Washington D.C.

---

Back in Washington D.C. It’s been over 10 years since we’ve been here. The last time was when we were returning for being stationed in Turkey. We stopped off in December to visit my friend Sally and do the tourist thing. Today was our first day in the city so we decided to start off at the Smithsonian Museum of American History and finish off with the Corcoran Art Museum. The history museum is pretty large so we decided to divide up the museum and do a different portion everyday. Our first day we toured the 3rd floor that housed most of the military exhibits. We saw a 100,000 dollar bill and some early roman coins in the money exhibit. We were taking a break next to the gunboat which was sunk in Lake Champlain during the revolutionary war when we realized there were secret service agents all around us. We looked around to see what the commotion was and didn’t see anyone we recognized but we did see an older gentlemen being toured thru the exhibits with his own personal tour guide and surrounded by the secret service agents. He must have somehow been connected to the white house or a visiting diplomat of some kind. Highlights of the museum were George Washington’s generals’ uniform and his campaign tent, Louis Pasteur’s microscope and Edith & Archie’ chairs from All In The Family TV show. Another fun thing we found was the International Spy Museum which just opened up last summer. Very interesting with lots of exhibits of older spy tools and gadgets and information about past spies. We stayed in a campground about 50 miles outside of the Washington DC and commuted in. If you ever saw the traffic there you would understand our reluctance to drive, plus we would have had to pay for parking the truck each day ($$$) so driving to the nearest subway station and riding in was a much better idea. We were also able to observe the local population, very interesting. A lot of different languages spoke, people in business suits next to construction workers next to university students. The oddest people we saw/heard was a couple of men speaking in mathematical equations, they could have been university professors or scientists. We spent the weekend with Sally and her husband Frank. I love hanging with them, between the 2 of them they either know, have worked for/with or call friend many of the big names in Washington. I feel like I’m hanging out with movie stars. They have beautiful townhouse in Virginia and to top it all off they also have boat on which they took us cruising on the Potomac. We went up the river to see Mount Vernon (George Washington’s house) from the riverside, very beautiful. They fed us some very good food and let us get our laundry done. We felt like college students home for vacation with all the laundry we hauled in and the started eating their food. But they didn’t kick us out so I guess they still love us. Next stop Williamsburg Virginia.

---