The North Country not-so-Fair

We are back in winter. At least a typical Arkansas winter. We are up on the u.p. of Michigan and it is nasty and cold, about 42 degrees for a high and overcast with occasional rain and lots of wind. I made the decision to wind our way back home via the northern Great Lakes route and now I am wishing we were just back in humid 85 degree Arkansas. This weather would be great if we had already endured a long, hot summer, but right now it is a tad depressing. The trees up here are just starting to bud out and as you can see in the photo we even found a little snow on the shore of Lake Superior by Painted Rocks National Lakeshore. We are now camping in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart in Marquette, Michigan. We are going to get up early and haul butt to the Apostle Islands and spend the day in that area of Lake Superior.

We waited in line at the gas station this morning to get some cheap $3.99 gas as it was $4.29 just down the road in b.f. u.p. Michigan. Far enough north that they gig you for gas. We cruised across the Peninsula and kept seeing signs for Pasties, so my gastronomic curiosity got the best of me and I had to stop at the "oldest" and "best" pastie stand. I got two ready to eat and two frozen what I called "pay-stees". "O.K. den, that will bee four pass-tees altogether." They pronounce things funny up here. Mackinac is Mackinaw. I already am thinking these guys are crazy for enduring the winter that doesn't end until June, so the funky pronounciations are just icing. There is apparently a lot of fishing and camping and other outdoor activities up here due to the huge amount of water, but I think I would wait until July or August for my next visit.

We are about done with this year long journey, just one more week. I am going to miss this r.v. and being able to wake up whenever and travel wherever and stay however long. At times I feel excited about getting back to work and sometimes I feel like I am headed to the electric chair. The time sure has flown by, but when I reflect on all that we have done it seems like it should have taken years to accomplish. There is so much to see and do in the U.S. of A. You could spend a year in every state. I have no regrets. I feel very fortunate to have been in a trade and economy that afforded us this trip and twice as fortunate to have a wife that I wanted to spend this much time with and who would tolerate me as Kim does. If fate takes away all my assets (what are left) and leaves me with just Kim I know that all will still be fine.

Talk to you soon

James

Roller Coaster Mania

We thought we had accounted for all factors……not a weekend, kids still in school, not a major holiday, how were we to know about Physics Day?

We pulled into the parking lot at Cedar Point and were excited about the lack of cars until we saw the number of buses. One car, maybe 4 people, one bus more like 40. We went up to the ticket line and while we waited there for an hour, were amazed at the number of teenagers in line around us. I had predicted there may be a few instances of schools seeking entertainment at the end of the year but this was overwhelming. After we finally got inside we rushed to wait in another line for over an hour to ride the Raptor, a Batmanesque ride for those of you who have been to six flags. We again noticed the massive amount of teenagers and started to pick up on the cues that these weren’t normal teens. They appeared to be having remotely intelligent discussions, they were all dressed fairly normally no baggy jeans or barren midriffs (well it was about 50 degrees). The tell tail sign that these were not your run of the mill teenagers was the fact that we were at an amusement park and no one was even attempting to cut in line. James even commented on how he had renewed faith in the youth and he didn’t understand why I was hesitant to return to work. Not wanting to let us be deceived too long in our optimism the guy in line behind us informed us that we had happened upon Physics Day. The four geeky guys to one cute girl ratio should have been a sign.

For those of you who don’t know Physics Day is a day created by Physics teachers across the nation to boost enrollment in their classes. In exchange for suffering through a year of Physics you get to go to an amusement park at the end of the school year and pretend to marvel at the properties you have been studying all year being put into play. I’m not being mean here we actually saw one girl wearing a shirt that said ‘this is why I took Physics’.

Other than it being a bit more crowded than we had expected we had a good day, thankfully we finally saw the sunshine after days of rain so that helped. We were definitely some of the oldest people there, but that just added to our novelty. I got a good pep talk from the kids behind us in line for the Millennium Force, a ride that starts you off with a 300 ft. drop and keeps you at about 90 miles the rest of the trip. While we were waiting in line a car stalled at about 298 ft. This is where my enthusiasm began to lag. If I had been stuck at the top I’m afraid more than shaka would have come out of my mouth. It was worth it in the end so much so that we went on it twice! I did have to explain to the guys in front of us what ‘shaka’ meant since they had to listen to me screaming it in their ears.

