Day 10 - Back to Where it all Began

Today we went to Jamestown Settlement. This is where it all began. Well, kinda, sorta. The Jamestown Settlement was actually a re-creation of the original Jamestown which was an archeological site located a couple of miles away. We met the Talley's again before the place opened so we had to wait a little while. Once again, we had to purchase tickets and this time the first thing we did was look at a little exhibit that told a little about the powhatan indians, the tribe who called the Jamestown area home when the first settlers arrived. We then saw a short movie about the arrival of the settlers and a little background on what we would be seeing later on. The next thing was a much bigger exhibit and a guide took us around and introduced and told us about the 3 people groups that were involved in the first several years of the time period, including the Powhatans, the Europeans and the slaves brought from Africa. This was very interesting for me and honestly, I learned a bunch. I don't remember ever hearning about this in school. Maybe I slept, or just didn't listen. I don't know. I just really got a lot out of this particular little tour.

After the tour, we then went outside and looked at 3 particular areas; the powhatan village, the Jamestown Fort and 3 sailing ships that played a major role in the settlement. The indian village was interesting in that it showed us how the indians lived in the area. We learned at the fort area how the settlers dealt with the indians and how they survived the best they could. Then we got to board the ships that brought people across the ocean and learned how difficult a trip it was. We learned about the whole reason the settlers came to America in the first place and how little tiny things that happened could have completely changed the way ournation might look today or the amazing fact that it was settled at all. If you ever don't appreciate our freedom and how lucky we are to live here, you need to see this place. After only a couple of hours, I felt like I had caught up on hundreds of years of history and I was really glad I went.

It was now time for lunch and we let the Talley's go on to the Jamestown archeological site and we went back to the campground. The girls swam a little bit and Catherine washed a few clothes. I was able to squeeze in a little nap and for the first time, I was on "vacation". For supper, I cooked hamburgers on the grill and once again, we headed in to the Colonial Williamsburg area to attend a handbell/organ concert at one of the oldest churches in America. The Bruton Parish Church was established in the late 1600's and it was fun going to the concert. After that, we walked around a little and Craig and I tried to take a couple of "night" pictures of some of the buildings. It was a full day and fun one at that. It was time to say goodbye to the Talley's because we would be parting ways the next morning.

Day 9 - History in the Making

Today was our first day at Williamsburg. The campground was located about 8 miles away from the Colonial Williamsburg area. There are not too many campgrounds in the area, much like Washington. After a quick breakfast at the camper, we loaded up and headed for the visitor's center. We met some long time friends of ours who were also visiting the area at the same time. We knew that the Talley's were going to be there at the same time as us, but when they planned their trip, they didn't know we were going to be there. It just worked out that way. It was fun meeting them there and before long, we had our tickets and were on our way into the town. The area of Colonial Williamsburg is not a closed in park. You can get to it from many different locations, but you needed a ticket to enter all the buildings that make up the colony. Several of the buildings were original, dating back to the 1600's. Everyone working there was in colonial costume and it helped to take us back in time. It was really neat learning about all the history that took place even before Washington D.C. We saw actors portraying George and Martha Washington and others who played an important role in our nation's infancy.

After looking around a while, we ate lunch at a little place just outside of the colonial area. Then we went back to experience some more. At about 5 o'clock, we went to the Talley's hotel which was next to the visitor's center. There was a pizza place nearby and we ordered a couple of pizza's and had supper. We relaxed for a bit, but before long, it was time to go back into the colony and participate in what was called a tavern ghost walk. This was basically a night tour that took us to several buildings while being told ghost stories that were apparently true accounts that had happened to people throughout the years.  There was a storm off in the distance and we could see lightning. This helped create a spooky atmosphere that made it more fun. After the tour, it was about 10:00 and we were tired. We left the colony and headed back for the campground and hit the pillow with heavy heads.

Day 8 - Time to Leave Our Nation's Capital

Well, it was time to go and even when we didn't get to see everything that was on our list, we knew that we were to experience more wonderful things about our nation's history.

