D.C. Trip
I just got back in from a week long trip with my sister to the Virginia / D.C. area where we visited cousins and did a lot of sight seeing. It was a total blast.
These are just the highlights - I have a TON more pictures. Click on the pics to enlarge.
Day One
The first day there we went to Mount Vernon which was absolutely gorgeous. The facing on the buildings is actually wood but treated to look like stone (they basically paint it and throw sand on it). Washington also really liked bright greens and blues for his interior colors. Sadly, no photography was allowed inside; I really wanted to get a picture of a key to the Bastille that hangs on the wall of the entryway which was presented to Washington by Lafayette.
We also did a tour of the mill and distillery that were part of Washington's lands. He had the largest whiskey distillery in the colonies. The pic below shows the gears that were part of the mill. The water wheel was on the other side of the wall on the right. They weren't able to run the wheel very fast or very long due to high water levels after all the recent rain.
We would have seen more of the grounds but it started pouring rain so we hit the visitor's center and headed back to my cousin's place.
Day Two
Day two we toured the Natural History Museum just for the dinosaurs and then spent the rest of the day at the two Air and Space Museums. Mostly for the space bits. What can I say? I'm a sci-fi geek.
My favorite dinosaurs have always been the stegosaurus and the ichthyosaurus. Lucky me, they have both! This museum was PACKED; it was hard to get a picture without someone walking in front or bumping the camera. And good luck getting a pic in front of the t-rex!
A backup mirror for the Hubble telescope. So freaking awesome.
This is my sister standing in front of the Enola Gay; the plane that dropped the first atom bomb. It was impossible to get the whole plane in one shot and the lighting was all kinds of weird in the hanger.
Aaaand my FAVORITE shot. This is me standing in front of the Enterprise. Because I AM that much of a nerd.
They also have a model of the mothership used in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There are apparently all kinds of bits put into the ship by the designers and my sister, cousin, and my cousin-in-law spent FOREVER looking for the hidden R2D2, Volkswagen bus, airplanes, etc. I used this time to look at toy space guns through the decades and freeze dried space food.
Day Three
Day three was Monticello. Jefferson's home is quite beautiful, full of really nifty architecture. Talk about a micromanager though; he scheduled everyone's days from sunup to sundown and had a gong tied to a clock that would ring out the hour and could be heard for three miles.
I particularly liked his cannonball calendar. The main body of the calendar was in the foyer of his home but had to dip down into the lower walkways due to its size. I couldn't get a pic of the main part of the calender (no photography in the house) but luckily, we were there on a Saturday...
Day Four
Day four was a nice, slow day. We slept in, had a eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns for breakfast, and then went cruising in my cousin's corvette. (this pic is actually from day five since my camera spent Sunday recharging)
My family went to church and I did some work on my research paper. We then drove over to another cousin's house for homemade pizza and pie (YUM) out on the porch. I wish I'd had my camera because her house is really nifty; it's built into a hill so it looks absolutely tiny from the front but HUGE from the back. It has doors out on to the yard from the middle floor and from the basement. My cousin also has the cutest kids. The weather was extremely nice and we talked until dusk. I got to see my first live fireflies. (although not here - the fireflies were back at the house of the cousin I was staying with)
Day Five
We went to the International Spy Museum and did the self guided tour. WAY awesome. Sadly, no photography allowed inside.
We took the metro back to the Mall, walked passed the Washington Monument,
the WWII Memorial, (that's my sister on the left and my cousin on the right)
down to the Lincoln Memorial.
Sadly, we didn't have a lot of time to spend at any of these places because we had tickets to be back at the Spy Museum for their Operation Spy attraction. Which was WAY COOL; it was totally like doing a Shadowrun simluation. They put together a spy scenario based off of actual case studies where they "fly" you to another country and you get to do espionage, infiltration, and interrogation. I was not so good at the sneaky bits (I almost gave away our position by stepping on a noisy manhole cover...) I did, however, get the best score on clearing up the signal from our bugs.
Day Six
We drove over to Harper's Ferry which was an industrial hub back in the day and also the location of the whole John Brown standoff prior to the Civil War. Very scenic. And, as my cousin was fond of pointing out (it became something of a joke), very historical. You can also see why I had my hair pulled back most of the trip - it did not respond well to the insane humidity...
We then drove back down to Gettysburg but didn't have time to do much there. We did a small bit of the driving tour but had to cut it short in order to get to the airport in time.
