Exceedingly Mundane

Wow, I’ve blogged quite a bit today, and I am still not caught up. We’ve seen so much on our trip and we want to remember it all. After our West Wing tour today, we went back to the hotel to change, I uploaded some pictures, blogged (partially) about our White House tour, rested a bit, then we headed back out. We took the Metro to the Archives stop, and went to the National Archives to view the “Charters of Freedom” – the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We had originally planned to do this on Monday, as I had seen on the website that they would have a reading of the Declaration on July 4th at 10 AM. However, we thought we could go ahead and go (before the crowds, hahaha), and that would give us more time on Monday to spend at the Spy Museum. Well, were we ever wrong! We turned the corner going to the Archives and saw the line. It was wound all the way back to the main steps. We waited outside for nearly an hour, then finally made it in the door, and waited to be scanned and checked. After that, we thought we were home free.

WRONG.

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We just got back to the hotel after our private tour of the White House West Wing, and all I can say is…. WOW!

We had a great time and were so in awe of where we were and what we saw. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside most of the White House, but I took what I could, where I could, and I just loaded them into the Photo Gallery on Hambones.

Kirk setup a tour with his friend Lucas, who works in Vice President Cheney’s office. We stopped at two checkpoints and got cleared through Secret Service and got our “A” badges, for temporary access (visitor pass, I guess). Lucas met us at the final gate and got us scanned in, then we walked toward the Old Executive Office building, and the entrance to the West Wing, and then entered the White House. There were lots of great photos on the wall, enlarged, from recent events such as Nelson Mandela visiting the White House, some other dignitaries, and then a lot of photos from Sept 11, and the president’s subsequent visit to Ground Zero.

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We got up early this morning and took a very uncrowded subway train out to Arlington Cemetery. We had to change trains at the Rosslyn station and we just barely missed our connecting train out to the cemetery and then had to wait 18 minutes on the next train. Argh, that’s the most we’ve had to wait so far!

We took a Tourmobile through the cemetery, with stops at the Kennedy gravesite (saw the eternal flame and graves of John Fitzgerald and Jackelyn Bouvier), and also the gravesite of his brother Bobby. Our tour guide told us that Bobby’s simple white cross was stated in his will, and it’s the only cross like that in the entire cemetery. One of the reasons that Kennedy is buried where he is, right below Arlington House (the Custis-Lee mansion), is that he stood up there 11 days before his assassination and was heard to remark “I could stay here forever”. We next stopped at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. When we first arrived, we watched in silence at the lone guard standing his post, going back and forth along a rubberized mat in silence, in front of the white marble tomb. Then we watched the changing of the guard. It was very precise, very somber, very respectful, and Tim and I thought, incredibly moving. I think it’s the highlight of our trip so far. I think it’s extraordinary that these guards stand out there, in wool suits and full dress uniform, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and have continuously, never missing a minute, dating back to 1937. They stand there in hurricanes, blizzards, blazing July summers, watching their post and guarding the tomb. Extraordinary.

We got back on the Tourmobile for the last stop, Arlington house, which is the pre-Civil War home of Robert E Lee and his wife Mary Custis Lee, who is the great granddaughter of Martha Washington. We could take pictures inside this house, unlike the interior of Mount Vernon, so I snapped some pics of the antebellum furnishings.

We’ve just gotten back to the hotel after our cemetery trip, and are going to shower and change into dress clothes for our White House tour. Kirk and Nichole will be here soon to pick us up, so I’d better go get ready. Check back later for more!

Another busy day today, as we saw the three Smithsonian museums that were on our list to see — The Air and Space Museum, The American History Museum and the Natural History Museum. Kirk and Nichole came and met us while we were eating lunch at the Air & Space, and then hung out with us for a while. We went on to the American History museum while they went to catch a movie. We walked an awful lot today, but probably not nearly as much as yesterday. I wore my pedometer today and logged 29,306 steps. 🙂 Plus, it helped that today was a bit cooler, but mostly that we were inside air-conditioned museums all day!

Gotta try to get some sleep, as we are getting up early in the morning to head out to Arlington National Cemetery. We’ll meet up with Kirk and Nichole later, and all go to tour the White House.

More next time!

Busy busy day today! Kirk setup a private tour for us at the Capitol, through Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson’s (of Missouri) office. We had a nice intern named Ben who took us through the underground tunnels under the 3 office buildings (Cannon, Longworth and Rayburn) and over into the Capitol. We saw parts of the old capitol, a room where the Supreme Court met for about 50 years in the 1800’s, the old House of Rep. Room, the Capitol Rotunda, the Cox Corridor and finally, to the viewing gallery. We sat in some of the upstairs visitors seats and looked at where the representatives vote, and where Bush gives his State of the Union address. Way cool.

