The Rest of the way to MA(07-26-18)

To be honest, this part of our trip is a bit of a blur…..I had to pull up my pictures and my credit card receipts to even remember where we were and what we did.  Mostly its because once we got to MA, we were socializing nonstop.

But first, we had to get there:


After our mini vacation we went back to work in VA, spending more than two days buried in archive records at the Library of Virginia in Richmond. We didn’t find anything interesting, but we will probably come back after we go to Nova Scotia, if we have any better leads.

Paul traces his family back to early Jamestown VA, and although we’ve been there before, we decided to take another look with that knowledge fresh in our heads. I wasn’t particularly thrilled when he decided he wanted to take the archeological tour,  but I agreed to go.

  Our guide introduced himself and let us know that years ago, the archeological tour was a mere 20 minutes long but that there was so much new and exciting information, that it now lasts more than an hour and a half.  I think I groaned out loud. He did assure us that there were no hard feelings if we wandered off before the end.









He started by explaining that by 1992, no archeological digging had been done here in many years, and none was planned.  They had long ago given up the hope of ever finding the original fort. In 1993 the park needed a new administrator, and hired Dr. William Kelso, an archeological historian.


For the next two hours he walked us around the site, while hilariously telling the story of Dr. Kelso’s impact on the park.









Dr. Kelso had some ideas on where the original fort could be and thru his persistence, convinced the VA historical society to let him dig where he thought it might be.  He was given ONE chance to find it,-with no budget, no staff, and no equipment. The first place he thought the fort was, he found nothing.







After months of pestering, they let him dig in a different area.  Still nothing. Over the course of a few years, he was allowed to dig in small areas, looking for the fort. He found a little more evidence each time as to where it could be- and finally- he found conclusive evidence- and the fort was found.  Jamestown is now one of the most prolific archeological sites in the world.

The two hours passed by incredibly fast, I was never bored, and I learned a lot.

On a serious side, he talked about the Starving Time. While trying to settle the area, the pioneers became surrounded by hostile native Americans and had to hastily build a fort.  They could not venture out to search for food, and of the more than 400 people there at the time, fewer than 70 survived.  Eventually they decided they had to leave, and go back to England.  They packed up the ships and left but before they even got out of the harbor, they ran into a fleet of supply ships, and made their way back to Jamestown.

After leaving Virginia, we stopped for one night in Maryland, making our way north pretty quickly.













 
Cunningham Falls State Park can’t handle big rigs, but was perfect for the truck camper. Quite a few times we have stayed in places that would have been a challenge, or impossible, with the trailer.











We enjoy waterfalls, so before we left, we hiked the 1.4 mile hike to the waterfall and back. It wasn’t much to write home about, but it got us out and moving for a bit.














For the most part, we have stayed off the interstates, which means it takes longer to reach our destination, but we see more interesting things along the way.
















Sometimes we’ll find an awesome pullout where we can stop and have lunch.

I will say that although the driver prefers the smaller roads, the navigator has a more challenging time, having to pay attention to potential low bridges and such.

Pennsylvania was also a “one night stop” along the way.  We did really enjoy the fireflies that night- there were tons of them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

                                                                

And soon enough we were in Massachusetts.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

The Last of Washington DC (05-12-13)

We did end up extending our stay in Washington DC so we could take in a few more sights, then still had to make tough choices on what to see.
We both really loved the National Museum of American History, and we hadn’t been able to finish it, so we headed back there and actually spent another 3 and a half hours there  The museums are open later some nights so we took advantage of that and exhausted ourselves by staying until the museum closed. 
Earlier in the day we toured the National Air and Space Museum but we have seen a lot of similar exhibits in the last year or so, so a lot of it was repetitive.  
Looking for something completely different, we decided to head to the National Zoo.  The weather forecast called for rain, but luckily it (mostly) held off.  Its been a lot of years since we’ve been to a zoo, and this one is free, so, what the heck.