We left about 9:00 and headed south toward Williamsburg. Catherine's family has relatives located in Bowling Green, VA. This just happened to be on our way. We called them to let them know that we were on our way and they told us a much better route to take instead of the interstate. It really was great! The scenery was beautiful and the traffic was really not bad at all. We arrived at their house a little after noon, and they had lunch waiting for us. What a treat! Boyd and Leslie Moore are really nice people. Boyd is Catherine's dad's first cousin. We had a really wonderful visit with them and their really cute dog, Mei-Mei (pronounced may may). She is a really cute shitzu with a lot of personality. They even had some things that kept Amy and Erin interested the whole time we were there. After a while, it was time to go, but we wanted to show them our little camper. When I opened the door, I noticed that sometime on the way, one of our cabinet doors had come open and broken apart. It was lying there on the floor in pieces. I took it off the hinges, and Boyd was able to put it back together for us. We also noticed that something was wrong with our lights. They wouldn't work. A little investigating revealed a blown fuse right at the battery connection. I didn't have any replacements, so we would have to find a parts store. We got back on the road and continued on to our destination.

We finally made it to Williamsburg and our home for the next three nights. The campground was really pretty nice and much cheaper than Cherry Hill in Washington. The pads were concrete and we were able to just pull through the site and hook up. And it had lots of shade trees to keep us cool. Of course, after seeing the pool, the girls wanted to swim. Since it was too late to go look at any historical sites, we ate dinner and the girls headed for the pool. After swimming, we pretty much hit the hay for the night.

Just a side note

I've finally started posting a few pictures. If you are interested, go back through all the posts and look at a few of our fun times.

Day 7 - Probably My Favorite So Far

Today was Saturday and since it was the weekend, we decided to drive around to a few sites. We had a yummy breakfast of sausage and eggs and then got in the truck and headed toward the National Cathedral. This was something that had really not crossed my mind until late in the planning stages. After reading about it,

I knew we had to go. It's the 6th largest cathedral in the world and you can see it from miles around. As we got closer, I knew that the pictures that I had seen on the internet did not do it justice. It was really a wonder to behold. It didn't open until 10 and we got there about 9:30 so we sat outside and just looked at it. There were lots of things to see. The building is incredibly detailed with lots of

gargoyles and grotesques. grotesques' are basically faces that decorate various parts of the building and they are all different. The purpose of gargoyles is to decorate a water spout so when it rains, the water comes out of the mouths.

Anyway, the time had come to go in. It was absolutely stunning. The stained glass windows were huge and each one had pictures that mostly symbolized some happening in American History. The cathedral was not that old. In fact, it was finished during the 1980's. We spent a couple of hours looking around and like most attractions in Washington, there was really too much to look at and it was time to depart for our next site.

Our next destination was the Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport.  This was a fairly new part of the Smithsonian family and it was housed in a huge aircraft hanger. The good thing about this is that it was able to host full size aircraft. The museum is kind of far away from the city plus you have to pay a toll, and parking is $15. When we got there, we found a little shade tree and had a quick picnic lunch.  After that we went into the hanger and immediately knew that we would not be disappointed. There were indeed full size aircraft including the SR-71 Blackhawk, the Enola Gay, the Concord and the space

shuttle, Enterprise. It also had many, many planes from different time periods and the smaller ones were hung from the ceiling as if they were flying. There was an elevated walkway around the hanger so you could get nose to nose with the planes. It was awesome! I could have stayed there all day, but again, we had other fish to fry and needed to head back to the campground for a quick break and then it was back to D.C. for an evening tour. We had burgers for dinner and went to catch the train. It was Saturday and we realized that the trains don't run as much, so we were a little slow in getting to our meeting place. We ended up having to jog from the station to where our tour was supposed to start. This tour was a walking tour and it was all about Lincoln's assassination. We ended up being about 10 minutes late, but didn't miss too much. We started at Andrew Jackson's statue in front of the White House and the tour guide led us to several locations having to do with the events leading up to Abraham Lincoln's death. The guide was really great! He gave us so much information and I had no idea of the thought and planning that John Wilkes Booth had put into his ultimate goal. The tour ended about 2 hours later in front of Ford's Theater. I was really glad we did it and we all learned so much.

After the tour, we found an ice cream place called FroZenYo. It was a frozen yogurt place that lets you serve yourself a large selection of yogurt and then they charge you based on the weight of your serving. It was really good! We then headed back to the mall area, saw a few monuments lit up at night, ooohed and ahhed and then found the closest train center. After a long day we fell into bed to get as much sleep as we could before we began the next leg of our journey.