All in all it was incredibly fun even though it was insanely humid much of the trip. Give me my crazy Arizona dry heat anytime. And, of course, it's definitely nice to be home.
These are just the highlights - I have a TON more pictures. Click on the pics to enlarge.
Day One
The first day there we went to Mount Vernon which was absolutely gorgeous. The facing on the buildings is actually wood but treated to look like stone (they basically paint it and throw sand on it). Washington also really liked bright greens and blues for his interior colors. Sadly, no photography was allowed inside; I really wanted to get a picture of a key to the Bastille that hangs on the wall of the entryway which was presented to Washington by Lafayette.
We also did a tour of the mill and distillery that were part of Washington's lands. He had the largest whiskey distillery in the colonies. The pic below shows the gears that were part of the mill. The water wheel was on the other side of the wall on the right. They weren't able to run the wheel very fast or very long due to high water levels after all the recent rain.
We would have seen more of the grounds but it started pouring rain so we hit the visitor's center and headed back to my cousin's place.
Day Two
Day two we toured the Natural History Museum just for the dinosaurs and then spent the rest of the day at the two Air and Space Museums. Mostly for the space bits. What can I say? I'm a sci-fi geek.
My favorite dinosaurs have always been the stegosaurus and the ichthyosaurus. Lucky me, they have both! This museum was PACKED; it was hard to get a picture without someone walking in front or bumping the camera. And good luck getting a pic in front of the t-rex!
A backup mirror for the Hubble telescope. So freaking awesome.
This is my sister standing in front of the Enola Gay; the plane that dropped the first atom bomb. It was impossible to get the whole plane in one shot and the lighting was all kinds of weird in the hanger.
Aaaand my FAVORITE shot. This is me standing in front of the Enterprise. Because I AM that much of a nerd.
They also have a model of the mothership used in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. There are apparently all kinds of bits put into the ship by the designers and my sister, cousin, and my cousin-in-law spent FOREVER looking for the hidden R2D2, Volkswagen bus, airplanes, etc. I used this time to look at toy space guns through the decades and freeze dried space food.
Day Three
Day three was Monticello. Jefferson's home is quite beautiful, full of really nifty architecture. Talk about a micromanager though; he scheduled everyone's days from sunup to sundown and had a gong tied to a clock that would ring out the hour and could be heard for three miles.
I particularly liked his cannonball calendar. The main body of the calendar was in the foyer of his home but had to dip down into the lower walkways due to its size. I couldn't get a pic of the main part of the calender (no photography in the house) but luckily, we were there on a Saturday...
Day Four
Day four was a nice, slow day. We slept in, had a eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns for breakfast, and then went cruising in my cousin's corvette. (this pic is actually from day five since my camera spent Sunday recharging)
My family went to church and I did some work on my research paper. We then drove over to another cousin's house for homemade pizza and pie (YUM) out on the porch. I wish I'd had my camera because her house is really nifty; it's built into a hill so it looks absolutely tiny from the front but HUGE from the back. It has doors out on to the yard from the middle floor and from the basement. My cousin also has the cutest kids. The weather was extremely nice and we talked until dusk. I got to see my first live fireflies. (although not here - the fireflies were back at the house of the cousin I was staying with)
Day Five
We went to the International Spy Museum and did the self guided tour. WAY awesome. Sadly, no photography allowed inside.
We took the metro back to the Mall, walked passed the Washington Monument,
the WWII Memorial, (that's my sister on the left and my cousin on the right)
down to the Lincoln Memorial.
Sadly, we didn't have a lot of time to spend at any of these places because we had tickets to be back at the Spy Museum for their Operation Spy attraction. Which was WAY COOL; it was totally like doing a Shadowrun simluation. They put together a spy scenario based off of actual case studies where they "fly" you to another country and you get to do espionage, infiltration, and interrogation. I was not so good at the sneaky bits (I almost gave away our position by stepping on a noisy manhole cover...) I did, however, get the best score on clearing up the signal from our bugs.
Day Six
We drove over to Harper's Ferry which was an industrial hub back in the day and also the location of the whole John Brown standoff prior to the Civil War. Very scenic. And, as my cousin was fond of pointing out (it became something of a joke), very historical. You can also see why I had my hair pulled back most of the trip - it did not respond well to the insane humidity...
We then drove back down to Gettysburg but didn't have time to do much there. We did a small bit of the driving tour but had to cut it short in order to get to the airport in time.
All in all it was incredibly fun even though it was insanely humid much of the trip. Give me my crazy Arizona dry heat anytime. And, of course, it's definitely nice to be home.