I really loved that fort in St. Augustine. America really sucks in terms of having castles, but that's a close enough.
The big field trip for our seventh grade class was to the abattoir to see cows getting turned into steak. It struck me as kind of a weird thing to subject 7th graders to.
It was probably even more weird for the cattle.
The one memory that sticks is going to New York City in middle school and going to the top of one of the Twin Towers.
1: Boldt Castle in the Thousand Islands is also nice, but it's more of a country home misnamed as a castle (also common in the old world).
I grew up with a friend of my Dad's owning/living in a castle,* and with badass huge castles* within a short cycling distance.
We didn't go to castles for school trips, though. Usually to plays or pantomimes, or to the zoo.
*
http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/misc-sites/29704-torwood-castle-falkirk.html#.VV9Ho5NVhBc
He used to live in the tall tower section. I remember it being damp.
** Stirling, for example. Which has the whole 'fuck off cliff' thing happening.
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/stirling/stirlingcastle/images/am-450.jpg
I have a very vivid memory of being on a field trip to an alligator and snake farm. We got there, parked, sat in the bus for a very, very long time. Eventually the teachers announced that there'd been some confusion about the rates, and so we were no longer able to go there because it was too expensive. So we went on to the coquina fort in St. Augustine instead.
In fact, there is really a LOT of castles where I'm from:
http://www.stravaiging.com/history/castles/county/stirlingshire
Stirling Castle is awesome. Great views.
But only one thing in Florida is functionally and aesthetically comparable to a castle.
The only field trips I can really remember were literal field trips. Like going into the countryside and measuring how much of what type of plant was growing in a survey square or whatever those things are called.
We had other outings but they were always under the auspices of a club or something like that.
Castle-wise, my school basically was one.
But only one thing in Florida is functionally and aesthetically comparable to a castle.
It's probably impractical to build castles in a swamp. But hey, alligators!
14: I hear the way to get around the swamp problem is to iterate.
As Stormcrow said, nothing is sweeter than beating Moby to the obvious joke.
Speaking of trips to Florida and beatings, I've successfully managed not to go to Disney World while raising a child through the 3rd grade. Go me.
I feel like I missed a thread that would make 15 make sense.
For the Chicago portion of my childhood, I remember field trips to the big museums (Field, Science and Industry, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, and Art Institute) and the zoos (Brookfield, Lincoln Park). In high school, in Virginia, it was big once-a-year trips, and always with the performing-arts folks. So, the band went to Florida (marched through Universal Studios, saw palm trees for first time) and New York City (saw Eminem). The drama department went to NYC. The show choir, whom I played drums for, went to Boston (visited Berklee and the Faneuil Hall Marketplace).
This year, one of my classes took a field trip to the Supreme Court. That was pretty cool, though we missed the King v. Burwell oral arguments by one day.
18: We've dodged it despite going to Florida all the time, and staying this summer in Orlando itself! But I'm not actually anti-Disney - just don't feel like taking babies and toddlers there. We'll probably go in a few years.
I've avoided the entire state of Florida since about 1987.
I liked Stirling Castle, but not as much as I liked my childhood friend's fake 1970s castle (now used primarily as a porn set) where the moat was the swimming pool.
Or maybe the swimming pool was the moat. Not sure which order that should go in.
Not exactly a field trip, but I recall an annual Field Day at my elementary school, where all the grades (1-8) would walk to this giant W.P.A.-era park and just run around all day, while teachers and parents grilled out. Way too free-rangey for today's coddled kids on my lawn.
For the Chicago portion of my childhood, I remember field trips to the big museums (Field, Science and Industry, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, and Art Institute) and the zoos (Brookfield, Lincoln Park)
I did all those. And a factory where they made Girl Scout cookies.
The girls' school has field day, but they go to the football field and run around all day, but they eat sandwiches.
That's what we had also. We were too far from anything to have a field trip.
