Richmond

My favorite thing in Richmond was the Petersburg Battlefield because they had a lot of cool sites. My favorite site was a defensive fortification because it showed you the captain's cabin, the soldiers cabin, trenches and canons. Jackson Sargent is my great-great-great-grandfather. He fought there in 1865 and won the medal of honor for carrying the VT flag in the charge.

                                                     Firing the canon

                                                        Loading my weapon

                                                  Playing Confederate soldier

                           Playing Union soldier, trying not to get shot as I charge

My second favorite thing was seeing the Museum of the Confederacy. I liked all the weapons they had there. There were guns and cool swords. I learned that more people died of disease than from bullets. I also learned that in one battle, the Battle of Gettysburg, more soldiers died than have died in the last ten years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq. I also saw two bullets, one from the North, one from the South that collided in mid-air. It is called a rosette because it kind of looks like a rose.

I had dinner with my cousins on two nights. We played with my cousin's iPad. Richmond had lots of history.

  
                                          My cousins, Gwen, Max and Josh

Seneca Rocks

The first day at Seneca Rocks was ok. I didn’t like the bathroom at the campsite because there were a lot of wasps and bugs. When we went climbing I was even more scared because we went to the top of the Gun Site and the rock was very slippery. It was also very thin. The rock was sandstone.

                                       See how thin the rock is

                                                 The Gunsight

                                On top, scared out of my mind

                                         Glad to be down with my stick 

The second day was very fun because we went toproping. Top roping is when one person goes up at a time. You go as far as you want, then you can get lowered down. The first climb was not as fun as the last because I kept getting stuck on the same ledge every time. The cool thing about it was there were very deep caves. The biggest cave was the coolest because it had water coming out of the walls. The second climb was fun because I got to the top of the climb and we were really high up.

                                                 Playing Jurassic Park

                                              Having a great time

                                                Way up high!!

When we got back, me and my sister started playing with sticks and I had tomato soup for dinner. Then we all went to get ice cream. The second day was very very fun. Now we’re headed back into Virginia.

Washington DC

I loved Washington DC. When I grow up I want to live there. It’s not really littered like New York, there are big parks, the President lives there and they have really cool museums. My favorite is the buildings of the Smithsonian. We went to the Air and Space Museum and the Natural History Museum. In there, the dinosaur section was even bigger than the one in New York. They had all different kinds of fossils and they were really well preserved. My favorite one in there was the Tyrranosaurus Rex and the Tricerotops. They also had an Ice Age section and a sea section, like NYC, but they had even more section like ancient plants and animals before dinosaurs exhibit. The dinosaur section was both upstairs and downstairs. I saw many cool different types of rocks, religions and animals there.

This is a Coelcanthe, discovered in Africa. Scientists thought this fish was extinct until they found it alive swimming deep in the ocean.

This is an armored head shark.

This is a Kronosaurus, like a big alligator with fins.

 This is the jaw bone of a Megelodon, the world's largest shark from ancient times.

We also went to a lot of major monuments like the Washington monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building. We also saw cool war memorials like WWII, Vietnam and Korea. Washington DC was probably one of the coolest places I’ll go on this trip. 

                                                         The Vietnam Memorial

                                                               WWII Memorial

                                                     Washington DC was awesome!!

New York City

The city felt pretty big, cold and dark, because we were still pretty close to VT. I still like the country better because it doesn’t have big buildings and dark alleys. But I like the city because it has the American Museum of Natural History. In the museum there were lots of cool things, but nothing as cool as the upstairs dinosaur section. There was my favorite paleontologist, Barnum Brown’s discovery of the first T-Rex. The other sections were very interesting, like the sea section and animals of the ice age.

When I met Carl, the paleontologist that knows Ms. Chisholm, he showed me one of the newest fossils to be discovered. They just named it, but Carl couldn’t tell me what it was. It was, I guess, top secret so no one could steal the name. Then Carl’s colleague was preparing a skull of a new dinosaur that looks like a minotaur. It’s name is Minotaurosaurus.

Carl took us to the Big Bone Room where they keep bones from all different kinds of dinosaurs from all different periods. There was a desert raptor-like dinosaur from the Gobi Desert that was sitting on its eggs, which is very rare. When we were almost done, Carl showed me a T-Rex brain socket. He had me guess what it was. After I guessed what it was, he gave me two cool books. One was “Dinosaur Hunters”, the other was called “Barnum Brown, the Man who discovered the T-Rex.” It was awesome to meet Carl and see all the different cool types of fossils. 

This is Carl and me in his office. He gave me these awesome books signed by the author.

aka Bean

Hi, my name is Jackson, aka Bean. I am going on a four month trip around America because my dad is retired from the Army. I'm going to be living in a 19 ft. camper. On this trip I hope we get to visit lots of museums and historical sites. And most of all I want to dig for dinosaurs and see Mesa Verde.

It's kind of sad to leave because I'm not going to see my friends for a long time. But I'm still happy because I get to see a lot of cool places.

The purpose of this blog is to stay in touch with my teachers and classmates. I want to keep up on my school work and ask cool questions. I also want to stay in touch with family and friends.

I hope you enjoy reading about my trip. I'll write more later.

Bean