Chillicothe, Ohio and Tecumseh!
A friend told me that Tecumseh was a fun experience with the kids, so we scheduled a long weekend in Chillicothe, Ohio. I had never been to Chillicothe, Ohio, so first I had to learn to pronounce it correctly: "chill-e-coth-ee". Chillicothe is taken from a Shawnee word, "Cha-la-ka-tha" which was one of the five tribes of the Shawnee. It also has the honor of being the first capital city of Ohio. The area is full of Native American history as it was the center of the Hopewell culture for hundreds of years. We arrived in town on a Thursday or Friday after work, so by the next morning I was eager to get going. We pulled into the Visitor's Center at Adena Mansion about ten minutes before they opened, and there were no cars present. This is not uncommon for us. Jamie has gotten used to us either being the only people at historic sites that I find interesting, or the youngest people-- youngest by about two or more decades.
Adena Mansion was commissioned by Thomas Worthington. Worthington was the sixth governor of Ohio and also served in the U.S. Senate. The tour guide was wonderful, and the mansion has been restored to appear as it did when the Worthington family lived there. If you walk the grounds of the mansion, there is a spot which provides a beautiful view of Logan Mountain. Local lore says that this is the view which inspired the Great Seal of the State of Ohio. That evening we headed over to the amphitheater to see Tecumseh. We made the most of our night by taking a behind the scenes tour and enjoying the dinner which is served before the show. There's a picture of Jamie really digging his chocolate pudding! :)
Ethan was excited by the behind the scenes tour. The actors who perform in Tecumseh live on-site during the entire season. They seemed to be a fun group of professionals, and they were sharing some of their stunt secrets and special effects with us. One man showed how they jumped off the top of the set; they shot a gun; and explained how they choreographed battle scenes. The best thing, though, was when they were explaining how they use fake knives during the fight scenes. Ethan was front and center while the tour guides were speaking and one guide stuck out his arm as the other guide plunged her "knife" into it and blood came streaming out fast and furiously... Jamie and I were standing back a bit watching the look of terror spread across Ethan's face as he looked for a place to run... and while we should have been nurturing to our little guy, we could not help but laugh hysterically at how crazy shocked he was. He did calm down and we explained that it was a fake knife. Ethan even went and talked to the guide to ask how she "stabbed" the guys arm without hurting him. We still laugh about that.
On our way out of Chillicothe the next day, we stopped at the Hopewell Culture site and saw the Mounds and then, as we came through Columbus, we stopped at the Ohio History Center, just in time for the Civil War reenactment on the Village grounds. It was a great weekend full of Ohio history and well worth the time.