Due to the crowds we weren’t able to ride all 16 of the roller coasters there, but we hit all the big ones. We even rode one standing up. James had to squat a little to get on it but thankfully he made the clearance on all the turns. The ride of the day though was the Top Thrill Dragster. I don’t know if you have ever seen the top roller coaster show that the Travel Channel does but this ride is at the top of the list. You go over 400 ft. in the air at a speed of 120mph. I almost chickened out after seeing the shell-shocked looks on the faces of all the people getting off the ride; even the ones who had looked confident and smug getting on looked as if they had peed in their pants. Since I had been challenged by my 9 month pregnant sister and wanted bragging rites I persevered. I impressed both myself and my husband by keeping my eyes open the whole time. I am so glad I did, it was the most amazing adrenaline rush. I was still shaking 10 minutes after it was over. Even James was a bit rattled. We may be getting older, but we are still young at heart!

Love, Kim

PS the first two pictures are of the people stuck at the precipice of the Millenium Force drop

Niagara...."Thundering Water"

You don’t have to read all of this. Do as I would do and just look at the pictures and move on to the rest of your day. If your day is spent at a computer then what the hell go ahead and read on.
The local channel 7 nightly news from Buffalo, New York is airing on our little R.V. t.v. They just announced that there has been a woman’s body found in the Niagara River. “They aren’t giving any names or discussing the condition of the body. The sheriff department’s only comment is that it is the season for bodies in the river.” That struck me, season for bodies in the river? Apparently the Niagara Falls is a popular destination for the people who can no longer keep up with their mortgages or are otherwise desperate. They do beckon. “Would you rather go back to fixing air conditioners in hot and humid Arkansas or how’s about just climbing that short railing and taking a nice ride in my cool blue waters?” The Falls are definitely a popular destination for anybody that does not speak English on the North American continent. No, that is not the Arkansas bigot coming out in me it was a true cultural melting pot. Many Asians, Indians, Europeans, some Amish, Kim and myself. O.k., the Amish do speak English, but you wouldn’t know it by listening, they are very silent. I am truly fascinated with the Amish after seeing so many in Pennsylvania and western New York. We saw many buggies carrying kids, lumber, shower stalls you name it. Some Amish seemed to use gas powered implements, but most used horse powered implements and they all dressed the same. All were very quiet and the children very well behaved. They were all lean and muscular from hard work. I am thinking this way of life will prevail in this economy. Aside from the devout religious aspect of their lives I am thinking I could live like this, a simple life of working the land and having just enough. It has to be better than living a life of CNN cramming your skull full of bummer news while you cram your belly full of Pop-Tarts and diet Pepsi. I feel poisoned and worthless, that does it I am going back to the falls. I just have to decide, American Falls for sure death or Horseshoe Falls for a chance of coming through the tumult alive. There was a 7 year old boy who swam the falls after his father couldn’t get the boat motor started at the head of the river where it turns to white water and heads to the falls. I have an idea, don’t ever boat near this part of the river no matter how new or “reliable” your motor is. Upshot is that the boy survived, they pulled his sister out right before the brink and they didn’t talk about the old man in the film, so I am guessing the outcome wasn’t little kid tourist friendly.
What an amazing powerful body of water. Summer flow of 750,000 gallons of water per second over the falls. In boater talk I believe that translates to about 90,000 cfs, which is a lot of water no matter how you state it. Kim and I looked at the falls from all angles. We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride right underneath Horseshoe Falls. We took the Cave of the Winds walk right alongside Bridal Veil Falls, we walked over to the Canadian side and viewed the falls from the other side of the river and atop a Ferris Wheel and we viewed all of the falls right next to the brink.
Almost as amazing to me were the Whirlpool Rapids. We walked down into the Niagara Gorge from Whirlpool State Park about 2 miles to view these HUGE rapids. As a lover of moving water I was awestruck. The water runs at 30 miles per hour with that huge volume and makes tremendous waves and holes. COOL!
Kim will tell you all about the roller coasters at Cedar Point on Tuesday.

