Our active family loves outings with plenty of hands-on play, so we always enjoy a trip to Old Sturbridge Village, a re-created 19th-century town in central Massachusetts. The period clothing, buildings, and tools give us a sense of being in history, in a way that reading about the era in a book could never do. Julian, age 3, likes best visiting the chickens in the barnyard; Jonas, 7, is old enough to try many of the village's activities. Along the way, we all learn how cool it is to go back in time.
ADDRESS: 1 Old Sturbridge Village Road, Sturbridge, Massachusetts
HOURS: Open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, April through October. Winter hours vary; check the website for more information.
ADMISSION: $20 for adults, $7 for kids ages 3 to 17, free for kids under age 3 (includes a second visit within 10 days)
CONTACT: 508-347-3362; osv.org
1. Bumpity Bump! What could feel more like time travel than a spin around the village common in a horse-drawn stagecoach? Jonas is impressed by the speed, and Julian chants, "Bumpity, bumpity, bumpity." We imagine how long it would take to ride the 40 miles back to our house. "Eight or ten hours!" Jonas guesses. He decides that the chance to hang out the windows like a cowboy in an old Western would make up for all the bouncing.
2. Working Metal. In the blacksmith shop, the giant bellows huff and puff, the hot metal gleams red and orange, and the hammer rings like a bell when it strikes the anvil. We are mesmerized as the smiths heat iron to a taffylike consistency then shape it into axes and hooks. While Julian experiments with the auger, Jonas notes that people must have had to wait a long time to get what they needed; they couldn't just buy everything off a store shelf.
3. Gee! Haw! We're a little nervous when Jonas takes a turn plowing a garden row, as the plow clearly weighs more than the plowman, but the ox is well trained, and the farmers are excellent teachers. "The plow was really hard to hold up," he says afterward, beaming. On the edge of the field we find a bounty of freshly harvested potatoes, so we ask the farmer what he'll do with all of them. "Take them to the kitchen to be cooked!" he replies, keeping in character.
4. Old-fashioned Fun. The game of trundling hoops — rolling wooden hoops with a stick — is harder than you'd think, but we soon get the hang of it and burn quite a few calories chasing the hoops as they tumble through the fallen leaves. There's much more to see and do at Old Sturbridge, but it's time for us to return to the 21st century. We amble contentedly back to our car, full of the sights, sounds, tastes, and smells of the New England that used to be.
