Friday, September 28, 2007

Hill-Stead Museum

Today we hooked up with some homeschooling buddies to explore the grounds at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT. A turn of the century country estate, the 10 buildings and their grounds are now a haven for fine and performing arts. Tours of the museum are available, but we decided our young boys would be better suited to exploring the grounds. We'll save the less-physical activities for when they are a bit older.

In addition to impressive New England architechture, there is plenty of stone walls, hay fields, pastures, and meadows to explore. We brought along our letterboxing supplies, too, as there is a series of boxes on the property. We had a beautiful afternoon for our adventure.

The kids rolling down the grassy hill that leads to the museum's sunken garden. The garden is a cultural gathering spot, hosting musical events and poetry readings throughout the summer. We'll try to attend one of those events next summer, it's such a beautiful setting.


Out on the trails, letterboxing. The kids are working on getting our notebooks stamped and stamping the box's notebook. The trail was well-maintained and the boxes were easy to find by following the clues, but I would reccommend sturdy footwear, you do need to navigate your way across rocks and old stone walls to get to them.

Zoo Boy straggling behind on our way back to the parking lot. We would have all liked to hike a little further, but it was time for them to lock the gates and we had to leave. It left us needing one more box in the series to find, a couple more trials to explore, and a lookout that we didn't have time to visit but dearly wanted to. Gives us a good excuse to go back again soon! Maybe when the foliage is at it's peak.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

oh! what a beautiful afternoon! it looks like a great place. i wish we were closer so we could have joined you!

maybe in the summer?