Photos: 1.Cave of the Winds walk underneath bridal veil falls. 2. Maid of the Mist boat ride under falls. 3. American Falls 4. Brink of Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. 5. Whirlpool Rapids

Exclusively for Tuna

As we headed north to Niagara Falls Kim had planned for us to stop at Buckaloons campground in the Allegheny National Forest in the northern part of Pennsylvania. Yesterday I had purchased a fishing license online from the state of Pennsylvania so that I could fish in Keystone Lake at our campground. I didn't catch shaka and was turned off to fishing as I havn't had real good luck in a while. Kim thought that we should camp here at "Buckaloons" before we got into New York so that I could have another chance to use my $35 three day license.

We toured the campground upon arrival and the dark, primitive campgrounds combined with the huge speed bumps every 50 feet had me very disenchanted. I had decided to cruise north and forget the fishing when the campground host flagged us down while we were passing. "Can I help you folks, you look lost?" I felt like saying "No, your huge speed bumps suck and we are bolting!", but instead I said "Just looking at the camp sites. How's the fishing?" He was very nice and imformed me that there was a creek behind the campsite that we were thinking about occupying. I felt the Murie guilt, and decided to stay just because the host was nice and he might think I was ungracious if we left.

I took a look a the creek and decided it might be worth a try. I grabbed my pole and a small tackle box that contained some trout lures and headed up the creek. I tried several small holes and not a bite. Between the rainy weather and the lack of good fishing I was getting bummed. I saw some fins come out of the water in this large hole up river. Carp? Gamefish? Hmmmm? I took a couple of casts and nothing, so I decided to change lures. Wham! A very plum smallmouth bass, as big as any I have caught in Arkansas! Yee haw. I took dozens more casts, change lures many times and nothing, so I was about to call it good. I found a funky jig that I had bought ten of in Minnesota and thought "This one ought to scare them away or really piss them off." First cast I hooked a fish bigger than I have had on in many years and of course it popped the hook. I could have cried. Then I cast out again and hooked the same fish or it's equal and landed it. It must have been a four pounder. It was a big female that appeared to be full of eggs, so I had to let it go with no picture for evidence. I was bummed, but I wasn't going to slay this big, beautiful fish just for bragging rights. I caught five more fish that were all as big if not bigger than any I have caught in Arkansas, so I decided it would be worth going back to get the camera in case this was going to keep up. Luckily it kept up and I caught ten more fish. I caught a couple that I am pretty sure were 3 lbs, but could not get another monster. Don't worry, I am going to try again in the morning. A total of 16 fish and none of them smaller than 15", the biggest was probably 20" and fat as a football. I didn't have my professional photographer with, so these I took of myself. Smallest to biggest. I don't need to hit the crack pipe this evening, I am high on fishing right now. My wife is awesome for picking Buckaloons Campground.

Pittsburgh

It is funny to me that James was initially against this whole blogging thing and now I can't tear him away from the computer. He is witty and charming so I don't object to him being our primary spokesman. Unless he calls me a geek, which just for the record he asked me to rewind a part of the Goonies he missed due to a phone call, so he couldn't have hated it too much. Also to defend myself over the Amish bakery incident...... we knew the exact location of such a place but James thought it would be more fun to explore and come across one spontaneously. While usually I am all up for adventure, when sweets are involved I say go for the sure thing. After 2 hours of unsuccessful 'exploring' I got a little cranky.

Well we finally got a taste of some of the weather that everyone in Arkansas has been experiencing. We went for about 3 days without seeing the sun and realized that perhaps we would have had a harder time staying happily married this year if we hadn't had so many sunny days. I knew things were getting bad when I found myself trying to coerce James into kayaking the river even though it was above flood stage. Thankfully he didn't listen to me and the sense of stir craziness passed.

