Wilson Dam

There was a field trip scheduled through NACHO to tour Wilson Dam on Friday. I really wanted to go, but I have that pesky problem of being afraid of heights. I could have talked myself out of going, but Britney REALLY wanted to go too, and I'm not about to let my fear of something keep my kids from new experiences.

This was the first tour given since 9-11-2001!

We picked Karen and Keilee up and headed to Florence. We were the first ones there and I didn't know if I had the right entrance. It was gated with this huge stop sign attached. I swear it wasn't two minutes and a police officer pulled onto the road behind me. He pulled over into the grass bit and then a second police officer pulled in next to him. I imagine they then chatted about the weather and ate sandwiches.

Well, I had the right entrance and soon cars lined in behind us, we parked and walked over to see this 100 feet down. Did I mention my aversion to heights? I did okay. Plus the longer I was there, the better I felt.

We watched the barges enter the lock. The tug had to unhook and move in next to the barges in order to fit.

Then these massive gates close and the lock fills with water...50 million gallons of it in about 20 minutes!

Once the lock is full, this walkway lowers to allow the barges to move on through.

Once the barge was through, they raised it back up and let us walk across.

I hijacked the above picture from Karen's blog.

We really enjoyed this field trip! They had several workers dispersed throughout the crowd who answered questions and gave information. One of the workers popped out of the control room and asked us what school we were with. He had such a puzzled look on his face. When we told him we homeschool, he was like "Oh, that makes sense! There's such a diversity of age groups, I couldn't figure it out."

I love homeschooling:)