DC Day 1

After NYC I thought I would never live in the city but DC changed my mind.  We couldn't believe the leisurely pace of everyone and how you could walk down the street without bumping into people.

It was so nice!

We also enjoyed the buildings- no huge skyscrapers blotting out the sun and the older architecture was fascinating. There was one area down by the National Zoo that was just lovely. It had a small town feel to it.  Hubby even said as we drove through,"I could totally live here."  Don't worry family, we're not, but just saying that DC changed our mind about city life. I also loved how many things were free!!

We decided to break DC up into 3 days and we could really have used a 4th. We wanted to do DC Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then leave Friday.  But the Pope was in town Tuesday-Thursday(meaning that DC was a madhouse) so we had to extend our stay at the Adventure Bound Campground in Lothian Maryland(great place btw!!) and go to DC on Monday, Friday and Saturday( we actually ended up going Sunday instead).

I checked the forecast and they called for rain on Monday and Saturday so I scheduled museums for those days.  Then I checked a DC map and my list of what we wanted to do/see to see what things were close together.

I also investigated the parking situation.  I learned quite a bit after our Hoboken NJ incident. There is some street parking in DC but if you can find an open space it's only 2 hour parking anyhow.  So I searched for parking garages with a 7ft clearances to save us any issues. We ended up using the Verizon Center's garage.  The only thing was they had an event going that day so we had to be out by 5:30.  Otherwise we would have had to 7pm.

So the 1st day we went to Ford's Theater and Peterson's House,  National Archives, then to the Air and Space Museum and past the U.S. Capitol.

This was our view as we sat down to eat a packed lunch. We had the privilege of sharing some of our food with a homeless man.

Do not fear.  Princess is not choking.  She is just eating with her mouth open.

Air and Space Museum

We let Snuggle Bug, Sissy and Bubba(and Hubby) ride flight simulators.  

They had a blast.  It was pretty affordable too.

Bubba is over 6 foot tall

Missiles-I can't fathom them coming at me.

Charles Lindbergh's plane

Spirit of St Louis

Everywhere we go they are working on iconic sites it seems.

Remember our Niagara Falls experience?

Turns out the Capitol is getting it's 1300 cracks fixed and part of the National Mall is all torn up and blocked off. They are doing something with the lawn.

Personally I think the fact that the Capitol is falling apart is rather symbolic of the state of this country.  But I digress...

The top of the Capitol looks fake doesn't it?

They are also doing work on the Grant Memorial at the foot of the Capitol. 

 It is all wrapped up in the background.

National Archives

The guard there gave us a good tip:

There are no lines to see the documents(Constitution, Declaration, Bill of Rights).

People think they have to form a line and file in but you don't.

You can mill about as you want.

So that is exactly what we did.

I am sure we got a lot of dirty looks but oh well!

Peterson House across from Ford's Theater where President Lincoln passed away.

Bed that Lincoln died on.

Beautiful, no?

You can get advanced timed tickets online to the Ford's Theatre ( there is a surcharge though) but that is mainly for the busy season so we just got ours at the door for free and got in immediately.

Ford's Theater

Handsome Fellas

The Museum that was attached to the Peterson house was amazing too but we couldn't take pictures inside. However, the Museum part at Ford's Theater is not so good.  It was laid out terribly for the amount of people that go through there.  We couldn't even get into the room where they had Booths gun, his knife, and tons of other stuff.  What a shame.

I hope the rethink the layout  and flow in there.

And here are some pics of us having a campfire last week. Temps were in the 80's at the beginning and then 70's for most of the rest. 

Many Blessings,

The Mama

Hurricane Status

Boo...

Hurricane Joaquin

There is a lull in the rain right now. We are debating whether to change our plans and move farther inland when we leave here Friday.  Not sure. We'll watch the weather closely over the next couple days.

Many Blessings,

The Mama

Tropical Storm Joaquin

We finished up doing DC and Gettysburg last week and headed to Virginia yesterday.  I'll post about all that tomorrow.

But this quick post is about Tropical Storm Joaquin.  Forecasters are not sure what the track of the storm will be but regardless we will be getting quite a bit of rain from it.  It's already windy today as we are right along the east coast. The  storm affects this areas weather through Sunday. We will be here till Friday and then heading near Raleigh NC after that.  So still the bad weather area unfortunately.

We don't want to be traveling in down pours and high winds(winds could be 65 mph if it tracks near the coast). And we don't want soaked grounds at campgrounds( this campground just has grass sites, which means a muddy mess).

Why are those areas pointing right at us?

Yuck

Pray that the storm heads way out to the ocean!

We've had to switch out plans around and cut some things out(the beach) due to the rain that is coming.  They say it will start tonight and rain tomorrow.  Then have a little break Weds and then start up again for the entire weekend. Pray they are right so we can do Williamsburg, Jamsetown, Yorktown Thursday.

Many Blessings,

The Mama

Voted "The Funnest So Far"

The day after going to NYC we were heading over to Hershey PA. We try to never put excursions back to back but we had to in this case because we were heading to Maryland the following day.

The drive to Hershey was 2 hours and we only planned on doing the free tour.  So I almost thought about scratching the trip. Especially after coming home Tuesday and my legs and feet killing me from all the walking in the city.  Hubby and I both said the next morning that our hips hurt.  We laughed and said that you know you're getting old when you have joint pain lol

We decided to still go though.  The thought of an excursion that didn't require any planning or strategizing seemed great. We slept in and didn't leave till 11am.

I am so glad we went!! The kids voted it their favorite place so far!  It was just plain ole fun, even for a dairy free girl.

We decided to do their 4D movie. It was neat and they did a good job including the kids who attended in the actual movie, but it was over priced. If we could do it over again we would skip this.

Bubba is a chocolate lover and this 5lb bar caught his eye.

Bubba finally decided on this 1 lb Kiss though that he bought with his own money

I even found some bars in this specialty line that were dairy free!!  woo-hoo!!

They also had different fudges,cookies,brownies,candied apples, dipped strawberries,popcorn and so much more

Sissy bought herself a reesse cup pretzel

Hubby tried a resse cup graham cracker confection

Tantalizing Cupcakes

The prices of their bakery items was really good surprisingly.  Their candy was priced regularly too,even some good deals were found.  I thought they might jack prices up but no.  It was fun to see all the stuff they had available.

Main St in Hershey PA-see the street lights? They're shaped like Kisses.

Sissy and Bubba went halves on a pack of 2 of these ginormous peanut butter cups.

The free tour was excellent too!!  My camera died so I didn't get any pictures unfortunately.I did get a few seconds of video though.  It was fun and yet you learned some things too.

I also met a lady named Jamie who had her 1 week old son with her.  We were chatting about breastfeeding(which I was doing while everyone else was eating their treats). Turns out Jamie's husband is in the military and they just moved to PA from San Diego.  She recommended some places to visit in San Diego when we get that way.  Praying for them as they settle in and for protection for her husband. So many stories out there...

Many Blessings,

The Mama