  This zoo has Asian elephants, but none of the larger African elephants, because they aren’t endangered and the zoo felt that their available space would be better used  for the endangered species.  I know that elephants are intelligent, but when I read about some of the things they can do, I was still surprised.  Elephants have self-awareness.  If you put a white chalk mark on an elephant’s head, when he sees himself in a mirror, he will wipe the mark off!  Pretty neat.

I had never seen or heard of this cutie before- its called a Sand Cat, and it’s about the size of a house cat.  They live in the deserts of Africa and Asia, where the temperatures reach 125 degrees during the day, and 0 degrees at night. It has furry paws and leaves no paw prints.

  There were several Cheetahs, one of my personal favorites.  I didn’t know that when a Cheetah is running at full speed, 60-70 mph, their stride is 23 feet long. Holy Cow!

There are more pictures of the zoo in my “Recent Pictures” slideshow on the right hand side of my blog site.  You can click on it to see larger pictures.  Paul and I left D.C. and are on our way to Boston.  We both have colds now, so we are going to hunker down in a NPS campground in Pennsylvania for a few days. We are using our Wilson cell phone antenna and are still barely able to get online, so every time I try to do something with my blog, it gets messed up, re-posts entries and in general is just a pain in the neck.

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe (D.C. 05-08-13)

There are an amazing amount of museums and historic sights to see in this area.  Some of them we know we can skip-neither of us in much interested in art, so the art museums can easily be bypassed.  Other than that though, we have had to make some tough choices.  Should we take a day off and head to Annapolis? (stay tuned for that answer) Would the National Building Museum be of interest to Paul?  Should we pay to take the tour of Ford’s Theatre?
We keep saying we should sit down and make a list of our “must do” museums, but somehow we don’t.  Every night we just decide what we want to go see the next day.  We can always extend our stay for a few days if we run out of time, so we’ll see.
Tuesday we decided we’d go to the National Museum of Natural History, and the National Museum of American History.  It soon became apparent that we had totally underestimated how big these museums are.  After spending the entire day at the Museum of Natural History, we left at closing time without having seen everything.  Each wing of these museums could be a museum in it’s own right.

There are rooms dedicated to the ocean and life within it- from tropical fish to the Right Whale- so named because it was the “right” whale for whalers to hunt.  It had valuable blubber and the added bonus that when it was killed, it didn’t sink.

Of course there was an entire section devoted to mammals.

The gem and mineral collection contained mock ups of 3 kinds of mines, with descriptions of how, where and when the mining was done, plus an impressive display of rocks and gems, including the Hope Diamond, a 45 carat diamond found in India.

It was while we were in the gem room that it became obvious to us that it was still raining outside.  No joke, this is how crowded this museum was.

One of the more unique wings of the museum, called “Written in Bone” is dedicated to forensics.  Jamestown Virginia, not too far from here, presented a great opportunity for this museum to teach archeology and forensics, all in a great display.  For many years, it was assumed the the first English settlement, Jamestown, had been absorbed by the James River.  Then in the 1994, during an archeological expedition, evidence of the town and the people who lived in it was discovered.

Using forensics, evidence from the gravesite itself, and historic documents,  they have been able to determine what this person looked like, and who he probably was.  His name was Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
Over a million artifacts have been uncovered at Jamestown.








The following day we jumped right back in, and, getting a slightly earlier start, headed to the Smithsonian Institute National Museum of American History. What a mouthful.
As it’s name implies, this museum is about all things American, covering subjects such as wars, transportation, agriculture, communication, and culture

 

We started in the Stars And Stripes room- an entire room dedicated to the American flag and the Star Spangled Banner.  No pictures are allowed to be taken in that room, but it was neat to be looking at the original flag that flew over Fort McHenry, while listening to the National Anthem in the background.

 

There were lots of pictures illustrating Americans displaying the flag during times of distress and happiness- with the flag representing, in a variety scenarios, what it means to be American.

A room full of memorabilia included an original Kermit the frog, Dorothy’s ruby slippers, Archie Bunker’s chair, the hat Abraham Lincoln was wearing at the Ford Theatre, and Apolo Ohno’s skates.

