here there was a picture of a fire in the fireplace).
"Stanley learned the Wicks had chores for him to do during the day... He measured skeins of thread on a niddy noddy. He then wove thread on table and lap looms to make fabric. The thread was spun from wool on drop spindles."
(Here there was a picture of Stanley with the looms).
"He had to make butter by using a butter churn. It was hard work."
(Here there was a picture of Stanley with the butter churn).
"The Officers staying in the house asked Stanley if he could read and write. Stanley said he could so they asked him if he could help. Stanley helped write letters, orders, and other paper work for the American Revolution! This was done by hand with a quill (feather) pen. It was a little messy."
(Here was a picture of Stanley with some papers and a quill pen).
"Stanley helped to set the table with red clay plates and bowls called earthenware."
(Here was a picture of Stanly with the earthenware).
"Stanley was asked to get the sugar. Stanley learned that sugar was a very special item bought from the West Indies (the Caribbean). Because it had to travel by ship to New Jersey, it was shipped in hard cones. He had to use the Sugar Nippers to clip pieces off the cone for everyone. It was a special treat."
(Here was a picture of Stanley with the sugar cone).
"After tea, Stanley went back to work for the officers. Stanley got to write more reports with a traveling writing kit on a portable desk the officers let him borrow. He learned they used sand in a tin shaker instead of erasers for mistakes. It was very hard work but he had fun.
It was now getting late and since there was no electric light, it was too dark to work. The officers thanked Stanley for his help."
(Here there was a picture of Stanley with an Ink Sander).
"Stanley washed his face and got ready for bed. He was very tired. 18th-century beds used ropes instead of box springs. The ropes loosened sometimes and made the mattress sage. Stanly used the bed wrench to tighten the ropes."
(Here there were two pictures; one of Stanley next to a little wash basin and pitcher, and one with Stanly on a bed with a bed wrench, or bed key).
"Stanley told us that even though he was really tired, he had a great time and learned a lot. The park staff hopes you enjoyed his adventure and some day come to Morristown National Historical Park to have an adventure of your own.
So that was it! It was really nice of them to put that together for us, it was a lot of fun to read in conjunction with the photos they set up for us, and I just wish I'd been able to save the photos so I could have uploaded them here!
When I emailed Ms. DeGraaf to tell her how much we enjoyed it and to thank her, she said: "I'm glad you enjoyed it. I can't take credit for it; some of my creative staff members worked on it."
They did a great job :)
Incidentally, I did just email her again to ask her if there was any way the pictures could be sent to me as a separate attachment in a manner in which I'd be able to save them. If that does happen to come through, I'll come back here and insert the photos in the appropriate places. If it doesn't, at least the content of the text is here!
We are looking forward to hearing more news of Flat Stanley. There are a lot of them out there we haven't heard anything about yet! We hope they are all having fun and learning a lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment