Six hours in a car with baby, and gunfire
This long holiday weekend we decided to haul ass out of town to Shiloh, TN to see a dress up/live fire demonstration of old rifles used by soldiers of various wars. Mostly we needed a road trip, and there was a place called the Catfish Hotel next to it which ITMama wanted to check out. What ensued involved six hours in a car with baby, gunfire, and catfish.
The trip there, Maggie slept most of the way while getting a bit angsty in the last fifty minutes, but not terribly so. We stopped once and changed her, got some of the negative baby energy shook out, and proceeded on.
At the Shiloh battlefield, we got there in time to see the live fire demonstration. Maggie didn’t mind the first two shots from a pretty quiet musket, but a little later an absurdly loud rifle rattled her nerves so I took her off the battlefield for a minute while she calmed down.
Another rifle set her off, but once the era of cartridge weapons were displayed she enjoyed things again. It had been my plan to slap some ear protection on her and prep her for the shots or just move her away, but these guys were on a deadline and bam, before I could do anything had fired.
It was not a happy site when Maggie got startled, but she didn’t seem to take it too terribly badly as moving her away and talking to her snapped her out of the scared/sad baby routine.
At the end everyone fired all at once, and she had a great time when she knew what was happening. Evidently babies love loud annoying sounds, they just want them on their own terms.
After that we went to the visitor’s center, then the cemetery and wandered around, Maggie was starting to get too hot so we headed back to the car, cranked the AC, and drove around the 13 mile battlefield tour with a passed out baby.
Then a quick bite to eat at the Catfish Hotel in which we had one of the more successful baby dinners, and it was time to head back.
Maggie made it most of the way without incident, but about 40 miles out of Nashville ITMama had to climb in the back and hang with the baby moo.
Overall an excellent baby outing experience with only one real baby scare caused because we didn’t get ear protection on as man those guys fired fast.
