Leaving DC

On Sunday we discovered a hidden gem being the Franciscan Monastery. It's filled with shrines of the Holy Land in a spanish mission style church. Beautiful! Following that, we made our way across town through 47 bus stops and 2 miles of walking to the new MLK memorial, where a park ranger entertained a crowd with a dramatic telling of MLK's life.

Our journey home started at noon today and we are spending tonight in Southern, North Dakota. It will be fun to see how far we get tomorrow.

Saturday

If you're keeping track, you'll notice there was not post on Friday. We were just too tired. We had a great day at the Crime and Punishment Museum and, believe it or not, an art museum, which we all enjoyed. The art of video games was Michael's favorite. Today we at waffles ate the Lincoln Waffle Shop followed by several hours at a science museum. The weather was perfect so we enjoyed walking downtown and went up the Old Post Office Tower.

Mount Vernon

Today we took a cruise down to Mount Vernon. Travel time was an hour and a half each way so we got about four hours to tour the estate. It would have been fun, but there was tons of school groups. They really need to have a day where school groups are not allowed. After we got back to the District we went to the base of the Washington Monument. We were unable to go to the top since it's still closed, but was cool nonetheless. Katie has a pretty bad headache so let's hope she gets to feeling better.

Holocaust Museum

This day started with the Holocaust Museum. After a short wait in line for tickets we spent the better part of the day in the museum and still didn't see it all. Then we went to the house where Lincoln died and had supper at his waffle shop. It was a fun day visiting with a family from Tennessee, a local transplant from California, and a Australian tour group - all of whom were amazed at our 22 hour drive to get here.

Happy Birthday Michael

Michael turned 15 today, so we went to a couple museums that he wanted to see including the National Building Museum and the Postal Museum. We also visited the law enforcement memorial and the Smithsonian Castle. We actually started the day at the Library of Congress at 8:30. Thank goodness for the Metro and Potbelly's Sandwiches - they both got us through the day. As we write this we are live streaming Gary England and wonder if our house will be okay. Our prayers are with Oklahoma tonight.

Happy Memorial Day

Our first stop this morning was the Natural History Museum. We skipped over this last year thinking that it would be boring, but we gave it a try this year and it was far from boring. We enjoyed everything from the beginning of life to Jamestown excavations and the Hope diamond. Lunch was a street vendor hot dog - delicious and expensive. The National Memorial Day Parade was hot and longer than anticipated, but was still fun. Supper at Fuddrucker's then the National Portrait Gallery, highlight being the Hall of Presidents.

We Made It!

We finished our drive through the Appalachians this morning and drove and made our approach to DC.

Our first stop was at the Air and Space Museum by Dulles Airport.

 Among all the neat things there, we really enjoyed seeing the newly arrived Space Shuttle Discovery as well as the Concorde and SR-71 Blackbird. Google Navigation then led us into town to our hotel with Josh only being honked at once. We're settled in and ready for a week in DC. The National Memorial Day Concert was just cancelled due to severe weather so we're glad we didn't attempt to go, but hopefully we'll make the parade tomorrow.

Getting Closer

We had a beautiful drive through the Appalachian Mountains. The scenery in West Virginia is breathtaking. We have stopped for the night in Beckley, WV. Tomorrow it will be a five and a half hour drive to DC. We hope to get there in time to visit the Air and Space museum by Dulles Airport. If not, then we will stop on the way home. After nearly 12 hours in the car, we're pooped. Good night.

Day 2

After being checked into our motel by norman bates' twin brother we arose this morning to a beautiful Ozark mountain overlook in Rolla Missouri. We took off this morning at 8:10. We have so far seen the gateway arch, the Mississippi River, and numerous references to lincoln. We have been enjoying the countryside as we are approaching Hoosier National Forest. 11 1/2 hours away from Washington DC. More later.

Attached is the view from the Best Western in Rolla.

Didn't we do this last year?

Off again to DC. We got off to our usual late start so we're not going to get as far as we hoped. To change it up we are taking a different than last year. We will post a link to our route later. As we write this we are driving into Springfield Missouri and planning on stopping at Rolla for the night. We listened to the royals until they fell behind then we popped in some Abba. Thank you for joining us and we hope you enjoy travelling along with us.

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