We spent some time Saturday at an old furnace town near Show Hill. It’s a kind of Jerusalem Mill on steroids, based on an 18th century iron furnace “company town”. They have a dozen or so buildings reflecting different aspects of life in the town. The day we were there, they had a blacksmith and a printer running their respective shops. Both were interesting people.
We will drive home immediately after work Tuesday. Mark is defending his thesis Wednesday. We will attend his presentation, along with Jiajia, Ed, and Lynne. We aren’t invited to hang while Mark’s committee discusses his thesis with him, so Jiajia will take us to visit the University of Maryland ice cream creamery. Danita and I will take everybody out to dinner Wednesday evening to celebrate. Besides being an interesting and fun day, it gives us an opportunity to take our cold-weather gear home. We will return early Thursday morning, so we can get back in time for a school group presentation we will lead on Thursday.
The last school group visit at Assateague Island is Friday. After that, we will transition to a Wednesday – Sunday work week so we can do traditional interpretive ranger programs with park visitors.
I hope this finds everybody doing well.