Yesterday we went into Pittsburgh. We had to wear our fleece jackets, even though it is the middle of May. The theme for the day was food. James was very focused on having a sandwich from Primanti Brothers restaurant, a place he saw on the Discovery channel. It was some sort of cheese steak thing with coleslaw and french fries on the sandwich, yuck. He seemed to enjoy it and the fries were good (I had mine on the side, not touching the sandwich of course). We then stumbled across a neat downtown market that had all kinds of fresh meat. Just our luck they were having a special on fillet Mignon so of course we had to stock up for the RV. We also checked out the Heinz history museum and took the incline up to Mt. Washington to take in a view of the city. I have to say Pittsburgh was a nicer city than James and I thought it would be. It sits at the confluence of 2 big rivers and has lots of hills and trees. It does sort-of seem like a struggling city, due to the collapse of the steel industry. We had a drink at Mel's bar at the top of the Duquesne incline and heard him lament about the decline of his city and how the 26 year old mayor was running it into the ground. 26 year old mayor? I was just mastering balancing my checkbook at age 26, let alone the budget for a big city.

Today we enjoyed the sunshine and James did some fishing from our campsite at Keystone State Park. Tomorrow we are heading north towards Niagara Falls, shooting for being there before the weekend rush. I am very excited! It is supposed to rain again, but we will already be wet from the waterfall so who cares.

I got a phone call yesterday from one of my former vice principals and it seems as if I might be gainfully employed again next year. I tried to use this information of course to encourage James to stay on the road for a few more weeks, but no dice. It is a huge answer to prayer to have security for next year. I may have to find a safe bike route to get me up to Bentonville as gas prices sky rocket, but it will be worth it because it is a great place to work.

I hope everyone has a great day tomorrow! We will be home soon!

Love, Kim

Rain, Rain go Away

The rain has sequestered us to the R.V. We are in the Ohiopyle State Park on the Youghiogheny River in Pennsylvania. I intended to kayak the river, but the two days of rain has it flooded, muddy and fast, so I am being a big chicken. Kim is in the back of the R.V. doing pilates or yoga or something to a dvd. She keeps looking up at me and inviting me to join, I think she is delusional about the size of the yoga room back there. "Look Schweetie, Exalted Warrior pose!" "This pose would be great on your back!" "It feels good!" Now she is more than likely going to put on the Goonies dvd. See, it isn't all roses here folks. When it is rainy and cold and you just want some down time to yourself you can't get away to the other side of the house instead you sit at the dinette and try to avoid invitations to pilates. My wife is a geek, uh-oh here she comes, she is bound to peer over my shoulder at any time now. Whew! She went back to the "Theater /Excercise Room". I will pay for these comments, just not right now.

Yesterday we went for a bike ride down a rails-to-trails path that runs down the Youghiogheny River gorge. Youghiogheny is actually pronounced "Yok-e-o-gain-e". It is an indian word for "river that flows in a contrary direction" Ohiopyle is also an indian word for the water falls here. Probably for "water that falls at a high velocity over many boulders". In case you didn't know, a rails-to-trails is where they took an old railroad bed and fill it in with gravel or asphalt to make a bike and walking path. Since there were a lot of railroads in the East there are a lot of these types of paths. It was sunny yesterday afternoon for a spell and the water was flowing everywhere, so it was a very nice time. Today we went and looked at the Falling Water house that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built for a wealthy department store mogul. It was very fascinating. The home was budgeted at 20-30 thousand and ended up costing $140,000. I know some architects capable of overrunning budgets, but 5 times the original sum? I know an architect that thought a project wasn't legitimate unless it went over budget, now I know why he said this. It was given to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy back in 1963 by the only son of the couple and they maintain it now and give tours. The Smithsonian said it was one of the top 28 things people should see before they die, so we decided to check it out. As with all the Frank Lloyd Wright and Fay Jones type architecture I have seen it was comprised of a lot of stone and wood and the ceilings were LOW. Low, low, low. The guide refrenced me many times. "How tall are you? Six foot six. Yeah, see the ceilings in here are six foot four inches and the doorways are six foot two inches. You see Frank Lloyd Wright thought that all men should be around 5' 8" since that is how tall he was and any ceiling above 7' tall was a waste of space." I don't like Frank. This house of stone and wood over the water fall is awesome, but Frank can keep his low ceilings and doorways.

