We feared it would be raining all day long yet again, especially since it was drizzling when we left the house, but Saturday turned out to be a gorgeous, albeit hot, clear day in DC. As we now know we won't be living in this area for much longer, my husband and I took a day off from packing and moving preparations to explore a few places in Washington, DC that we had yet to visit, such as the National Archives. We did take a quick stroll through the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden, which is across the street from [View Full Entry]

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Located a short distance from each other, the Maritime Museum in Baltimore's Inner Harbor and the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad Museum make for a fantastic day-trip into Baltimore. With family in town, we ventured north for the day, first visiting the B&O Railroad Museum, which is the birthplace of American Railroading and a massive museum of over 40 acres with nearly 200 trains on display. Then we headed over to Baltimore's Inner Harbor to explore the Maritime Museum, which really means we boarded and explored three ships and a submarine berthed at the Inner Harbor. First there was t [View Full Entry]

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The cherry blossoms in Washington, D.C. were a gift from Japan, symbolizing friendship, and the first batch arrived in 1912. The annual Cherry Blossom Festivals began in 1935 and we received a second batch of trees 1965. The trees are located along the Potomac River and around the Tidal Basin and so are in easy walking distance from D.C.'s monuments. They only bloom for about two weeks every year and it's impossible to estimate the exact time of perfect viewing. The best estimates for Peak Bloom come about ten days before it happens, so it can be tough to plan a [View Full Entry]

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We spent today, Friday the 13th, exploring the Baltimore Museum of Art during the grown-up version of a field trip with people from Seth’s work. A couple of art students had volunteered to give us a tour of the museum and discuss some of the pieces on display, but the formal tour soon dissipated into occasional casual conversations, mostly due to people like me who become easily distracted and wander off. I wandered from painting to painting and sculpture to sculpture, photographing whatever caught my interest. There were numerous intriguing items exhibited, and though I enjoyed t [View Full Entry]

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We were blessed to be given a trip to Sandy Cove Ministries for a lovely weekend getaway. Sandy Cove is a resort in the tiny town of North East, Maryland and lazily stretches along the coast of the Chesapeake Bay. The sprawling brick and white-siding resort is bordered by the water on one side and buried within miles of forest on the others, like a little world onto itself. We attend the Couple’s Weekend Getaway which includes a Couple’s Conference led by an energetic and entertaining husband and wife team. In between the conference sessions, meals, and a Saturday night con [View Full Entry]

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As I’ve mentioned (repeatedly), I grew up in Florida. And if you’ve ever been to Florida and trekked through the many wild forests or walked a wooden pathway over swampland or taken a boat through the Everglades, you’re likely to have noticed a threatening bane of the tropics: bugs. Big bugs, bugs that bite, bugs that jump, bugs that you can’t even see. I hate bugs. And so as we are exploring Historic Jamestowne, far away from the tropics, we encounter - ick! - more bugs. Just outside the Memorial Church, brazenly perched upon the top of a stone wall is [View Full Entry]

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We head south to Virginia to spend a weekend with Seth’s parents and grandmother in Colonial Williamsburg. We intentionally avoid the interstate and so it’s a lovely, scenic drive. Friday night is mostly spent catching up with family. Saturday we start our day at Friendly’s, and I just can’t say that was a good idea. I felt as though we’d gone out of our way to find the slowest and most inept server in the state. But we eventually make it into Colonial Williamsburg, via the Welcome Center buses. We begin delving into 18th century life with a visit to the [View Full Entry]

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Included here are photos from various trips into DC to visit the monuments, including a journey to the top of the Washington Monument, as well as a tour of the Fort Meade Tank Museum, and our attendance to the September 11th Memorial Dedication ceremony at the Pentagon. There are two pages of photos and the quote across the top of the page is displayed within the Washington Monument. [View Full Entry]

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George Washington inherited Mount Vernon in 1761 and proceeded to expand the quaint farmhouse with a property of 2,000 acres into a grand mansion settled upon 8,000 acres. Today the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, who purchased the property in 1858, keeps up the house and land as it was in 1799, the year of George Washington’s death. In 1794, the gracious Washington wrote that he had “no objection to any sober or orderly person’s gratifying their curiosity in viewing the buildings, Gardens &ct about Mount Vernon,” even though people were so passionate about jo [View Full Entry]

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This blog may not contain any actual time travel, but it seems a bit like time travel to me since it takes us up to New York, into the Bronx where my Mom grew up, and over to Pennsylvania, to the Poconos where I was born, and finally back through Lancaster County where the Amish give the impression that this is the town that time forgot. And a trip into Hershey, though I guess that doesn’t really fit the theme… Anyway, my parents have come up to Maryland to visit us, and the four of us take an exciting romp through [View Full Entry]

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