Pittsfield Visit

This morning the kids went with Mom up to her office in Pittsfield, to pick up a few things for her business trip tomorrow. Emily has been to Mom's office before (on "Take Your Child to Work Day"), and both she and Kate were very excited to go.

This is the door to Mom's office building........and these are the stairs inside. Emily remembered that Mom's office was up the stairs.The kids thought our car looked a lot different from the second floor.Mom got them set up with the whiteboard, and they did some drawing.........Kate ran some calculations........Emily worked on her signature........then they took a snack break.Finally, Mom was done packing up her stuff and we went outside to run around in the steel yard. The kids really liked these yellow marker signs.The town of Pittsfield is over 200 years old, and used to be an important stop on the Penebscot and Kennebec Railroad. The girls wanted to see some trains, so we checked out the yellow caboose over at the Depot Museum.Then we headed over to Manson Park, which is a very nice public space in the middle of Pittsfield.There is great access to the river for throwing rocks (one of our favorite activities)........and a very special treat:  An "old school" playground. This playground looks like it was installed sometime in the seventies, and never upgraded. It reminded Mom of the playgrounds of her younger days, before everything became plastic, padded, and "safe".Everything was made out of galvanized pipe and plain old chain (not rubber-coated).There was even a great big slide with a stainless steel sliding surface. Sweet!This slide probably gets really hot in the summer, but we were there in the morning so it was perfect. The kids loved the noise it made when they banged their feet on it.Then there was the crown jewel of the playground, the contraption below. This structure was made entirely out of galvanized pipe and U-bolts. Nowadays even an adult would need permission from OSHA to climb to the top.Emily, of course, loved it.Kate liked that old-school feel too.What a fun morning!