Hawaii has a field day today. They get one every nine weeks, for good behavior. I could go volunteer, but uh.
We took a week long field trip to Florida in the 8th grade, taking a charter bus down from DC. Saw the coquina fort, space center, Magic Kingdom, Epcot. I got my first kiss at Sea World.
Today Mara is going to the aquarium (walkable) and having grilled cheese for lunch with the fire fighters who are her class's adopt-a-class match. Nia's class was matched with an accounting firm and got to have a holiday party at their office, but their lunch out was just at the Boys & Girls Club. All of this counts toward the odious "college and career readiness" standard I've complained about many times before.
FORCED KISING OF 8TH GRADE BOYS ON FIELD TRIPS IS ITS OWN KIND OF SEXUAL SLAVERY.
It struck me as kind of a weird thing to subject 7th graders to.
I'm blanking on whether this was 7th or 8th grade now, but we had a week-long field trip to DC and Virginia, one of the highlights of which was a tour of the Philip Morris factory in Richmond (IIRC). Ah, the early 80s. I remember the teachers walking out with complimentary cartons.
The most memorable and awful part was at the end, when our tour guide asked if there were any questions. One of the dweebiest members of our class broke into a passionate rant about how evil cigarettes are and how can you people live with yourselves selling death like this, on and on. And then he realized everyone was staring/snickering at him, and he burst into tears. God I'm cringing horribly right now just thinking about it.
And that little boy grew up and became the internet.
There is something tragic about one class getting matched with the firefighters! and the other with the accountants.
39: The other day, I gave a talk to a group of local high schoolers on the subject of wrongful convictions. Beforehand, I found out the students had chosen a week of focused curriculum from a whole list of subject areas: criminal justice, technical drawing/CAD stuff, other stuff I'm forgetting, and even fly-fishing.
So at the beginning of the talk, I and my fellow speaker had the students go around, say their name and grade year, and why they had chosen this topic. My favorite answer: "I heard this option had the best free food."
There is something tragic about one class getting matched with the firefighters! and the other with the accountants.
Indeed, because the firefighters will immediately put the matches out, but matches + accountants = tragic office fire.
Fire beats accountants, accountants beat firefighters, firefighters beat fire.
accountants beat firefighters,
Especially if they work for Crimson Permanent Assurance.
Ah, I'm remembering another trip where my high school government class got to go to town hall and everyone shadowed a member of the government. My girlfriend, being an overachiever, got to follow the mayor; I, being a slack, got to follow an unenthused social worker. I'm sure whatever message they weren't trying to teach us didn't stick.
Kid going to Yosemite next week, parents home alone yessssssss!
Sime of the in house lawyers at the IRS here are tremendous fun to drink with, and the firefighter officials I run into on municipal politics committee work are stiff, self important and humorless, so I wouldn't assume the accountants are the short end of the stick. Although it is possible the relevant metrics (drinking companion/political interlocutor vs elementary school role models) may differ slightly.
We had a ton of field trips. Some other ones that left an impression on me:
--In I think kindergarten, we went to some rinky-dink zoo, and I happened to be in the right place at the right time to witness the miracle of birth. Of a llama I'm pretty sure it was. That was gross.
--In 4th grade, in the Pine Barrens. We're hiking around and I see the kid nearest me hunched over, clutching his arms around himself and yelling, so I run over to see what's wrong, and proceed the get the shit stung out of me by the wasps whose nest the other kid had kicked over. At least it wasn't the Jersey Devil, which is what our asshole teacher tried to get us all worked up about on the bus trip down.
--In 5th grade we had a multi-day trip where we went up to a state forest in northern NJ for 3-4 days, lots of hiking/skating/etc., and the final night was supposed to be a big square dance. But then a sufficiently large portion of us got in trouble (I can't remember what for--something to do with misbehavior in the mess hall?) that the teachers decided to inflict the collective punishment of cancelling the square dance altogether. Of course we'd all been dreading it so this was not the most effective punishment.
