Journey to the Centre of the ... Industrial Revolution

Today we had took a rockin' awesome field trip to Telford/ Iron Bridge/ Coalbrookedale, which is practically in Wales...
To get there, we took an equally rockin' awesome mini bus and jaaaaaam packed 16 of us in it! And you know how I feel about British roads...lets just say, if I didn't have Ben to laugh at, I would have been toast.
The weather was kind of blah - couldn't decide if it wanted to rain or be sunny, that was too bad, but we spent most of our time inside anyway.
Our first stop was to the Victorian Village in Telford. It is a restored mining/Iron producing town and it had a foundry, bank, pub, sweet shop, bakery, all that...the bank actually changes money into Victorian coins that you can use to shop in the village, very cool. We got to see some iron being poured and some coke and other bits being melted down, and we also saw some blacksmithing with the help of a steam engine. Steam engines=a big deal (I should actually be studying about them right now instead of writing this!)
We made some nice new friends as well - the fellas at the print shop - they decided I should come live and work with them because I have small fingers. Which I could lose in the machinery...super. Our other friend lived in the mine Manager's house and was making some delcious lunch when we popped in. She told us some nice stories about doctors and sub-letting rooms in the Victorian period, as well as her travels to Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. Lovely.
We were actually pretty Victorian today - we ate homemade bread from the bakery; Chloe, Melissa, Carolyn and I dressed up in Victorian evening wear and got our photos taken, and a bunch of the others learned pub songs. Good day so far.
Then we hopped back in ye old mini bus to brave the roads again. We weaved and careened our way over to Jakefield across the Severn River and toured the Tile Museum there. That was a cool museum, very well done. And I think tiles are cool now...probably the biggest fan.
Back in the bus, across the Severn again, off to Iron Bridge.
Guess what we saw here? A great bridge, no, not made of wood or steel, but made of IRON! Wow...clever name. This was the world's first bridge of iron and it was built here by Abraham Darby III in 1777-79. Kind of a big deal...anyway, it was built here because Iron Bridge (used to be called Coalbrookedale) was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution, producing iron and other materials from its fantastic deposits of raw materials. Floods a lot though...Iron Bridge does...
We stopped at one more museum as well which told the basic story of Iron Bridge, past, present, future, and lots of details about floods.
It was a pretty unique trip - the stops we made were fascinating and engaging. The thing is, as well, that most of what you study in England, you can find surviving examples of it semi-nearby. For example, we are studying Victorian science and everything we saw today enhanced our lessons. England is cool like that.
So apart from the claustrophobia bus, it was a super trip!