 

A display of Food in America had  Julia Child’s entire kitchen.

 

One of the stories was about wine.  Zinfandel grapes were usually used to produce cheap red wines, and by the 1960s, most vintners in California had moved on to making Chardonnays and Cabernets.  The Sutter Home winery was still using old vines to make red zinfandel but one day, a mistake was made, and too much sugar was left in the wine.  After a week or so, the winemaker tasted it and liked it.  A new wine had been “invented”: White Zinfandel. 

 

The impact of motorized transportation on society is a theme we have seen quite a few times before, but this museum offered new and interesting tidbits to our knowledge database.

As the number of automobiles grew, states began requiring them to be registered.  In  1901,New York was the first state to have that requirement, but by 1918, all states required license plates. Driver’s licenses came later- in 1935, only 39 states required drivers to be licensed, and only a handful required that drivers pass a test.

The advent of the school bus in the early 1930s changed school systems.  Rural children no longer attended a localized, one room schoolhouse, but were bussed further away to consolidated schools, where kids were separated by age.

 

In the 1950s, with so many households owning cars, the urban population started moving out to the suburbs, where land was plentiful, but cars were a necessity. Most families were “one car” families, with the dad commuting into the city using public transportation, so the car could be left for the mom to use. 

I definitely have memories of driving with my mom to drop my dad off at the bus stop, so he could commute to his job in Boston.

Government Buildings- Washington DC (05-09-13)

The Capitol Building:
  Having spent the last two days in museums, we decided to break it up a bit and headed to the Capitol.  Here’s a clue for anyone headed to DC to sightsee- as soon as you know when you will be here, call your congressman to see about getting tour tickets for the Capitol. 

 



on the steps of the Capitol

We did call last week but weren't able to get a personalized tour. I don't know how different it would have been, because we did have a pretty good tour.

Once inside, we donned headsets for our guided tour of the building.  We’ve both been in this building before, and really only did the tour because it has been so long since we’d been here. 



The Rotunda is full of statues.  In fact, there are hundreds of statues in the Capitol building, but there are very few ways that the statues can be acquired.  Each state is allowed to showcase two statues that represent their state.  This statue of Ronald Reagan was donated by California.  In order to donate this one, California had to remove the statue that had been there before.  There are bits of the Berlin wall incorporated into the base of this statue.

 



Another way for a statue to end up at the Capitol is for Congress to pay for it themselves.  That doesn’t happen very often (its been 140 years since the last one), but they did have this statue of Rosa Parks commissioned.  It stands in Statuary Hall.  Rosa Parks was the first woman to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

 



The Capitol Crypt sits directly under the Rotunda and has enough columns to comfortably hold up the heaviness of the Rotunda and Capitol Dome.  It’s second purpose was to hold the tomb of George Washington. By the time the building was finished, Washington had been dead for many years and George was already buried at Mount Vernon.  His family refused to allow the body to be moved, since George had specified that he wanted to be buried at home.

Congress kept attempting to pressure the family into changing their minds, and pestered them so much that the state of Virginia passed a law making it illegal to move George Washington’s body out of state.  That stopped the pestering.

The Supreme Court Building:

  Directly across the street from the Capitol, is the Supreme Court.  I was hoping that they would be in session, but that won’t happen until October, so we didn’t get to see them in action.  The outside is being worked on so instead of seeing the actual columns, we could see a sort of tarp, with the columns painted on it. The building was originally built in the early 1930s with a budget of $10 million.  Thanks to the Depression, this is one of the only times a government project has come in under budget.




 

Great Hall, just outside the courtroom is quite majestic.  Although there are no actual tours of the building, there are regularly scheduled lectures given inside the courtroom itself.

No pictures are allowed inside the court,  so I took a picture of this diorama that shows the layout.  The lecture we listened to was awesome, explaining the room itself- some chairs are for the general public, some are reserved for attorneys who are not presenting, and off to the side are the Press seats.  Of course there is no jury box, since no trials are held here.

