Birthday Sniffles

Hello, from a year-older traveling gypsy woman who received a present she definitely didn't want for her birthday...

a cold.

I've been knocked down since Friday night with a bad cold and sinus issues. Hurrah. I'm still on cold medicine and have been steaming my head in an effort to stop the sinus pressure. Noel had problems on Friday too, but seems to be healthier than I am, since he's recovered nicely.

Old age stinks.

Anyway, on my birthday, we went to a local living history museum. It was interesting, although not necessarily historically accurate (there were things from all different kinds of time periods thrown together, hodge-podge).

As with most living history museums, it had old buildings set up as businesses/homes of the time. There were lots of interesting things, including this:

We thought at first it was a coffin, but it isn't. It's a wicker basket shaped like a coffin, used to bring badly injured soldiers off of the field of battle. It's where the phrase "basket case" comes from. Interesting!

We did see a coffin too, of the old toe-pincher variety.

They had old wagons (this one was pretty stylin'!):

I was thrilled with the old dresses and boots (look at how narrow their feet were!):

And an added treat - Victorian sewing patterns that were printed in the newspapers of the time:

Noel looks warily at the dunce cap in the schoolhouse:

(hee hee - just kidding!)

Some of you may not know, but I have an irrational fear of clowns. Most people don't understand where this comes from. I'll show you EXACTLY why clowns are scary:

Some kid had nightmares for the rest of his life after receiving this. Even Stephen King would be terrified of that thing.

Yesterday evening, a very interesting and bizarre bus moved into the campground. They stopped right outside of our RV, and Noel went out to make sure everything was ok. He was out there a few minutes, then came back in and told me I had to check out this RV in the morning. He wasn't kidding!

Isn't that AWESOME? And weird!? He actually got to go on it, and said that the woodwork on the inside was amazing. I didn't get to see the inside, but snapped a few pics this morning before they left. It's owned by a religious sect called the Twelve Tribes, a Christian group that resembles 1970 hippie communes.

We did find some pictures of the inside of the bus on the internet. You can see them here:

http://rides.webshots.com/album/549608275rEehcF

Gorgeous, isn't it? They built it themselves - what incredible workmanship! We just loved it!!