--At some point in HS, the Latin Club (shut up) took a field trip into NY to see A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. It turned out to be a production by something called the "Theater of Magic and Transformation," in the basement of some Upper West Side apartment building or something, and which as far as I could tell from the pamphlets they handed out (as if the name weren't enough) was some kind of cult/encounter group that did amateur theater as a form of therapy for the actors. It was actually really fucking good. (Oh, huh, here's the listing in NY Mag. Good to know I didn't dream the whole thing up.)
Speaking of field trips.
VW's doing a book thing at P&P in DC this evening. I'm going. Anyone else? I think I'll get some pizza at Comet Ping Pong before the event.
Theater of Magic
Awesome pinball table, that.
47: Thanks for posting that! I might make it, but I might just collapse when I get home.
Power plant, water company, jail, Ranch Style Beans. I missed the field trip to the dinosaur footprints at Glen Rose, which wasn't open to the public yet, and the one to Justin Boots. Six Flags, I think. A week long ski trip (to Purgatory).
Purgatory was how my kid thought of the class ski trip last year but then he had the great good luck to break his foot a couple of weeks before and got to spend the trip hanging out on the sofa with the day's wounded once they got back from the ER in Truckee and prior to being shipped home to anxious parents. He had a good time! Also if you know anyone looking for good training as an orthopedic surgeon let me recommend the Truckee ER, especially for wrists and knees.
I can remember the old mint, Alcatraz, a couple of shows at ACT, etc. My most memorable trips tho were definitely with youth orchestras, not school.
I'm thinking of ditching the family for part of the weekend and trying my new hiking gear in the wilds of the Laurel Highlands. I'm just having trouble with the permit web page and have mixed feeling about pooping in the woods.
I'm drawing a blank on field trips in Junior High/Middle School, which is when they seem to be most common. Something may come to me.
In Ottawa, before Grade 6, The National Gallery and the Victoria Memorial Museum, which was home to both Nature Museum and Anthropology, much as the Field is in Chicago. Also the National Archives, I think. All have moved, been split or otherwise altered from what they were then. Even now I'll encounter a type of artifact or painting and recall having seen one then.
In HS we took two memorable trips in 1968, to the Blackman's Development Center, where we were harangued by a Black Power spokeswoman in an enormous Afro. I, uncharacteristically, spoke up in defense of Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner. Maybe I mentioned that before.
The other trip was a survey of the stages and policy phases of Urban Renewal in Columbus since 1945. Columbus had an example of every type, including the high rises like Pruitt Igoe in SL or Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, which were already passe for planners in the late 60s. The Columbus representative was called Market Mohawk, which I think still stands but was privatized. We actually went to the locales, pretty cool for white suburbanites.
Also, it's somewhat annoying when I type "PA" into the state field for an online form and get "Palau." Especially when I'm on a web site run by the state of Pennsylvania and have just typed "Pittsburgh" in the previous box.
53.last: Did you get to the Death Kroger?
wilds of the Laurel Highlands
Recalls the Rolling Rock ads of 50 years ago.
54: This annoys me to no end. The advantage of living in Pennsylvania is that you should get to press one letter to skip to the right item in state combo boxes. Hell, our abbreviation is "PA" so that should come before whatever Palau's is. Stupid Palau, you're not even a territory, you're just in free association with us.
Anyway, six miles through the hills, camp, and then return. Doesn't sound lethal or anything.
The Virgin Islands are sometimes ahead of Virginia on such lists. I don't really mind, since at least our state gets to have sex.
Not on a school field trip, but I lived in Short North as a young adult in the 70s, and do know the place.
Did gentrification there keep going? I haven't been there at all in a decade.
59: If the Vandalia proposal had succeeded, we'd be getting in your way, too. (Well, maybe not, since not all parts of Pittsburgh were included in it.)
