Monday, September 11, 2017

Wyoming Vacation Day 5 - A Haircut, Heart Mountain & A Park Visit

My Aunt used to own her own shop in Gillette, Wyoming called Guys & Gals. Jackson had been wanting to have his haircut so he could have a faux hawk. I thought I'd let the expert show me how to cut it properly so I didn't butcher his hair and make it look like a bowl cut!!!



Aunt Linda showed me how to use the clippers and what setting to use. Let's hope that I can make it look that nice when I have to cut it!




She put some taffy in his hair and he looked so handsome!!!


Aunt Linda was quite busy that morning....she ended up cutting 6 peoples hair! I had asked her to trim Ella's up a bit and then I needed mine to be fixed since it hadn't been cut for almost a year and had grown out all funny. I didn't want a lot of length taken off...I'm trying to grow it out more, but I did want it to look more kept. I loved how my hair looks now....the underneath layer is no longer tons longer than the top layer. 

After everyone got ready we had lunch and then we headed to a place that even Uncle Lee had never been to. We went to the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center. This is a site where they held Japanese Americans during WWII because of the attack on Pearl Harbor. There were actually quite a few sites around the country like this.

 


This is a picture of all the blocks as they called them where they lived. 



The Japanese Americans had to close up their shops and put all their stuff in storage or give it away before being transferred to one of the internment sites. 



The Interpretive Center opened in 2011 and it was very well done! The pictures they had were amazing! 




They even had a short movie where they had actual people that lived at Heart Mountain talking about their time there. 


They had this area all set up like a typical apartment that a family would live in.  



No real privacy and of course not very much space. They had to make most of their own furniture. 




Once we finished up in the Interpretive Center we drove up the hill to walk around this path that pointed out certain areas of importance. In the above picture you'll see the actual Heart Mountain. I was confused why they called it Heart Mountain when it doesn't look anything like a heart. Come to find out the Crow Indians are the ones that named it because they thought it looked like a buffalo heart. 




It was so blazing hot up there and it made me think of all those people having to live there in that extremely hot weather against their will. 



Ella was so excited to find a tumbleweed! 



At certain points in the walk they had boards that you could read interesting facts. 



This building is the hospital. Over 500 babies were born at Heart Mountain during the 3 years it was open. If I remember correctly the chimney is the largest man made structure in Wyoming?? or Cody?? Who knows, but it's tall! 



As we were driving away Mom said that is was for sure sad, but the government did what they felt they had to at the time. Was it wrong? YES! Did the Japanese Americans deserve that? NO! But history is full of mistakes and we learn from them and move on. I thought it was interesting that we were visiting this historical site when across the country in Charlottesville Virginia that whole mess was going on. Honestly I am completely in support of keeping historical monuments standing. They are there as a part of our countries history. If you want to tear down monuments or fountains or plaques that are controversial than we'd have no monuments at all. History is riddle with mistakes! That's why we put the monuments up to remember what we did wrong and learn from it!!! Ok...stepping off my soap box now!

When we went to Grandpa Giest's apartment the day before the kids had noticed this park that was right across the street. They really wanted to go so later in the day we took them out.




Handsome Jack!!!



The whole time we were there it looked like it my start pouring rain any minute!!!



Mom, Aunt Linda & Colten taking a load off!!!



Alli Cat trying to climb the slide!!!



This park had just opened a few weeks earlier and it was really fun. It even had this fun game that was electronic where you had to run around and touch these light up columns. I took Ella back to the park a few days later and I played with her and a boy that was at the park. It was them against me. The boy would stand in front of the column I needed to touch and he'd keep me from touching it so Ella could go and get a bunch of points for them. He was stinker, but it was so much fun!!!! :)



We topped off the day by celebrating Uncle Lee's birthday with cake!!!! 

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