Getting in the Thanksgiving Spirit

What better way to start the season than a trip to the original Plimoth Plantation?

The Plantation is set up to start with a little introductory video about the English settlers and the natives living in the area.

Then, we walked over to the Wampanoag Village, filled with real, live "Native People" who showed us how to make a canoe,

I wanted to get one of those sweet loincloths for Rob, but he wasn't really interested.

how to weave/stitch/knit,

and how to cook a freshly skinned rabbit with beans, cranberries, and grains.

Then we walked down the road to visit the original Plimoth Settlers, all still alive and kicking.

We spoke with a blacksmith and his son,

I also wanted to get Rob some of these sweet bloomers but, again, he wasn't interested....wonder why?

we listened to a fiery sermon from the resident preacher,

played with some guns,

and then left to visit the Mayflower II.

It looks a lot bigger than it is!

We couldn't believe how small the Mayflower was.  There were over 100 passengers living below deck during the grueling 66-day journey across the Atlantic.  Then, the passengers had to keep living on the boat during the winter while they were trying to figure out where to put their settlement.

One of the crew on-board described that the Mayflower was the 17th century version of a U-Haul, and the pilgrims were considered to be cargo and were treated that way.  Life in Europe must have been pretty bad to justify taking that trip!

Before we could leave, we had to walk over and see the ROCK....

...which ended up being extremely under-whelming.  It's probably about the size of a small dishwasher.  So I don't really understand why it's such a big deal, but we can now saw that WE'VE SEEN IT.  Which is really what counts.