Yes, it's unrecognizable all the way up High Street from Nationwide.
Roughly 1/3 of our field trips were to Ricketts Glen State Park, 1/3 were to Hickory Run State Park, and 1/3 were to Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm. Then there was one to the local nuclear plant. Museums? Factories? Zoos? I know not these concepts.
I had a really great fig/goat cheese/arugula pizza in Short North a month or so ago, if that answers your question.
So, if the Palau Department of Conservation and Natural Resources says the average hiking speed along a trail is 1.5 miles per hour, are they calling me fat or pointing out that the trail is really steep?
The only field trips I can sort of remember are one to Chicago, that I think was to the Field Museum with a side trip to the Sears Tower, and another field trip that was to the Janesville Assembly Plant. Maybe it was the Belvidere Assembly Plant.
Belvidere Assembly Plant
A lady in the sheets, a LeBaron in the streets.
64: Oh, huh, you must have been just on the other side of the mountains from me. I'm from the Lehigh Valley. I think I might have gone to Quiet Valley as a small child, although I don't remember it.
That was me. Still trying to figure out what they mean by estimating 1.5 mph.
I'm from the Lehigh Valley.
The Moravian part, or the part immortalized by Billy Joel? The former is lousy with BOGF relatives.
I'm really just here to say how funny I find the anecdote in the asterisked part of the OP.
Enh, sort of in-between. My parents have a Moravian address but we were closer to and dealt more with the Billy Joel part (I went to Billy Joel Catholic HS, which as I write it out is the best name ever.) However, now that my mom's health has gone to shit, I've ended up spending a lot more time in the Moravian part. It's a very pretty town, with oddly generic street names.
The rest of the office has left, but I'm still working hard/thinking about hiking. I already have a water filter, which apparently you need because you can't drink the water at most of the remote places, and a stove. I could get the other supplies (summer sausage, a six pack of ramen noodles, some pistachios, some instant oatmeal, and two little bags of Swedish Fish) at nearly any store.
I've been reading up on this Moravian stuff. Most everything emphasizes colonial settlements and missions, which I'm familiar with because of the story of the Revolutionary-era missions in Ohio.
But was there large-scale Czech immigration to the Valley in industrial times? I'm familiar with the Iowa settlements of the late 19th century but don't know much about PA.
large-scale Czech immigration to the Valley in industrial times?
I thought the Moravians in PA were German? Moravian College has a well-known two-week program to learn to read old German script, which they can do because they have such extensive archives of handwritten German documents.
Once again, I'm amazed at people's ability to remember stuff. I'm sure we did all the standard Chicago trips, but I can't remember any of them. In high school there was Model UN (Vanuatu) and Model Congress (Warren Rudman) but I can only remember that one of them was in Boston and the other was...I have no idea. And the only thing I remember about the Boston trip was that the previous years' kids told us about a restaurant in Chinatown that didn't card, so we all got on the T and got very drunk on that big communal bowl of Mai Tai that some Chinese places serve.
The Moravian Brethren left Moravia I'm pretty sure before 1800, they were basically living in isolated secrecy prior to leaving. CZ was Habsburg, no aboveground protestants or even vernacular bibles thank you.
My older son's sixth grade field trip was to the atomic bomb museum in Hiroshima and the site of a WWII poison gas factory on an island nearby.
What Blume said. The founder of the biggest Moravian city was Nicolaus von Zinzendorf; locally "Moravian" is known entirely as a religious descriptor, not an ethnic one, because of Moravian College, Academy, etc. In general the ethnic minorities in Pennsylvania before 19th century industrialization were almost all German or British, but with a lot of variety within those two groups.
During industrialization, there surely were Czechs but I don't think they stood out as a particularly large group; e.g., I know a lot more Polish people. Then again, I had some elementary school classmates whose names are probably Czech, e.g. Ma/jcz/a/n, which upon googling is entirely local to that area.
76: I'd forgotten about that thread!