Happy Mother's Day

Mary had a little Lamb, two dogs, three turkeys, six cats, 12 chickens, 20 goats, one Huber, three kids and 5 grandchildren that love her very much.

You are our...

encyclopedia, Medical Reference, Psychologist, Best Friend, Financial Expert, College Admissions Expert, Hospital Admissions Expert, Language Expert, and MVGM or Most Valuable Grand Mother to name a few.

I probably wouldn't be on this year long journey if you hadn't instilled the wander lust bug in me by hauling us all over the country when we were kids. I can see that you are doing that with your grandchildren now. You made a lot of sacrifices so that we could have adventures. You still sacrifice so that everyone is happy. We all have learned to be more inquisitive and to be kind to all of earth's creatures including the human ones because of your example. Many a stray critter has benefited from your kindness, including the human ones.

I sure hope you realize how much you are needed and loved by all that have crossed your path.

You are truly one of the most special people that have been placed on this planet and only a handful are lucky enough to know that.

To all the great adventures we have had and all that are yet to come thanks to the most wonderful mother Mary a.k.a. Moomy. I will be sure to have a Meyers and Coke in your honor at 5:00 p.m. your time when I get off the river.

Love, Your biggest critter James

Amish Country

Either Kim's estrogen is infusing my body from spending every minute of every day with her or I really need to get back to some good ol' macho blue collar work. I am sitting here bawling at the Regis and Kathy Lee show after a good dose of crying to the Good Morning America show. It's the Mother's Day specials you see, a bunch of teary-eyed women including my own have got to me and I'm a little verklempt over here.
We spent the day yesterday doing too much...oh here I go again...Collin Raye is singing to a mother that lost her son and chose to donate his organs..I'm verklempt..here's the topic, the New Deal it was neither new nor a deal, discuss. My tear ducts are dry over here.
Anyhoo, we spent the day yesterday in Amish Country and it didn't disappoint. There were many buggies with big orange caution reflectors on the back. Kim decided to forgo breakfast in the R.V. for the hopes of coming across an Amish bakery by a reasonable hour. This didn't happen and let me tell you Miss Chipper got a little peeved. I had a full belly and I couldn't help but chuckle as we passed by small town after small town without Amish. Kim got pretty pissed at me and I could see that priority one was to feed the girl or the Amish were going to see something they aren't used to. We finally found a nice Deli and Bakery type place in Intercourse, PA. We failed to get a t-shirt or a picture by the city sign in Intercourse and I regret that. The pretzel factory there had a hat that asked the question "hard or soft?" Intercourse, PA, but it was too rednecky of a style of hat. We passed many tidy farms with Amish men guiding horse drawn implements. There were at least three incidents of Amish families playing baseball in the front yard. We stopped at an Amish bicycle store and sure enough they had the parts I needed for my bike, something that six other bike stores couldn't provide. I said "Wow! That's awesome! I have been to six other stores and you guys are the first! Thanks man!" The response, a very unhumored "We keep a lot of old parts around. Anything else?" The Amish are all about work and gettin' 'er done, but not necessarily about humour I guess.
Upon Bill's recommendation we stopped at Cornwall, a small township started in the mid 1700's by a man named Grubb for the purpose of running an iron furnace to make cast iron from iron ore. I learned that a collier is someone that makes charcoal from trees for use in the blast furnace. I did not know what a collier was. There again, I don't read enough. While watching the edumacational film there was an Amish family seated in front of us with about six children. Not a peep! Not a look away from the screen! The older kids kept the younger kids in line and mom kept the baby quiet with silent techniques and dad watched the film intently as if to memorize questions to ask the children later. Wow! It was awesome! After tourist attraction upon tourist attraction with nothing but brats running around us for the last year I have to celebrate the Amish. Hey, I don't care what goes on inside their four walls that makes these kids so obedient, all I know is I don't have to suffer the consequences of what doesn't go on inside their four walls. Very cool buildings and amazing amount of work and forsight that goes into someone saying "Hey, this place looks like it has a lot of iron in the soil. I think I will build a furnace and turn an acre a day of trees into charcoal to melt some metal out of tons of dirt." They got iron out of that streak of dirt until the mid 1970's.
We ended the day in Hershey. That's right, Hershey, PA where all the chocolate is made. We did the free stuff. We did get some souvenirs or as I call it "paying for the privilege to advertise for a large corporation." Donna, I hope that the little M.E. is a youth medium or I am going to cry into this high dollar t-shirt. We ended the day at a restaurant that kinda fooled us. It looked like a Denny's type place attached to a motel and I said "Let's stop there, I just want a salad." We walked in and there was a very dapper black man in a dark suit standing behind a mahogany reception podium. "Good evening sir and madam." I was looking for the green apron clad white trash girl saying "Howdy folks, smokin' or non." I felt a little under dressed in my shorts and "Life's Good" t-shirt. "Err.. uh.. yeah. Table for two please." We had an excellent meal and probably the best staff of the whole year, even if I did stand out against the mahogany, crystal, semi-circle high backed booth and jazz music atmosphere.
Off to Ohiopyle to soak in the Youghigeny River.

