Sunday morning was really nice and relaxing. Usually the kids are off playing or doing their own things upstairs and I am alone downstairs getting dinner prep ready and hanging out. But today the kids are gathered downstairs when they woke up and hung out down there the entire morning. I realized it was because Heather was there and they wanted to be around her which I thought was nice. We talked and laughed and enjoyed being together.
Monday after the kids went to school Rylee, Heather and I packed up some snacks and headed out to go hike Table Rock. When we got there we discovered that the trail was closed because of mud from all of the rain we have been getting. We were really disappointed but then noticed that the Old State Penitentiary was open for tours. We checked on the prices and saw they were really reasonable and decided to take the tour. Before we paid the girl mentioned that a guided tour would be happened at 12:30 if we wanted to wait for that or we could go around ourselves. It was 11:30 and we didn't want to wait so we decided to walk around on our own. We paid, got a map and were sent inside. Some of the buildings were closed and some of the buildings were destroyed from prisoner riots in the late 1970's but we were able to see a lot.
One of the buildings had wooden paintings that you could take pictures with and it also had prisoner clothing to put on so we could take mugshots. Heather and I both found it interesting that unlike the jumpsuits prisoners wear today, their prisoner uniform were pants and a suit jacket in the black and white stripes. They had a lot of pictures of former prisoners with crimes they were in for as well as signs telling about life in the prison back then.
The grounds had a gun museum which we walked though but it wasn't too interesting. Rylee liked looking through this big gun and pretending to shoot things while making shooting noises. Kefford and Ryker would really enjoy walking through this gun museum.
We saw the actual cells where the prisoners lived and they were so small. Rylee thought it appalling the lack of privacy for when they went to the bathroom and that the shower room that had no privacy. I told her they were criminals and had to be watched at all times.
We saw the "Siberia" building which is where trouble causing prisoners get put in isolation. The most disturbing was walking through death row and see the observation room and hanging room. They had stairs to go down and see where the trapdoor opened for the bodies to go down.
Walking through the penitentiary was really creepy but cool at the same time because of it's history. I want to go back to take the rest of my family but would never want to walk through there at night!