After the tour, we went to the Library of Congress. We saw the Great Hall, one of the original Gutenburg bibles and also another old bible called the Mainz bible. We didn’t want to wait on a tour, so we didn’t get to go into the Reading Room. We left the Library and walked down to the Supreme Court. We took pics outside and noticed a bank of cameras, as well as several groups of protestors (we heard later on about Sandra Day O’Connor). Then, we hiked further down to Union Station and had lunch at the first place where we could find an open table! In this case, it was Johnny Rockets. Tim had a burger and I had a patty melt and we split an order of fries and onion rings. I know, very healthy on this trip!

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We had a great time hanging out tonight with Kirk and Nichole. More to follow… I can already tell that I am going to have a hard time keeping up with the blogging and writing things down, everything I want to journal and remember. We’re getting up so early in the AM, having really full busy days, and then busy nights. Yeah, I know, wah wah!

More later, it’s 11:30 PM here and we’re still refining our plan of attack for tomorrow. Kirk got us a private tour of the Capitol at 10 AM, so we are going to rework things around that.

Check back later!

We’re here!

I’ll try to post a longer update later, but here’s the quick and dirty so far today.

We slept in a little bit this morning, then got up and went down for the free continental breakfast at the hotel in Harrisonburg. We got loaded up (after Tim again bailed water out of the front and back passenger seats, oh my; it was a LOT of water!) and got on the road about 9 AM local time. We drove to Mount Vernon (south of Alexandria) and toured there. We both thoroughly enjoyed Mt Vernon (more on that later) and spent several hours there. We had a late lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn on site, very colonial and picturesque. We both had the turkey “pot pye” (yes, that’s the way it was spelled on the menu) and Tim had bread pudding for dessert and I had cherry pie (in honor of ole George and the cherry trees). Kirk called while we were eating, to see where we were, and let us know he had gotten us a private tour on Friday at the Capitol. Woo-hoo Kirk! We left Mt Vernon, with me navigating, and although we thought we were taking Hwy 1 and going to Arlington National Cemetery, somewhere we took a wrong turn, went across one of the bridges, and ended up smack dab in the middle of Washington DC. We drove by the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Memorial (SLOWLY, in late afternoon traffic) and eventually, through trial and error, found a way back over the Potomac River into Arlington, then drove around for a while till we stumbled upon our hotel. Well – Please Note: Tim says he knew where he was going and got us here and I totally agree. I was totally lost, couldn’t find things on the map and was an overall horrible navigator. Good thing he was here and driving, or I would have been somewhere completely lost by now. 🙂

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Currently blogging from a Comfort Inn in Harrisonburg Virginia! We arrived safe and sound tonight around 8:15 local time (7:15 central) and checked in (they had no queens or kings and we’re stuck in a double, icko). We were glad to get a room though – the guy at the front desk said they only had 3 rooms left for tonight.

We had a long day of driving, leaving home at 6:25 AM and driving pretty much straight-through. We stopped once for food, at a Checkers in Cleveland Tennessee, and twice for gas. We also stopped at the Virginia Visitors Center upon entering Virginia on I-81. Picked up some maps, info booklets and coupon booklets.

We had another small problem with the car. Background: When we went to Gatlinburg last October, we noticed on the way back that the right rear floorboard was wet. At first, we thought this was because a thing of bottled water had leaked, but then we realized the bottles were not down any water! Then, we thought it must have come from the road because we drove home in a lot of rain. Tim actually took the car apart for nearly 10 days before Christmas (finally putting it back together the day before Christmas Eve –his idea of how to keep me from shopping and spending money, hahaha), but he never could find a leak. So, we decided it was a fluke and we haven’t noticed a drop of water since. WRONG! Our right rear floorboard is completely flooded and Tim has bailed water twice today. The front floorboard is damp too. We’ve decided it must be a problem with the AC, it’s either a clogged line or a leak, because we did run the AC in the car all day. More fuel for the “get rid of this car and get a new one soon” fire.

Ok, some other small tidbit:s

We really lucked out in the traffic department and didn’t hit any major traffic.

We added a new “sign” to our collection – we take pictures of state signs as we enter new states, something we started doing when we were first married and going places together. Neither Tim nor I have ever been to the state of Virginia before today, so this is new for us, and we have a picture of the sign to prove it!

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OK, the unthinkable happened! We actually set the alarm early and got up! heheeh, rarely happens around here. Especially considering that we were up after 11 PM, packing, going over the atlas, looking for a place to stop tonight, etc.

We got up at 5 AM and are about ready to leave, in maybe 20 minutes or so. So, pretty close to our goal of leaving at 6 AM. We’re going to drive as far as Tim feels like today. We looked at the atlas last night and are considering stopping someplace like Christiansburg, Roanoke or Lexington Virginia. If the hotel has internet access, I’ll get on and post another update. Although, don’t get all excited, today is all about driving, so we won’t have much of anything to report.

Have a great day everyone, and say a prayer for us to have a safe trip!

