Storming the Castle

One of the things that never ceases to fascinate me about my daughter is how imaginative she can be. After a particularly full day of adventuring with daddy this past weekend, Alaina found herself faced with a somewhat lenghty car ride home. Instead of nodding off like I had hoped she would, she promptly untied her shoes and began playing. I didn’t fully understand everything that the two shoelaces were saying to each other, but it seemed like they were getting along fairly well, fortunate since they spend so much time in such close proximity. I found it to be an inspired bit of improvisation.

We were on our way home from Gillette Castle state park in East Haddam, Connecticut, an exciting sounding trip that I had been afraid she might find disappointing. Several times this past summer we had left the house with that as our destination, only to end up someplace else.

Calling the building a “castle” is a pretty liberal interpretation of the word. “Pretty cool big stone house” would be much more accurate. Built in 1919 by eccentric actor William Gillette, the twenty-four room mansion is built of local fieldstone, but with a hidden steel framework. It’s full of oddities such as a secret room, a movable table on tracks, and a series of mirrors that allowed Gillette to keep an eye on guests from his bedroom.

I explained to her that this wouldn’t be a “princess castle” like she was used to seeing on television, but she was still barely able to control her excitement when we pulled in and she got her first look.

It’s easy to forget sometimes that to her, everything is new and exciting. The small museum and tour of the interior didn’t hold her interest for long, but with 200 acres of trails and gardens surrounding the house there was plenty to keep us occupied.

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Time was spent on the balcony overlooking the Connecticut river, scanning the horizon for incoming dragons and fighting off any that came too close.

We also made sure to visit the ogres in the dungeon and set them all free. Apparently they were nice ogres, just misunderstood.

I can’t say that we didn’t receive more than a few amused looks as we ran around with our stick swords, but I can say that neither of us gave a whit. How awesome must it be to be able to go on exciting adventures with nothing more than an imagination and something to kick start the trip? How awesome is it that I get to tag along?