Corporal Taylor

Today I got promoted to the rank of Corporal in the US Army! I was actually hoping to get to wear the hoop skirt today because it was so hot--and the hoop skirt at least has good ventilation. But, Jeri got the hoop skirt, so I got to don the wool uniform and be a soldier with Sergeant James. I've decided that all of the soldiers in Johnston's Army must have weighed like 60 pounds because they ran out of food, so they could only eat once a day, and they walked around in those wool uniforms, so surely they would sweat off a few pounds a day. We got all dressed up today because we had a school group to entertain. We also had a school group yesterday (I got to wear the hoop skirt for that one), so we were all pretty tired after two schools in two days. The school groups stay for about three or four hours, and we usually have between 50-100 kids, so it gets a little crazy sometimes. It's a lot of fun though. I love this job!

This afternoon I had the opportunity to get down and dirty and learn the process of cleaning muskets. Those things get nasty inside! From the look of the stuff we were getting out of the barrels, you'd have thought that the guns hadn't been cleaned since the Civil War--but they actually clean them about every week. Cleaning a musket is a pretty intense process, and you get a little dirty doing it, but it was actually quite fun. As part of my internship at Camp Floyd, I'm going to be working on a few special research projects. I was also given a new assignment today to create the text and come up with some graphics for a few wayside panels the park is going to put up along the road. That will be a really cool project!

This afternoon after work, I met Mom over in Lehi, and we had a fun evening enjoying the Lehi Roundup Week festivities. Tonight they had a boutique at the park as well as the "Family BBQ." We had some delicious BBQ for dinner and had a great time walking around and looking at things. Mom and I love fun boutiques like that! It kind of reminded us of when we went to the arts festival in St. Charles, Missouri a couple of years ago. Mom and I have tons of fun together!