Woodbine, Maryland to College Park, Maryland

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Left Woodbine and headed for College Park which is the closest RV Park to Washington DC.  What we didn't realise was how close we already were.. the drive from one RV park to the next was under an hour and we arrived at the new one early.

Jenny .... Forrest.... Jenny.... Forrest .....

Set up camp.  Greg took the kids by bus (which comes right into the park) into DC.

From the bus, they went to the station and then hopped off the train at Union Station - the big ole beautiful station you see in the movies !

They went to the spy museum which by all accounts was pretty damn awesome!  I cleaned the RV, cooked dinner, caught on the washing, including the sheets and doonas and enjoyed the peace and quiet... Feeeeeel the serenity!

They got back around 7pm and we all had dinner and watched some TV.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Woke up feeling pretty ordinary.. feeling like not doing much at all!  Greg wanted to go to one of the Smithsonian museums with the kids - what I wanted to do was nothing!  Nothing but finish the Xmas cards!  It's too hard to glue and cut and paste when we're driving so I decided to take a day out to finish them and finally get them in envelopes!  Princess wanted to 'help'  - so it was just Greg and Al that went into town.

All I'm personally interested in seeing in DC is the Whitehouse, The Capitol Building, The Washington Monument and JFK's eternal flame.. the museums didn't interest me today!

So... off they went and Charlie and I finished the cards.  The boys returned around 6ish or so and another day ticked off the calendar!

Tuesday, December 15, 2008

Woke up early and we all headed on the bus, then the short trip on the train into DC.  Posted the cards at Union Station.. it feels good to have them done and dusted!

We then jumped on a tour-guide bus.  What a terrific setup.  You buy a ticket for one or two days and hop on/off whenever you want at all the popular monuments.  Whilst you're on the bus, you get a tour guide who sits up the front and gives you a great description of what's what at each site.

The buses come around every half hour so you can stay as long or as little as you like at each attraction.

First stop - the Washington Monument. There's an elevator that takes you to the top of the monument and gives you a great birds eye view of DC from every angle!  The monument itself has a story too of course.

http://bensguide.gpo.gov/3-5/symbols/wa_monument.html

A link above if you're interested in reading more.. to me though the Washington monument reminds me of the movie Forrest Gump.  Remember when Forrest returns from the war after being shot in the buttocks and he is making a speech and then his hippie girl Jenny (Jenn -oieee) runs across the wading pool in front of the monument yelling 'Forrest, Forrest' ... well.. I guess you have to see the flick !

From the monument we went to Arlington Cemetry !

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.org/photo_gallery/index.html

Wow !  That's an interesting place. We spent a few hours there.  There is such precision and order in the way the soldiers (and spouses and dependents under 18) are buried!  They hold approximately 25-30 funerals per day and they continue to acquire more and more land surrounding the cemetry.  They believe that the cemetry will reach its capacity in 60-65 years at which time it will then simply be a memorial and museum of sorts.

We saw JFK's gravesite (and Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis) and two of their children (Patrick, and a still born unnamed) and the eternal flame.  Around the corner is Bobby's gravesite.  He actually requested to be buried in Massachusetts with a simple white wooden cross at his grave, but his family at the time of his death decided that as JFK and he were so close together in life, that they should be close together in death so he is buried near him.  There are no wooden crosses at Arlington, except for Bobby's.  It's a simple grave with a simple white cross!

We also watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier! What uniformity. Greggy got that on video.

We had to get back to the RV camp by 4pm to meet an RV service guy.  We've done 7000 miles now so Missy needed a service.

We ordered chinese and pizza, scotch and some wine to be delivered directly to our site for dinner which was kind of cool and had an early night.

I didn't get close enough to the Whitehouse today, we ran out of time so Greggy said he'd drive Missy into DC in the morning so I could get some pics !