L'Hermione - docked in Old Town!

A replica of L'Hermione, the ship that carried General Lafayette, troops and supplies for the American Revolution docked in Alexandria. Through a bit of confusion, I was able to score a pair of tickets after waiting in line - and a kind man in line behind me gifted me his second ticket so that I could take both Connor and Helen on the tour.

Connor's class has been studying Virginia history, and he is particularly drawn to all part of history related to war, so I knew this would be a big hit with him. Helen is not quite as enthralled with wars, but she does love old-timey things, so there was a change this would be a huge hit with her as well.

In order to pick-up our tickets, we needed to arrive at noon. Our tickets were good for touring the boat at 1:30. This left us plenty of time to walk around the dock, get a ridiculously thorough explanation of naval navigation at the time of L'Hermione, and have an ice cream snack.

Even before stepping foot on the ship, Connor kept muttering "this is awesome" and "thank you so much, mom". He then spent his time on the ship noticing details, asking about them, and reminding me of tidbits about the ship he had read earlier in the day.

This solidly qualifies as another one of the ridiculously great experiences Connor and Helen have gotten to go to because they live in this area.

Elaine