Lincoln & Viet Nam & WWII Memorials & his place

I'm sure you know who lives here. I am composing an email to Senator Stabenow's office (and Senator Levin & Representative Schauer & the resident of this house & I'll even copy Speaker Boehner on most of my correspondence) to let her know how poorly her staff responded to our request to visit the White House & Capitol. While I'm at it I'll also let them know what I think of their lack of performance an many issues facing this country.

Here's a picture of the large WWII memorial with the water fountains.

I haven't been able to post for several days due to the lack of Internet access allowing me to post any pictures. We are now sitting in a McDonald's in Gettysburg, along with a hundred students from Washington, PA. Fun.

Here's "the wall". That's Mel with the cap checking on a friend he was in Viet Nam with.

Here is Judy & Dee with Abe Lincoln at his monument.

We continue to run into LOTS of school kids in DC. I can't blame them for being here but IF we ever return to DC it will be between October and April. No summer kids and vacationers.
We have noticed many foreigners touring DC....or there are LOTS on foreign speaking people living here. I like to think it's the first answer.

Bureau of Engraving & DC by night

We took a 4 hour bus tour of DC at night so here's Honest Abe & George's Monument, you can see the Capitol dome in the distance. There were millions of kids & buses everywhere!

This is the Bureau of Engraving. There are two locations printing all the US paper currency, here & Ft Worth, TX. They operate 24x7 and print $900,000,000 a day.

The $2 bill is printed only every 2 or 3 years. Judy & I are standing by $1,000,000 in $10 bills. All the impressive printing machines are made in Italy & France. Just think....we can't even make the machines that make our own money.

We started the day at the Holocaust Museum & discovered May the the month every young Junior High student visits Washington DC. There must have been 30 groups of 50 kids each in the museum. So many that all access to the main part of the museum was booked. We talked with the info desk and because Mel is a vet they allowed us access. We made it as far as the elevator & waited and waited so we turned around and left without seeing anything. We didn't see any kids yesterday at the Museum of American History. We did make it through the Bureau of Engraving OK. WAY too many kids here for us!

American Histroy Museum and old US Post Office

This is the best shot of the White House from the clock tower & here's the pooped out gang of four in the tower.

If you don't know what this building is you don't belong in this country.

Washington Monument & Jefferson Memorial from the post office clock tower.

The National Archives building and the corner of the.....IRS. These buildings go on for blocks & blocks, what you see from the front is a very small part of the entire building.

Here's Mel by an old locomotive, he was an engineer and drove trains, really! This is a real $100,000 bill from 1938. Too bad they don't make them anymore, one would pay for our daily camping fee and lunch here. OH wait, the government GAVE all these bills to the banks & financial institutions last year didn't they?

This is the table & chairs used buy US Grant & Robert E Lee at Appomattox in 1865 when Lee surrendered to end the Civil War. Grant had the left chair & Lee the cane chair. Neither fellow carved their initials into the table that I could see. Here's Judy & Dee by a old RV.

This is the USS Philadelphia George Washington had built (along with several others) to help win the Revolutionary War. The boats lost the battle but slowed the British up so we won the war. You can see the British cannonball (which was found inside the boat) and the hole it made that sank the small boat.

This is Honest Abe's gold pocket watch and top hat. Unknown to Abe was 3 engravings made under the face while in for repairs. This was during the Civil War and one had Jeff Davis's name! Sorry....it disappeared when I posted....damn I do not like Googles blogspot! Abe was 6'4" tall but liked top hats to make him look even taller. The last time he wore this hat was to Ford Theater.

Here's the Museum of American History and a peek at the Washington Monument. We spent the afternoon in the museum after a metro bus ride from the CG to a subway station which took us about 4 blocks from the museum. The trip took well over an hour one way. It was an 8 hour plus day and I think we walked well over 1500 miles, one way. We were pooped and sore. We are glad that we do not have to drive and park in DC. All the massive old federal buildings, wide streets, green parks, & statues are impressive, along with a few homeless fellows. Lots of street vendors & souvenir stands. The food prices for lunch in the museum was outrageous. Did I mention we walked 1500 miles today?

