Baby = 5 hours sleep
Despite this, we all got up in a really good mood. I think Dan and I were beyond the point of tired, so our bodies just moved on. We booked our hotel at the Shaker Village for two nights, but we decided it would be best to just spend the day there and then drive a couple of hours closer to our next destination. We packed up, loaded the car and headed to checkout explaining why we were leaving early. They admitted they probably weren't the best accommodation for babies and graciously let us off the hook.
We bought tickets for a self-guided tour and donned with a map, started exploring. One thing that caught our eye as soon as we arrived were these beautiful stone walls all over the village. Miles of them. I've always thought dry-stacked stone wall were pretty, but these had a particularly interesting top.
Here Dan and Samuel are standing in front of a cute little gift shop.
I explored the Meeting House - where they gathered every Sunday to worship. The purpose for the two doors is 'balance'. The Shaker lifestyle, we learned, is all about balance. Men and women are equal, so all their buildings have a door for each gender and are very symmetrical.
It's a very non-descriptive, open space were they could dance, sing, worship, etc. The Shakers also believed everything had to have a purpose, thus very little adornment. If it didn't do something functional, it didn't need to be in the design.
The whole upstairs of the Meeting House was where the community leaders lived - 2 males and 2 females. Again, we see the balance. They lived their lives very separate from the rest of the community. Not because they believed they were better than the rest, simply to remain objective - to determine if what they were doing and how they were doing it was working. Here is one of the 'apartments'.
After this tour, we decided to break for lunch. There is a restaurant in the village that serves great Shaker style food. Other than a small snack shop with sandwiches and soda, this is the only place to eat in the village, or anywhere nearby for that matter. The Shakers even put all of their food to use - nothing was wasted. For example: they had pickled watermelon rinds and lemon pie that included the whole lemon - rind and all. We were a little hesitant, but had to try it. It turned out to be really good!
Dan explored another house - this one was a bit prestigious. Only families/community members that were highly regarded and looked up to were allowed to live here. Although men and women are equal, the Shakers did have a sort of hierarchy to their lifestyle.
The Shakers lived a celibate life, so to thrive they had to recruit new members. For about a 100 years this worked well because everyone in the community shared the labor, but they also all reaped the benefits. However, due to industrialization and food that could be bought, the Shaker lifestyle became less enticing to people and their numbers started to dwindle. In 1910, the last Shaker member in this community died and the village and it's 5000 acres were auctioned off.
We explored more shops and by late afternoon storm clouds started moving in, so we decided it would be a good time to move on. About two hours later, we pulled into a Hampton Inn - which was a site for weary eyes. Here we had no squeaky floor boards, nice firm pillows and sound proof walls. Ahhhh........
But it was only about 5pm, so we found a local restaurant and had a leisurely dinner. Then, since Samuel had never been swimming, we thought it would be fun to check out the hotel pool. After Dan got acclimated to the cool water, Samuel got in with him. At first, Samuel was very confused and didn't like the chilly water. But after a while I think he realized it was just a really big bath tub and he started splashing around and having fun.
Needless to say, all three of us slept like rocks that night!
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