81: hardcore. Did they get school rations whale meat?
83: Not on that trip, but it did get served for school lunch a couple of times. Both kids said it was good, but I think that was at least partly to wind me up.
But only one thing in Florida is functionally and aesthetically comparable to a castle.
A good excuse to link to Coral Castle:
Heartbroken and deeply saddened by this tragic loss, Ed set out on a lifelong quest to create a monument to his lost love that has become one of the world's most remarkable accomplishments, originally called Rock Gate Park but now known as the Coral Castle. With no outside assistance or large machinery Ed single-handedly built the Coral Castle, carving and sculpting over 1,100 tons of coral rock, as a testimony to his lost love, Agnes.
What makes Ed's work remarkable is the fact that he was just over 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds. In this part of Florida, the coral in some areas can be up to 4,000 feet thick. Incredibly, he cut and moved huge coral blocks using only hand tools. He had acquired some skills working in lumber camps and came from a family of stonemasons in Latvia. He drew on this knowledge and strength to cut and move these blocks.
Speaking of field trips, there is this neighbor of mine who has now posted for the fourth time in about six months on our neighborhood internet bulletin board thing that his turtle has escaped!!!!! This time the notice is accompanied by apologies for past escapes but, what the hell turtle guy, how hard can it be to manage your slow-moving animal? Maybe he's letting it escape on purpose to meet neighbors?? Also, the turtle's name is V/oldetort.
The Don Cesar is kind of castle like, for Florida.
86: This has been going around twitter, and might be relevant.
If all of his posts are commensurate with a time suitable for drinking (Friday afternoon) you have a possible explanation.
We went to the British Museum, and apart from that it was mostly various stately homes, castles and zoos, all in Kent. We went to Chislehurst Caves a few times http://www.chislehurst-caves.co.uk because they were really nearby, and cheap. And everyone went to a local Roman villa because one of our history teachers had written a book about it http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/lullingstone-roman-villa/
My boy went to CERN, which wins, I think.
Turtles aren't always as slow as people think, they're just really awkward so they don't generally run. But they're strong as all get out and could totally make a break for it if you weren't watching carefully.
Some pets are just escape artists, though.
We prefer "highly motivated toward freedom."
70, you're right!
Looking at it now, we had to go much farther to get to fucking Quiet Valley Butter Churn Preservation Society than to the Steamtown historical site OR Eckley Miner's Village, both far more awesome and actually related to the history of our area. Though I did get to go to Steamtown once.
85: I can't wait to show that to the kids. We have family photos from there circa 1980, but they're almost all awful*. I also went to the other castle in FL in the summer of '80. St. Augustine is a pretty cool place.
*most pics are of the castle itself, of varying quality (taken with a cheap Kodak; my dad subsequently got a decent SLR, but never got all that good at it (although he had his moments)). Anyway, it occurs to me that nowadays it's silly to photograph famous buildings, because better pics than yours are on the internet, but of course that's only newly true.
Miami field trips included the Space Transit Planetarium (yes, home of Jack Horkheimer), Vizcaya, Cape Florida lighthouse (which has a very exciting story about an Indian attack), and, of course, the Everglades. In HS in NJ, I don't think we ever went anywhere but NYC* and Great Adventure (not the awesome amusement park that was actually closer).
*The trip in which we went to see "Into the Woods" (original cast) also included South Street Seaport. Now I don't recall our goal (I'm guessing food), but a buddy and I split off and ended up in a cab, trying to get to SSS before the bus left for Broadway. Our teacher was pissed we had left the group; when she found out we'd gotten in a cab, she nearly lost her shit.
You should have gotten a ride with a stranger.