So, because I found it very interesting, here is a little information about how the Supreme Court works. The justices receive 10,000-15,000 petitions a year.  They all have to read all of them.  Each one votes on whether he/she thinks it is a case they should hear.  If 4 of them think it is, it goes on the docket. 

  Only specific attorneys are allowed to argue in front of the Supreme Court. To  qualify they had to have argued in front of their state Supreme Court for a number of years, and they have to be sponsored by two members of the Supreme Court Bar. 

When a case comes in front of the justices, each of the two attorneys who are going to argue the case has 30 minutes to present his side.  Within a minute or so they are usually interrupted by one of the Justices.  After all, everyone is familiar with the case, and the Justices want to get their questions answered and get whatever clarification they need, in the time they have allotted. 60 minutes later, that case is done, and they move on to the next one.  Usually within a few days, the justices discuss the case and vote on what they think the outcome should be.  If the vote of the Chief Justice is in the Majority, he decides who will write the Majority Opinion. If not, the most senior Justice decides who will write it.



Snippets of Washington D.C. (05-02-13)

Every day at 4 pm, the RV park we are staying in has a seminar for new visitors.  They explain how the Metro works, give out maps, explain what there is to see around DC, give opinions on the best tours, hand out brochures, and answer any questions.  It sure made it easier and less overwhelming for us!  Since Washington D.C. is not a dually friendly town, it was great to learn that bus stops in front of the RV Park.

We wanted to get our feet wet, so to speak, so our first day, we ventured in on the Metro and went to the International Spy Museum. Walking around the city was fun in and of itself, looking at all the buildings, the architecture, and enjoying the hustle bustle of the crowds (made more enjoyable by not needing to find a parking space).

The Spy Museum is dedicated to all things espionage related. It was fun but would maybe be more fun for kids. You pick an identity when you first enter,  and have to memorize some basic information, which you are asked about later.

The first main room is Spy School, where you learn how to act like a spy.  This photo was about signals- there are 4 signals in the picture that could be used by spies to communicate that a task had been completed: the book in the back dash of the car, the white mark on the mail box, the pack of cigarettes on the ground and….I forget the 4th one.

In the “Hall of Fame” of spies, we learned about Juan Pujal Garcia (code name Garbo). He worked for the British during WWII, as one of the most effective double agents in history. He fabricated an entire network of make believe agents and contacts and convinced the Germans they were real. He played a large role in the invasion of Normandy, a hugely successful piece of trickery on the part of the Allies. Garbo helped convince the Germans that the invasion would take place at Pas De Calais.  If you google this guys name, his story is really interesting reading!

One entire floor of the museum is dedicated to James Bond.  I did not know that the author,  Ian Fleming, was a British Intelligence agent. One of the quotes from him essentially said that although fun to write, the life of James Bond is much more exciting than a real secret agent’s life!

Doing some basic planning based on the weather forecast, we had to focus on outdoor activities for a few days because the weather is going to take a turn for the worse.  We met up with my friend Steve, who I have been friends with since high school. Yikes! That’s 40 years that we’ve been friends!

 

Steve found a great hike for us at the nearby Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park.  The canal isn’t maintained anymore, but there is a museum about the history of the area. The trail was pretty rocky, which meant we had to watch our step, and we ended up turning around at the sign that warns that the trail is about to get a whole lot more difficult.  We weren’t prepared for that challenging a hike that day.

The Potomac River flows through the park, and there were great views of the waterfalls along the way.

After that workout, we decided we deserved Margaritas even though it was the 4th of May, not the 5th.  We went back to Steve’s place for Margaritas and tacos.  Yummy!

Paul and I also took a bike ride the other day.  There’s a bike path very close to the RV park (with tennis courts too, but I haven’t been able to convince him to play). We rode about 4 miles towards the city, and passed about 4 parks along the way.  One of them had a great set up with several workout stations, right along the bike path.

 

This pretty Cardinal keeps trying to fly into our living room, and of course, smacks into the window.

If nothing else, it sure does serve to entertain Dozer, who hopes in vain that the bird makes it into the room.