College Park Maryland & Washington DC

Today we made the 100 mile trip west to Washington DC. The bridge across the Chesapeake Bay was much shorter, about 2 miles, and was free going west but $12 if you were going east. We arrived at 11am and set up, an hour or two later Mel & Dee pulled in and are next to us. We had a late lunch at the CG cafe then caught the 4pm presentation on sightseeing around DC. We were going to take the evening bus tour to see DC at night but a thunderstorm changed our minds so we visited until 9pm.

I've not been updating the blog the last two stops because our internet access was very poor but it's good here outside DC.

Houston, Delaware & lots of chickens

We get to add another state to our map. It's NASCAR race weekend at Dover about 20 miles north so the CGs in this area are busy. We chose not to park in the busy part of the CG in the woods & elected to stay, all by ourselves, in "the field". There must be 40 or 50 sites in a large open grass field and we are the only ones in it. When we checked in we were told that 5 or 6 years ago the field would have been full. We went for a ride to the Delaware shore Saturday and stopped for a seafood dinner which was only so so but the clam chowder was good & Judy likes the clam cake. Alabama shrimp & fish were much better. We are surprised by all the open farmland around us. We noticed while on the Virgina eastern shore (a narrow strip of land between the Chesapeake Bay & Atlantic, and also here in Delaware that there are lots of chickens. We have seen several trucks loaded with chickens (and one unique bus loaded with chicken cages you could see throught the windows). We passed 4 or 5 large Purdue and Tyson chicken processing plants. Maybe folks around here eat more chicken than seafood?

Quinby, VA via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge & Tunnel

This morning we left Williamsburg for the eastern shore of VA. The first challenge was a tunnel in Hampton on I64 which has a clearance of 13' 6" and we are 13' 4". It was spooky going into the tunnel after having to stop for our first ever "inspection". All RVs had to stop to ensure their LP was off prior to the tunnel. Well, we now know we are less than 13' 6" because the front rooftop air conditioner is still up there. About 10 miles further into Norfolk we crossed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge & Tunnel which is about 20 miles long across the bay. This was the most expensive toll ($28) in our 4 years on the road but it was worth it. There are two one mile tunnels, also 13' 6" clearance, allowing ships to pass through the bay. We saw 5 or 6 freighters waiting outside while one large US Navy ship was zipping past them out to sea. Once on the eastern shore it was about 50 miles to Quinby and the CG we were headed for. The CG was at the end of a narrow road out on Hog Island Bay. It was definitely not crowded and very peaceful......read remote. We are parked with the bay about 200 feet behind us and the read window facing so we can see lots of water but very few boats. Thursday was a nice, mid 60s & sunny & with a calm wind blowing so we washed the HitchHiker.

Boat tour of Norfolk

Today we drove into Norfolk to a 2 hour boat tour of Norfolk port and the naval base, it was a great 2 hours. One goof we made was not discovering that several museums we wanted to visit are closed on Monday and some on Tuesday also. Win some, lose some.

The above 4 pictures are of the USS George W Bush, CVN77, the final super carrier of the Nimitz class. We were fortunate to see 5 helicopters land while we were passing by.

Above is the USS Mahan, DDG 72 another guided missile destroyer. Below that is the stern of the USS New York, LPD 21, an amphibious transport dock made with almost 8 tone of steel from the World Trade Center.




USS Anzio, CG68, guided missile cruiser.

To the right is the USS Arleigh Burke DDG51, lead ship of it's class of guided missile destroyers.



An AWAC landing at the Navy base.

A NOAA ship heading out.

An Israeli container ship.

The USS Wisconsin, last of the BIG battleships capable of shooting a 16" shell weight 2300 pounds (the weight of a VW) 23 miles.

A small cruise ship that put into Norfolk for repairs on her way out to sea.