In retrospect I was really spoiled this way: various Smithsonian museums (my definite favorite was the Natural History museum, closely followed by Air & Space; the American History museum felt somehow musty, gloomy and boring), the National Zoo, Harper's Ferry (with special reference to John Brown), Antietam, camping trips in the nearer parts of the Appalachia once or twice a year. I also remember a class trip to Goddard Space Flight Center once, and even a class trip to Ithaca, Niagara Falls and Toronto, which last trip however I mostly remember as being car-sick for hundreds of miles, plus a giant bookstore with an outstanding science fiction section in Toronto.
97: After all, they have the best candy.
Field trip to hear VW was a success. Very interesting talk, plus a booster against cholera.
Hmm. We had: State Capitol, Mpls Inst of Arts, Guthrie Theater, Walker Art Center, Fort Snelling, Landmark Center (old STP fed courthouse), various other arts venues, Valleyfair amusement park, Crystal Cave, fossil hunting on the banks of the Mississippi, the Roller Gardens and a couple of bowling alleys.
Oh, plus skiing at Buck Hill and Afton Alps and various swimming excursions, although those were more a feature of church youth group outings.
Buck Hill! From that Replacements song!
98: DC 4th and 7th-12th grade has all the good things. memorials, air & space museum (where, speaking of atomic bombings, they had this photosenistive wall you could pose in front of while a strobe light flashed, and then your shadow would remain for a time. it was creepy/cool.) I really loved going to the phillips gallery which has an amazing connection of bonnard. pretty much my favorite room to sit in, one of them. we hiked on the appalachian trail for five days; I did it once as a 7th grader and twice as a HS student-leader of the 7th grade trip. also two weeks camping along the rio grande in big bend national park. girl x got to go learn about japanese war crimes at the old ford factory two months ago. her malaysian (but ethnically chinese) friend was astonished when girl x said that it was going to be awkward with all the japanese students and said, "but nobody cares about that anymore!" ummm, but they do tho...
Hey, howsabout that vote in Ireland? Looking' pretty good.
I held off on reading the #hometovote stuff until this morning, because I knew it was going to make me all teary.
100: Seconded, thanks again for mentioning it.
This is kind of a neat list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metropolitan_areas_that_overlap_multiple_countries
108: yeah, my productivity was pretty much ruined yesterday. Was delightedly surprised by the margin of victory. Am also particularly pleased that rural Ireland and not just urban Ireland voted yes. Only one constituency returned a No majority. Something that made a big difference IMO: personal stories. Out gay sports stars. Parents speaking about wanting all their children to be happy. (Seen on Twitter from one guy- "My mother this morning- Get up out of bed, you have to go and vote for your brother's rights.") Politicians coming out, one aged thirtyish and one aged seventyish.
Note too that working class areas voted Yes strongly.
Note too that working class areas voted Yes strongly.
Yeah, I was impressed that they said some working-class areas of Dublin were at like 80% Yes, which means they even cut into the crazification factor somehow. (Not that I'm an expert on electoral politics in the ROI or anything, but I just kind of assume that at least 25% of the population of any country is going to be lunatic right wing assholes.)
Ireland is more cheerful than Cleveland, recent news-wise. On the topic of field tripping, I am going hiking in the wild tomorrow. I have all the stuff, except Swedish Fish and sausage. I decided to carry 2.5 liters of water because I'm not sure if you can drink the water in Fayette county. Also because I don't know what I'm doing but really dislike being thirsty.
girl x got to go learn about japanese war crimes at the old ford factory
What do they get taught in Narnian schools about Japan and the war? I was impressed my kids' school did take them to the poison gas factory ruins - most schools only visit Hiroshima, and in 6th grade they just study the war in social studies, in terms of what everyday life was like for civilians: "war is hell, so we must never let it happen again" with an unstated elision into Japan as victim. But we lived in a municipality with a left-wing education board, where someone must have been determined to add a view from the other side.
The lunatic right wing assholes ("Iona Institute" etc) are smug prosperous types and did not endear themselves to working class people.
We went to an almost castle-like waste treatment plant! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._C._Harris_Water_Treatment_Plant
