Today we finished up our tour of the National Mall that included stops at the White House, Washington Monument (to pick up free tickets for our later visit to the top), National Archives, McDonald's for a cheap lunch, the WWII Memorial, back to the Washington Monument for our reservation, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, a half-price Frappe at Starbucks, then back to the Four Points for take out Domino's Pizza (courtesy of a Groupon). What a day! As for highlights from this busy day, we saw the President leave and fly right over our heads in Marine One from the South lawn of the White House. Unfortunately, we were headed toward the Washington Monument at the time and security wasn't letting anyone closer than a few hundred yards, so we couldn't really see ... read more

Today started off with a cold and wet reminder that we are not in Texas anymore, and that it can still get cold in May. This morning, after a good hot breakfast at the Mount Vernon Hotel, we were awakened by a cold rainy walk to the light rail. To make things even more interesting, our rain jackets have mysteriously been left behind. Luckily, the kids' jackets were still packed and they stayed warm and relatively dry. The 35 minute ride to the end of the line dropped us of at the Cromwell station, where we had to run to the #14 bus to Annapolis. This 1 hour tour down Gov. Ritchie Hwy ended in the heart of historic Annapolis, the capitol of Maryland. Amazingly, the entire ride only cost about $1.50 for a one-way ticket. ... read more

Day 1-Baltimore: The Airport: When we woke up this morning at 4:00 am, we remembered SW Airline's rule about baggage being free up to 50 lbs. We prayed our lone suitcase would be under this. However, upon weighing it at the airport, it was 58 lbs. At the ticket counter, Jason and I tried to cram rain jackets, book, cameras and anything else we could fit into Jason's backpack. Finally, we got it down to 50.5 lbs which worked with the attendant. Luckily Alex (16 months) slept the majority of the way there and their weren't any other hiccups except for the missing coffee cups on the plane. Luckily Jason and I don't drink coffee, but I think there were a couple worried passengers until they finally located the cups. ---Jason says "I still had hot ... read more

Packing for our 3 week adventure itself is an adventure. Imagine packing for 2 adults and 3 kids (ages 5, 3, and 1) and trying to fit it all into 1 suitcase. With 1 kid still in diapers at least a quarter of the suitcase is just diapers. Also, since we are trying to cut some costs so we can "adventure" longer, I've determined we need to make one meal a day ourselves. Therefore, I realized we need to provide room in our lone suitcase for this food. Thus in the end, our suitcase looks like a meal on wheels with a light amount of clothing (4 outfits per person including the clothes on our back). Another cost cutting measure is to minimize car rental and instead utilize mass transit as much as possible. In order ... read more