Blogs from Washington, Virginia, United States, North America

Well it has been a sunny few days in Washington. I have seen the Arlington Cemetry with the grave of JFK. I wandered around the Tidal Basin & saw the Thomas Jefferson memorial & saw the statute of Lincoln in the Lincoln memorial. The Capitol building & the Washington memorial looked majestic in the sunlight & the museums along the mall looked beautiful. I happened upon a festival celebrating different foods so naturally I sampled a few of them & enjoyed my first glass of cider in the sun. The White House was a sight to see and it has been great to see all the famous sights in this lovely city. I also happened to brefriend another English traveller in the street so it has been nice to share these sights with someone else. Tomorrow ... read more

Washington was full of memorial monuments and we didn't have time to do all that we wanted to do and go see all the well known memorials.. We did see the White House from distance, seems like security has been beefed up since Bin Laden's death and one can't get too close to important buildings.. Wasgington seemed like an outdoor museum full of historic and political pieces displayed in roads, parks and sidewalks, a very different feel to some of the other cities we have been to. I have very little time and still have a whole lot to write about..so I might fill in on Washington on a later date...but the pics should give you an idea... chat later x... read more

Second day in the capitol I planned to take it easy, relax a bit and move whenever I felt like it to the capitol building(the only monumental object left after yesterdays tourist-madness) and a museum or two(they have like 20 on a couple of blocks). So it happened as was planned, got up at ten-ish, did some internet stuff and then set out for lunch and some culture-soaking afterwards. Firstly I intended to visit the National Archives, a museum like building(it also holds, u would never guess, archives of like all emigration and business-documents) which holds exhibits of pieces like the declaration of independence and all those fancy important documents, the war between the Union(north) and Confederates(south), and the more important presidents. As a second I picked the National Museum of Natural History, which is a ... read more

You know that its going to be an interesting day when the first thing you hear upon waking up in the morning is, "Hey... if it's ok... I might need to go to a medical centre today guys". Those of you who have loved ones travelling with me will be pleased to know that no medical interventions were actually required. And so we set out, into another ridiculously hot day (around 40 degrees celcius) to once again make the 'short' walk down to the Mall. Washington on the Independance Day public holiday was eerily empty, a different place to where Gez and I had been walking with hundreds of thousands of people just the night before! As we walked past a rather grand building adorned with lots of patriotic banners, I noticed in big letters "D.A.R.". ... read more

Since I started moving northward I have run into more unsettled weather (rain!) However, the one morning it was clear and cool so I decided to make the drive into West Virginia. Casey has done a lot of white-water rafting in W. Virginia and both he and Beverley really enjoy it there. To get to West Virginia I had to climb over part of the Appalachian Mountains. What a beautiful drive. A LOT of trees though, and the road was very narrow and twisty. At one point I had planned to take the motor home into W. Virginia for a week but am glad I didn’t attempt it, it would’ve been very hard on the equipment. I will go back one day but not via this route! West Virginia was a part of the State of ... read more

Up early to catch out 11.30 flight. As it was international and going back into the US we got there early. Said our goodbyes to Gary and Carolyn and thanked them for looking after us for the past three days. Got into the airport at about 9am and printed off our boarding passes which we checked in last night and then joined the line to get our tags for our bags. They dont take the bags there so we had to join another line to go to customs. What felt like hours later we were inside! Joined another line to get our passports stamped and the usual questions and then dropped off our bags. Then joined another massive line for the metal detector which did go for hours. It was 11.20 and we are like hmmmmmm ... read more