photos 1. Amish plumber hauling a shower stall 2. interesting lost and found of the old days-i don't condone slavery, but I thought some of the language was humorous. Let the old dude go, he has had a rough life. 3. old farm house 4.Cornwall furnace 5. Kim entering the chocolate world

Abe Lincoln is my new hero. He actually always has been my favorite president 'cause he was the Great Emancipator, but I really have rekindled my love for him by visiting Gettysburg. It amazes me that anyone could have thought the Gettysburg Address a bad speech, but there were many critics in the day. My history teacher at the UofA always used to say "the more things change the more they stay the same." That used to bother me as much as "you can't have your cake and eat it too", but now I know exactly what he is saying. Our government and politics haven't changed a bit. Different names, different issues, but the same 'ol crap. One thing I have noticed while in history school over here in the East is that the speeches of the 17th through the middle of the 20th centuries were so much more eloquent. Can you imagine the Gettysburg address by ol' George W.? "Well heck, about 87 years ago the fella's that sat down and started this country here on North 'merica thought that everybody ought to be free and the same. We are now in the midst of a huge war 'mongst ourselves which is testin' whether or not this thing is goin' to work..." watch C-Span if you need more. I can't believe it. What happened to us as a country that we would elect an illiterate. It is hard to find someone who will own up to electing him the second time isn't it? This isn't a political blog, so I won't take a chance on offending.

It is sobering to walk around the battlefield at Gettysburg and think of all of the lives that were sacrificed to prove to us as a nation that we can't let any issue divide us in order to prosper and remain strong. It seems like a huge unnecessary sacrifice of youth, but what war doesn't? Now look at Iraq. "The more things change the more they stay the same." I forgot, I'm not allowed to get philosophical. My apologies to Tuna and Jeff.

R.V. life is sitting in the dining room typing on the computer, getting a beer from the fridge and opening it with a bottle opener from the kitchen drawer, turning on the stereo in the front and not even leaving my seat at the dinette. Tight confines has it's benefits.

Kim is back in the master bedroom vocalizing the answers to Jeopardy. She is accurately adding the "What is.." and the "Who is.." with her responses. She is either trying to stay sharp for her Jeopardy try-out or she is trying to impress her husband. I guess we are all guilty. I feel like such an idiot through 90 percent of the questions, the ones I can't answer, that I have to shout out the ones I know just to convince myself or anyone listening that not all the file drawers are empty. Kim has bad allergies right now so i am hearing siffle.."what is leopard"..sniffle "what are ants"..sniffle, "who is Bill Cosby".

