About Our Visit With the Lamberts

The day started out as any regular ThinkQuest Saturday. We were working on content when suddenly 12:30 came. We had waited all morning to set out for Darwin Lambert’s house. (He is the author of The Undying Past of the Shenandoah National Park, a book one of our coaches brought to us that contained data on the displacements). We ate lunch, then grabbed our iBooks and headed towards the car. After connecting to our network from the parking lot (some of us forgot to put our files on our hard drives), we were on our way.

On the way we were working on the content that we were working on earlier. For most of the way we were working on content. It was needed time. As we went through different counties, people were claiming that they had the “Who-was-displaced?” data for that county. We were also taught a very educational song by our coach, Ms. White. When we finally got there it was about an hour later. At last we turned off at a tiny, rocky, muddy, and snowy road that led for miles to the the Lambert’s house. Along the way, we saw a stone fence that we later learned was built by a man’s sons under his direction to keep them from getting in trouble.     The first one to meet us was the Lamberts’ black, tooth-baring but totally harmless dog, Thumper. Thumper had a ferocious smile because when he smiled his bottom lip went down. Carolyn Reeder, who helped our coaches arrange this trip, had warned us about Thumper! We were greeted by Mrs. Lambert. Inside, we met Mr. Lambert.
	Darwin Lambert telling the story of the rock wall.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Lambert were excellent storytellers. They alternated the talking between them, telling us story after story.

Darwin Lambert talks about fair land prices				Eileen Lambert talks about fair land prices
Darwin Lambert talks about people wanting to move.				Eileen Lambert talks about the difference from being poor in the country and being poor in the city.

Darwin Lambert tells us about Virginia and the park.

Darwin Lambert talks about Nicholson Hollow (the man on our top graphic is a Nicholson).

After our interview with the Lamberts they took us on a little journey to a cabin that was building built by the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club volunteers with no power tools. A guy named John showed us all of their tools, told us what they were called and what they were used for.

__

___

The cabin is called the Tulip Tree Cabin and it is located in Shaver Hollow. After the cabin we took a trail through the woods and it led us back to the cabin. Then we said thank you and goodbye, then left.

On the way home we stopped for some dinner at a restaurant called Brookside. After dinner we were back on the road.

Ms. Fisher took a little detour through the Shenandoah National Park. While driving on the Skyline Drive, we saw the tunnel. The tunnel has a mildly scary story behind it and was told to us by the Perdues. A long time ago people wanted to build a tunnel that would run through the national park. They couldn’t blast the rock because the whole side of the mountain would fall down. Instead they used black prisoners. The prisoners would work all day, then at night the guards would stick pegs into the chains that were on the prisoners. The prisoners then slept right there in the tunnel where they had worked all day. I think that the people were really mean to chain the prisoners down to the ground.

Watch a brief video of the Perdues telling us a story about the tunnel.

On the way home, we had a very hard time using Ms. White’s cell phone to call our parents and tell them we were going to be late because the radio waves were intercepted by the mountains before they could get to a cell tower. Eventually we got home, tired but happy after our exciting day. I felt I had learned a lot about the area of the Shenandoah National Park and also gained a valuable new viewpoint. We now have three different ways of seeing the events of the creation of the park-the Lamberts’, the Perdues’, and Carolyn Reeder’s. In our web site, we hope to present all of these and tell the more complete story of SNP.

Return to The Undying Past of the Shenandoah National Park