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.