Day 6 - Smithsonian

We didn't get up too early, but we did want to make it in pretty quickly to see as much of the museums as we could. We made it to the mall area about 9:00 and realized that the museums didn't open until 10:00. We were able to walk through a few garden areas that displayed different plants and ecosystems. D.C. is such that you can be just walking along and come upon some sort of exhibit. We went ahead and went to the entrance of the Natural History Museum and had a seat out front. Various vendors were just arriving and setting up their trailers for a full day of capitalism. It was fun watching them open and set up everything getting ready for the crowds. The museum finally opened and we went inside. We walked around and

saw many things and without going into great detail, I will just say that it was too big to see it all. After about 2 hours, we were getting pretty hungry and at first I was thinking about finding a sandwich shop somewhere before going on to the next destination, but decided that it would be easier and more fun to just get a hot dog from the street vendor that we had watched set up. So that's what we did. For a hot dog, they were pretty good, but anything would have tasted good by that time.

After we ate, it was time to take in the American History Museum. Once again, the place was huge and full of amazing things. We got to see the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner, the Hope diamond and Abraham Lincoln's top hat. At about 3 o'clock we were pretty tired and decided to head back to the campground for some relaxation. That ended up being really nice because we were able to walk around the campground and take some time to rest because our time at D.C. was not over yet.

Day 5 - Where Decisions are Made

Today was the day for our big capital tour. We were really looking forward to it because we had reserved our tour through our congressman, Ralph Hall. The tour didn't start until 1:50 p.m., so we decided to take our time in the morning, and not hurry too much getting there. There is a Metro bus stop at the campground so it is convenient to get places. We hopped on the bus about 10:30 and rode to the nearest rail station. The bus made several other stops on the way so we were glad we went when we did. It wasn't the fastest trip to the station. We rode the Metro train into D.C. again. By this time, we are getting pretty good at maneuvering our way around. We rode the train to the nearest metro station to the capital. One of the capital office buildings has a food court type place in the basement so we ate lunch there. It was really busy with people everywhere. It didn't seem organized at all but everyone seemed to know where they were going. We finally got something to eat and sat down and had lunch. It was interesting watching all the people.

It was time to go meet our tour guide. We had to go to Ralph Hall's office on the 4th floor of the Rayburn office building. There was a tunnel leading from the building we ate in to where we need to go. In fact, there are tunnels that lead everywhere down there. A person can get to and from the capital from about 10 different buildings without ever seeing daylight. Congressmen and Senators even have their own subway that transports them to and from.

We met our guide. He was an intern for Hall's office and he had been there since May. He was pretty nice and started us on our way. There was one other family on the tour with us and they were from Allen, TX so it was nice to see some others from home. It seemed like it took forever to get to the capital because of security and various lines that we had to stand in. We got to the CVC or Capital Visitor Center and there were people everywhere. We started with a video and then went to various rooms including the old Supreme Court chambers,  Rotunda and the current house gallery. They were all pretty cool and very thought provoking. The tour lasted a while and by the time we got back to the office, it was almost 4:00 p.m.

The last thing we did was look at the view from Hall's office. The intern said that it was the best view in the building and it was amazing. Ralph Hall has been in Washington so long that he has been able to work his way up to the best office.

After the tour, we went to the Air and Space Museum located on the mall. We were pretty tired and we didn't make it all the way through it. We did get to see some pretty neat exhibits and some very famous aircraft. For some reason, it hit us all and we were really tired. We decided to go back to camp and rest up a little. The girls wanted to go swimming so they did and Catherine washed a few loads of clothes. I made a trip to Target and got a few supplies. It was a good night for resting, for tomorrow would be another busy day.

Day 4 - Cool Stuff!

This was our first official day in the city. We had to get up very early because of an 8:30 a.m. tour of the White House. We were pretty excited. I had done hours of research on getting the most of our money using various forms of transportation. The people at Cherry Hill Park were very helpful in making our decision. We decided to drive to the nearest Metro station (train) and then ride the train into DC. Everything worked out perfectly. We made it to our destination with time to spare. There was a really, really long line for the tour but it moved along fairly well. We were able to see several rooms in the White House. Honestly, this could have been any museum with mock ups of the rooms, but it was pretty neat knowing that many of our presidents have spent time there. The tour was self guided and was over in about 20 minutes. We felt it was worth it and glad we did it.

