All Aboard....An Adventure

This year for Destiny's birthday (my baby girl is 10 now!) we decided to take a trip. I wanted to do something special for my girls. Maybe now would be a good time to backtrack in this story. I'll start at the beginning. We had been learning all about the Titanic in home school and Destiny had taken quite an interest in all things Titanic. She had so many questions and would get so excited when she would find the answers to those questions.

About a month ago, I decided that it would be fun to take our family for a weekend trip to Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. I started researching for a good hotel and getting prices for fun things we could do while we were there. We decided to go on our trip during Destiny's birthday weekend. I found an awesome deal on a family suite. It had 2 bedrooms (each with a television!), a kitchen, a sitting area, and a private balcony. The amenities included an indoor pool, a lazy river, and a game room. The kids were thrilled and that's all we heard about for a month. Laney just kept going on about the pool. She couldn't wait to put on her swimsuit and see the pool. On the day that we left for Pigeon Forge I asked Laney, "where are we going?" and she said, "gone fim im fimmy pool! Go!"(translation: going to swim in my swimming pool! Let's go!) We left on Friday, February 18th. We decided to invite my sister to come with us. The girls love spending time with her and we don't get to see her often enough. The hotel was just as nice as the website promised. It was really the nicest place we've ever stayed at.

I had booked online for boarding passes to the 'Pigeon Forge Titanic Museum' for Saturday, which was Destiny's birthday. I was a little bummed to discover that we wouldn't be allowed to take pictures while we were inside the museum, but I was happy to take my camera and get some shots of the exterior. Talk about a neat looking building! On Saturday, we were given boarding passes and new identities while we waited in line to "board the ship." **giggles** Yes, I said we were given new identities. They gave us each a card with a name of one of the original Titanic passengers on it. The card told the age and class of the passenger. It also told basic info about that person's life before they boarded Titanic. Before entering the museum, Destiny told a crew member that is was her birthday and she had chosen to spend her special day learning about Titanic's only voyage. The rest of the day she was given special treatment. Every crew member on the ship made a fuss over her. They even gave her a special gift for being there on her birthday. We all had a fun day. The tour took a little more than 2 hours and no one was bored. Laney was even interested in looking at the various pictures and artifacts on display. Our cards told us to look for certain display cases in the museum. When we found those display cases we would find new information about our special passenger. At the end of the tour we would have the chance to search the memorial wall of names to find out if our passenger made it off the Titanic alive. We got to keep our cards and I plan to add them to my scrapbook.

Bobby was Henry Sleeper Harper. Henry was a first class passenger traveling with his family. He also had his dog with him (one of only 10 dogs on the Titanic) and the card reminded him to make sure to ask a crew member if the dog lived. (It did, by the way!) Henry was plagued with tonsillitis that came on soon after they boarded. He was a member of the famous family behind the Harper Publishing House.

I was Mary Fortune, a first class passenger from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Mary was traveling on the Titanic with her husband and children.

Destiny was Juliette LaRoche, a 2nd class passenger from Paris, France. Juliette was married to the only African American man that was aboard the Titanic.

Paisley was Emma Bliss, a crew member on the Titanic's maiden voyage. She was one of only 23 stewardesses on the ship.

Delaney was Selena Cook, a 2nd class passenger from Oxford, England. Selena suffered from a terrible toothache during her voyage on the Titanic and, oddly enough, we got to see the tooth that was giving her trouble when we went thru the cabin area of the museum.

My sister was, unbelievably, Molly Brown. This is funny to me because before we got out of the car that morning my sister said she wanted to be Molly Brown. They had a big stack of passenger cards and we weren't allowed to choose who we got to be for the day. They arrange the cards so that no one can end up with the same identity. Each stack has only one Molly Brown.

Here are some pictures of our day: