Day 5, Mount Vernon

Saturday morning. We went to Washington's home in Mount Vernon, Virginia.

After, we started the long drive home. It was supposed to be only 9 hours but ended up taking 12 because of all the traffic in the arm pit of America (New Jersey). We paid New Jersey a toll for the priviledge of sitting in the parking lot of a parkway, then it took an extra hour to get accross the Washington Bridge in NY. We had intended on driving north and crossing the Hudson at the Tappan Zee, but the Garmin gave us bad advice and ended up at the GW bridge. It was a very long drive home.



View mt vernon in a larger map

Vacation, day 4

More DC:

-We attempted to go up the Washington Monument, but found out you had to get advanced tickets. Carissa flirting with the park ranger was of no help
-World War II memorial
-Vietnam Wall
-Lincoln Monument
-Arlington Cemetery. We showed up just in time to see the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. The usually silent guard, out of the blue, chewed out the crowd for making too much noise. Emery fell down the last step at the JFK grave and nearly woke up the entire Kennedy clan with her wailing.

"Vacation", day 3

Our first day in DC included:

-Smithsonian air and space museum.
-The capital building
-The supreme court building
-The presidential squirrel
-The Archive building where we saw the original (supposedly) copies of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, etc
-The treasury department building
-The White House & the Florida Gators (BOOOOOoooooooo......)

My impression after visiting DC is that government is way too big and expensive for how inefficient it is, and government likes to build very large monuments to honor itself.

Day 2

View gettysburg in a larger map

Before going to Gettysburg, we stopped by.. <ahem> Intercourse Pennsylvania. It is an Amish town in the heart of Pennsylvania.

Notice the sign in the video




































Then on to Gettysburg
The redbrick building was there during the war. Notice the cannon ball hole through the front.



The gloves and pins are General Lee's.