Fort Vancouver

Grandma Ricki is in town, when her sister, Tammy, heard about it and realized that she would be in the Portland area too, they decided to get together. Not sure how it all came about the plan was to meet at Fort Vancouver this morning and I'm glad that's where they decided to meet. Joel has lived in the Vancouver area a lot longer than I have and he had actually never been there. I have been down and around that area, always on the outside though, never on the inside. I'm glad we decided to go, it's actually a pretty fun and educational place to visit. You can visit the Fort Vancouver website and plan a trip of your own. Give us a call and we'll even meet you down there. I posted some pictures to my facebook account already so I tried not to duplicate here on the blog. I, shocking I know, took a ton of pictures but kicked myself later for not taking more of the family. Tammy, Thomas and Richard were all there and I got a few pictures of my boys (all three) and just a couple of Tammy and her family. Sheesh, hand me a camera and my brain goes all haywire.

So the fort is actually all replicated from pictures and archeology digs that have been done. They aren't even sure if this is the exact site of the fort. However, they did an incredible job building it back up to look like it would have back then.

Blacksmith swinging his hammer.
They have volunteers who work on the weekends. They dress in period clothing and do the jobs from that time. Got the feeling, though, that it was whatever volunteers showed up that day that would dictate what you got to see.

The Blacksmith Shop

Chief Factor's Residence

Bastion

Carpenter at work.
This wood shop was incredible.

The volunteer carpenter let Oliver help run the treadle.

Joel was drooling!

I really liked these light fixtures in the Counting House.

I also fell in love with this pitcher and bowl, actually the entire set-up was beautiful.

Pitchers, decanters and glasses, again in the Counting House.

The Fur Warehouse

The Jail
The people put in jail were shackled to the wall and given a small wool blanket to sleep on the floor with. The room was dark with little to no light coming in.

Tammy and Ricki standing in front of an heirloom rose bush. Those roses smelled amazing.

Joel relaxing his weary head on the cannon.

Shutters on the gorgeous porch of the Chief Factor's Residence. Glass of lemonade, a rocking chair and some good company and you'd never get me off of this porch.
The inside of the house was incredible too but my batteries were dying and I didn't get many pictures.