We will be fortunate enough to watch American Idol tonight. I hope the little shifty-eyed, lip-licking, child molesting Catholic priest-to -be, David Archuleta gets the boot. See what a year off will do for you, you will actually care about American Idol. I also can't stand the dread-lock, brain dead, in a constant smoked-a-good-bud stupor Jason Castro, so I hope he goes too. David Cook for Idol or I am never watching another one. Hee, hee I can't wait to text tonight. Just kidding! I haven't stooped that low.

That's my blog of low pertinence. We are headed to Amish country near Lancaster, PA and Hershey to eat chocolate tomorrow, so I am sure Kim will give you a hopped up on chocolate review.

Photos: 1. Fields near Gettysburg 2. North Carolina Soldiers Monument 3. Cemetery with unknown soldier's graves 4.Eternal Light monument dedicated by FDR in 1938 saw around 1800 Civil War veterans attend at average age of 93 and a total of 250,000 attendees. 5.overlook from Little Round Top mountain, which was a decisive Union stronghold

Washington DC Blitz

Thank you Tracy & Donna for being faithful bloggers. I must admit we have as much, if not more fun logging on to see who has commented than we do writing the actual comments. Tracy, only a former vegetarian would come up with the word 'quinoa'. Donna you are right this will be something awesome to keep. Someone asked me if I was going to make a scrapbook and I said sure, I will print off the blog and stick it in a book. Sorry Meme.

As James said we are ending our time off in a flurry of activity. We may have pushed our agenda a bit too far when we decided to do DC in a day. Thanks to the advice of our friends Corey & Lisa (who live in Charlottesville, Va and I hadn't talked to in 10 years but decided to call up while we were visiting Monticello and ended up finagling an invitation to dinner and had a great visit not leaving until midnight) anyway, they suggested we go in on a Sunday to avoid some of the school groups. Excellent advice. Not only were the school groups lessened, remarkably there were still quite a few, but the Metro was cheaper and the traffic was minimal. We tackled two Smithsonian museums, Natural History and Air & Space. If you haven't been to Washington DC it may amaze you to know that all of the Smithsonian museums are free! Not only that but they were started with a grant from someone who had never even been to America but was obviously concerned about our lack of education. I can't imagine what Mr. Smithson would say if he could see us now.

After absorbing as much information about dinosaurs, rocks, black holes and the Wright brothers (just to name a few) as we could from the two museums we checked out the Capitol building and were amazed at the amount of non-English speakers we encountered. It seems as if there are more foreigners interested in our government than Americans. I guess that could explain a lot about our economy. From the Capitol it was a long walk down the mall to the White House and all of the monuments. We also got to see the helicopter dropping of the President from a weekend away at Chucky Cheese or wherever it is he goes when he takes a day off.

Washington is amazing no matter what you think of our government. It is inspiring to realize that it is a living, breathing institution and it makes you want to be a part of it in some way. You stand on the steps of the Lincoln memorial and can't help but feel if he is looking towards the Capitol building saying ' I'm watching you guys to see if you screw up what I fought so hard to protect'. You walk around the FDR or Jefferson memorial and read their quotes and wonder if we will ever have people who were as passionate about our country and people as they were. You walk through all the war memorials and are overwhelmed by the sacrifice that so many have made for our country. You feel moved and inspired and then an obnoxious teenager cuts in front of in line and the feeling passes. All you feel is disdain for the environment that has breed such spoiled entitlement. Uh oh, maybe I am going to have a harder time going back to work than I thought.

We had a great, if a bit tiring day in DC and followed it up with a busy day yesterday touring Harper's Ferry and going on a 25 mile bike ride, probably not the best thing to do for my allergies. It was a really neat bike path though which was made along an old canal route along the Potomac river. The disadvantage of being at a higher elevation was that it wasn't as pretty, the advantage was the plant sexual revolution hadn't started yet so I could breathe. I am going to quit before the medicine takes a greater stronghold and I start making even less sense.

Love, Kim