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Kylie and i in front of the Wright bros memorial.Hello from Washington DC,
Its been a little while since weve been on the net. When we left Atlanta, we headed for my brother, Evan's house. I bought the kids a portable DVD player and some $5 DVD's and that kept them reasonably quiet for most of the trip. Only thing is they miss things along the way. Not that they really care !!
Evan lives down quite a steep driveway, got down there ok, then had to manouvre the rolling turd around down by his house. Got it in the end, parked on his lawn and hooked up.
Got to Evan's about 2pm , stinking hot. So we went out in his boat again. We all went for a kneeboard, Josh had a ski. Blew up the biscuit and went on that too. Came home , we went out to the 'Texas roadhouse' for tea.Quite nice,except I poisoned myself by eating Josh's steak fries, they have processed yellow cheese on them and that got me that night.But I'm learning these things.
Monday we just had a cruisy day, went and got some parts for the trailer as the sewage valve packed a sad as well as the awning has
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Josh in front of some monster trucks we found alongthe way. ripped apart from the sun that perished the top of it. Tori and Maria played a few board games. Josh watched TV for the 1st time in awhile. ( feeding his adiction ). Evan cooked us a very nice tea on the bbq.
Got up, packed up and headed somewhere, not really sure where we wanted to go, on the road east, I said lets go to Kittyhawk. So that where we went. Got there late in the evening, phoned around and found a RV Park in Kittyhawk. Right on the beach, we walked just across the road and over the sand dunes and Tori went for a swim , while Josh and I played catch with his new baseball. It got dark while she was still swimming.
Got up early on wednesday and drove down the road to Red devil hills, to the sight of the Wright brothers 1st flight in a propelled plane. They have stabilised the hill behind the site and built a memorial on it. We walked up there, had a look around. We were there early at 8.35am and the museum didnt open until 9.00am. So we had the place pretty much to ourselves, they
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Brass plane behind the monument. have a scene set up behind the hill depicting the moment their plane lifted off with Orville flying it and Wilbur running beside it. They made 4 flights on the 17th of December, 1903. The last of which flew for 800 yards. Inside the museum we got to see a replica of the plane built in 2001, they tried unsuceesfully to fly that one before putting it in the museum. They needed just the right amount of head wind to get it to lift off. The area was all beach and no houses in those days, they built 2 huts on the beach One to live in and one to repair the aeroplane. It was winter and was the temperature was just above zero when the did their trials. They had tried in 1901 and 1902 unsucessfully, but had learned alot from those trials.Just getting to Kittyhawk in those days was an adventure. They said they would be home to Dayton , Ohio by Christmas. So they were running out of days. After their 4th attempt , they went into the shed to warmup and forgot to secure the plane, The high winds picked up. The guy who was just
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The scene as taken by the photographer on the day. there at the time, grabbed the plane to stop it from moving. the plane got picked up with the guy on it and tumbled down the beach 3 or 4 times. The guy claimed later to be the 1st fisherman to fly !!, the 1st to survive a plane crash !! The plane was wrecked, so they packed it up and headed home.
We also packed up after that and headed for Washington DC. Another 6 hour drive, yes I think weve done enough driving for this week !!
We arrived in DC about 7.30pm, Made up our camp. Were getting pretty sharp at it now, everyone knows what needs to be done and just gets onto it. Funny how Josh and I get the sewage hose hook up everytime !! Just started making tea and we had a thunder storm, My loving wife sent me off to the toilet block with short metal stick with a bit of material on top to shelter me during a lightning storm. And wanted me to run across the park with it, I dont think so !! I drove the car of course, thats a lot safer. Sorry dear, better luck next time
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The 1st rock is where they took off from. The other rocks are where they landed on that day. !!!!!!! Man did I get heaps for driving to the loo.
Today, thursday.We caught a shuttle bus, that the camp runs to the subway station nearby. Caught that into the Smithsonian in DC.We walked down the Mall to the 'Air and Space Museum' . Looked around there at the NASA rockets , alsorts of planes from over the years. The kids went through the learning experience stuff . Like how gravity works and is different on the moon, They flew a model aeroplane in a wind tunnel using a joy stick and foot controls. Then we came across the original wrecked now put back together plane the wright brothers flew that day back in 1903. Had lunch at McD's in the Museum. Touched the moon rock that was bought back from the moon in 1972. It was there when Perry and I went 27 years ago. I wonder how many people have touched it since then . After the Air and Space museum we walked down to the 'Reflection pond 'along the Mall. Josh reckons there was much reflection as there wasnt any water in it. Either the recession or the drought but alot of those sort of things haven't
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The replica in the museum. been going. Came across a Welsh festival. So we had a look around ther for awhile. The kids joined in Rugby training for kids. They taught then some rugby skills and did a few drills , then played a sort of ripper rugby. Kylie sat there watching them having a beer. We watched a guy carving out 'Welsh Love Spoons', another guy was building a stone wall, a guy slicing up shist. By that time it was time to catch the subway home, The kids had a swim as soon as they got back here. Had tea and wrote in our books.
Sorry to hear you're all still freezing down there. Cheers the Claridges.
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kylie
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am curious to know if the smithsoniam looks like it does on night at the muesumn? and where are all the people in the subway? i imagined there would be crowds every where. would love an email from mrs c sometime. enjoy the 4th celebrations, looking forward to the photos.xxx