Because the security at the White House is so great, we had virtually nothing with us and there was no place close by that we could have stored it temporarily. They did allow us to have our phones and we were able to score a couple of pics.  We then had to get back on the train and head to our truck where we kept the rest of our stuff. We got everything and then headed back into the city to sight see some more.

Our next stop was the National Archives. There was a line at the entrance, but it moved along quickly. We got inside and instead of going straight to the freedom documents we went to some of the other areas that explained about preserving old documents, and it was really interesting. They had a huge display of Civil War documents with letters and other things that made me realize just how little I knew about the Civil War. After that we saw that there was another line that allows you to see the actual Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and Constitution. We noticed that there was an area called Public Vaults. That sounded neat and there was no line, so we went. This had displays of other interesting historical documents including old sound files of presidents and the actual homestead grant of Charles P Ingalls (Little House on the Prairie). Erin really liked that. After we looked a while, we exited and Erin noticed a door that led to the Rotunda (Freedom Documents location). What we didn't know at the time was that this was the exit for the rotunda and we had just come in the way to go out.  No one said anything to us and we realized that we had jumped in front of a couple hundred people waiting in line. Oh well. The girls really enjoyed seeing the Declaration of Independence and you could really tell that they were taking it all in. They understood just how old the document was and were pretty quiet as they studied it. This is something that they will remember for a long time, I think.

After that, we went to eat at a Fuddruckers we found in China Town. Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but the food was good. We then took a quick walk by Ford's Theater. We will be taking a tour in this area later in the week.

We then went to the Old Postal Pavillion. This is a really big building that has a huge clock tower. There was a food court in the bottom of the building with some souvenir shops. We looked around a little and then headed up to the clock tower. The view from the top was amazing. We could see the mall area with a great view of the Washington Monument and Capital. This was something that not many people make it to during their time here, so there was not that many crowds.

It was time to go meet our tour guide for the DC by Foot tour. This is a free tour around the monuments and the guide works for tips only. Great value for sure! On the way to our meeting place, Erin realized she had forgotten her purse in a restroom in the Postal Pavillion. We went back and it was gone. She was devastated, because the purse included her brand new Nintendo DS and headphones. One bad memory on the trip for sure.

The DC by foot tour was excellent. The guide was informative and could ask pretty much any question asked of her. We had fun seeing the monuments and hearing stories about them. The tour ended at the Lincoln Memorial and by that time, we were very tired. We made it back to the nearest Metro station and headed back to the campground for some much needed rest.

Sorry for the long post. We hope you are enjoying reading it.

Day 3 - It's Great to be an American

Today started out great and seemed to get better every minute. I was awakened at about 5:30 by a garbage truck dumping huge commercial trash cans. I really need to get that as a ring tone. I needed to get up anyway. The water pump on our camper is making a weird noise. I'm not sure what's up with that. After everyone was ready to go, we pulled out of the parking lot at about 7:30. We needed to get gas and fortunately, there was a Shell station just up the street. This was not just a regular Shell station, but a good ole' "service" station. They actually had mechanics and full service pumps. I haven't seen those in a while. I asked the guy if he could look at my flat tire and he did. It turns out the valve stem had broken, so he fixed it and it only cost us $6. One of the guys there had an awesome mullet. The girls got donuts next door and we were once again on our way.

We got back on the Blue Ridge Parkway and the scenery was indescribable. We were oohing and aahing at every turn. We later saw a sign for Natural Bridge. This is a huge rock arch that important people in American history used as a travel way, including George Washington himself. So we decided to go visit. We knew we couldn't stay long, because I wanted to try to get to D.C. before rush hour traffic. We thought we would jump out, take a few pictures and be on our way. Boy, was I wrong. Natural Bridge, I'm sure, is a really cool thing, but it turns out is also a HUGE tourist trap. And they charge to see the bridge. For our family it would have been $50. If we were going to be there all day, I would spend the money, but not today. We looked at the vast assortment of souvenirs in the gift shop and I do mean vast. So we left without seeing the bridge or buying anything. But I got them good. I found a dime in the parking lot. Yay!

We stopped at a rest stop and had a little picnic lunch. The weather was very excellent, almost a little chilly in the shade.

We finally made it to our destination at about 4:00 p.m. The campground was really nice and we got a pretty good site even with a little shade tree. We checked out all the amenities,  ate dinner and then the girls went swimming.