OK, since Tim is not home, I’m killing (aka wasting) time by doing one of my favorite pasttimes – blog surfing. 😀

I found this at several scrapbooker’s blogs, including Denise Pauley’s blog.

Hit the -More- link if you’re interested, the rest are in there! 😀

A is for Always wearing: my wedding band

B is for Book I have read the most times: I don’t tend to re-read books, but I have read “September” by Rosamund Pilcher more than once

C is for Camera: Kodak digital (older one, 3.1 megapixel)

D is for Dog or cat person: DOG. No cats.

E is for Essential items in my purse: Wallet, chapstick

F is for Favorite season: Fall, followed closely by winter

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Poor Tim, he’s stuck at the office, working on a problem. Today is supposed to be his last day for a week, while we’re gone on vacation. He’s not on-call, which is good, but they are having a conversion this weekend and I think it’s getting to him that he is going to be gone while a big project is going on. He just called and said he would be a while, they were working on a problem that needed fixing.

We will have to pack and do some other misc things tonight after he gets in. I had originally planned to cook supper, but was thoroughly unmotivated earlier today, so I IM’d with Tim and asked what he might want to pick up for supper on the way home. (think he got the hint?) He took my car today, so he could go and put it through the car wash before we leave. He has a place he likes to use, but oops – now that’s he stuck working late, they will probably be closed by the time he is finished. Oh well, the car will pick up lots of dead bugs between here and Virginia and back, I’m sure. I wonder what we’ll have to eat for supper! 🙂

In case I don’t get a chance to get back on the computer, everyone have a great week and weekend. We hope to be back online at our hotel Thursday night, and can start blogging about our vacation then. Keep your fingers crossed! 😀

OK – UPDATED: Tim just called and is on his way home. The car wash place he likes so much was still open, so he got the car washed. He’s sitting in Sonic, ordering us artery-clogging junk food. Let the vacation feasting, over-eating and indulging begin! 😀

I hate that I don’t have time today to drive up and see Shanna, Grayson and Ava Clair. Shanna called yesterday to say that she had decided, at sort of the last minute, to stay at Gail’s house this week. Trent drove back to Houston after the wedding, as he had to get back to work. I would love to go up and see Shanna and play with the kids, but it’s just about the worst time for me to try to be gone the whole day. I just haven’t gotten enough done for our trip before today, I guess I procrastinate too much, plus there’s always some last minute things I seem to think of to do before we leave.

I wish I had been able to go! I know Shanna and the kids will have fun at Gail’s, and I know how much Don and Gail will enjoy having them at the house all week. I just hate missing out on all the fun! 😀 Have fun, you guys, I wish I was there!

I had hoped that by the time today got here (the day before we leave on vacation), that I would have gotten a lot more done and ready for our trip. WRONG. I am still way behind in everything I need to have done before we leave, and I’m starting to really doubt how much of it I can get completed before we pull out of the driveway tomorrow morning.

Oh well.

Part of the problem is that I’m more interested in playing on Hambones, reading blogs, surfing my favorite sites – and mainly – playing with my new iPod than concentrating on laundry, cleaning, packing, list-making and scratching off, trip planning, etc. Oh well. I’m sure we’ll get there, hopefully have clean clothes, find our way around, see the sights, and get home in one piece.

Anyone have any last minute advice before we leave on our weeklong summer vacation to Washington DC? Any travel pointers? Any tips on what “not to miss” in DC? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

I just posted a news story on the home page of Hambones – that we hope the site stays up and running while we are gone (it should, unless we have a power outage), and that our internet access is working in the hotel we are staying at. If all goes as planned, then check back here in a couple of days as I plan to blog from the hotel about our vacation. Hopefully on a daily basis. So check back later on this week and over the 4th of July weekend. Hopefully we will have lots to report! I plan to use this blog like an electronic travel journal. Keep your fingers crossed!

Well, this comes as no surprise. For any of you that know me, you already know that I am not quite right!! 😀

From this site:

You Are 50% Normal (Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal… Other things you do are downright strange You’ve got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

We’re both working on computers today – Tim is working on Hambones, and I’ve been on the laptop, working on movie reviews (4 new ones up in the Reviews section of Hambones) and some memes here on my blog. I’m listening to music on my iPod too! 😀

We still have a lot to get organized before we leave town in a few days. Lots of stuff to get ready and lots of things to remember to pack. Boy, will we be the Geek Squad on wheels or what? The list to take includes:

1. Laptop with various cords, cables and attachments
2. Digital Camera with USB cable for transferring pics
3. Power inverter to use laptop/iPod in car
4. GPS
5. iPod and FM transmitter
6. Misc – handheld electronic game, pedometer, pager, cell phones, etc
7. We considered taking the Vonage VOIP adaptor, but I think we’re going to leave it at home 😀

Yup, it’s official – the GEEKS leave on vacation in 3 days!