End of Day 2

The lunch was good and it was on to Mt. Airy, home of Andy Griffith. We were really getting into the Blue Ridge Mountains and the scenery was really amazing. It was starting to get later in the afternoon and I began to be concerned about the time that we would be heading into Mt. Airy. Sure enough, after looking in the guide that I had, most of the things that I wanted to see in the town closed at 5:00 and we would be getting there around 5:30. We ended up getting to see some of the things, but not much. It was very frustrating to me. But I kept telling myself this was not the ultimate purpose of our trip, so I felt better. We stopped at a McDonald's because the girls had been very good during the day and I wanted to stop somewhere they liked. We went ahead and got our dinner to go and was heading out to the camper when I noticed that one of the camper tires seemed a little low. I checked the pressure and it had none. I ended up having to change the tire and put on the spare. I'm really glad we had one. I now have to have the tire repaired before we go too much further.

We then got on the Blue Ridge Parkway for our first time this trip and it was worth it! The landscape was beautiful and so much to see.  We were headed to Roanoke for the night and it was getting late. The good part about being a little behind schedule was that we got to see a lot of wildlife on the parkway including a good sized black bear and lots of deer. We arrived at a Walmart in Roanoke about 10:30 eastern time and stayed there for the night.

Day 2 - On The Road Again

This morning was nice. We found out that sleeping in a camper in the Cracker Barrel parking lot isn't too bad at all. We woke up about 6:00, got dressed and went to breakfast. We don't eat at the Cracker Barrel very much at all so this was a real treat. We left pretty much on schedule at 8:00 and headed toward Knoxville, TN. About half way there, we came upon an accident. It looked as if an 18 wheeler had lost control and ran off the road in a large, tree filled ravine. It was very hard to see anything, but there were lots of emergency vehicles around. In fact the highway was closed for a while and we had to sit and wait for about 45 minutes without moving at all. Bummer!

After we got through that, we traveled through Knoxville, and finally stopped to prepare lunch. Since we have many miles to travel today, we grabbed lunch and ate it as we got back on the road.

Day 1 - Not exactly the plans I had in mind

Well, day 1 of our trip started okay, but we ended up leaving about 20 min. behind schedule.  The morning was beautiful and the drive smooth. Our plan was to stop at the Arkansas Welcome Center to take a break and maybe pick up a state map. Streets and Trips apparently didn't know where the welcome center was because it wanted to lead us to a place that wasn't there. We ended up stopping at a convenience store instead.  Once back on the road, we traveled about 5 miles and passed the Welcome Center. Oh, well. we needed to head on.

It wasn't too long before we made it to the birthplace of Rock and Roll, Memphis, TN. We visited the welcome center and took a picture of a big statue of Elvis and picked up a Tennessee map. We then headed to Graceland, home of Elvis Presley. We were going to stop and take a quick picture but the only parking available was not free. In fact, it was $10. If we had planned to stay a while, I would have reluctantly paid, but we were just going to visit a few minutes, so we didn't park. We instead, drove past a few times to look and then it was on to Nashville. We had planned on getting to Nashville and see Ryman Auditorium by about 5:30, but we got pretty hungry and decided to stop for dinner at Loretta Lynn's Country Cooking in Buffalo. It was okay food, but the gift shop was a tourist trap big time. Loretta's face was pasted on everything. By the time we got to Nashville, it was about 7:30 and it was too difficult to park to see the site of the Grand Ole Opry, so once again we just looked and then on we went. Then the GPS decided to die. I'm not sure what's going on with it.

I will have to try to figure it out on day 2. As I write this we are staying in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant. It's a little warm, but not too bad. Hey, I can't complain for a free night. We will wake up early, eat breakfast and then be on our way once again. Pictures to come soon.

Almost Ready to Go

We are almost ready to leave on our trip and things are really starting to fall into place. Some of you may not know where we are going so I thought I would show you a map of our trip. Click on it for a larger version. We are using the newest version of Microsoft Streets and Trips. It makes our trip planning really easy! Our ultimate destination is Washington DC. We will, of course make stops along the way including, but not limited to, Graceland, Mount Airey, NC (Andy Griffith's Hometown), Williamsburg, VA and Kitty Hawk. It's going to be a very full trip so we hope you all enjoy it.