20060528 - Washington DC - Chester, NJ

Monday, we drove from North Carolina to Bull Run State Park in Virginia near Washington DC. This is where Bob Faithful (one of our friends from Alaska) lives. Bob has lived in Washington DC for more than 20 years, worked for the Park Service for part of that time, remembers everything and enjoys guiding personal tours. In addition to all that, he has problems with his knees, has a handicap sticker, and knows all the great places to park and see the monuments. That night we had dinner with Bob and spent some time talking in his new apartment.
Tuesday, Bob took us to see the new National Air & Space Museum’s Stephen F Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in the morning. This building has huge hangers so the museum is able to display the planes that they were unable to display downtown. In addition many of the planes are displayed as if they were in flight. We saw the Enola Gay, the space shuttle Enterprise and a Blackbird among thousands of other large and small flying objects. They also have an observation tower you can visit to see planes take off and land at Dulles. In the afternoon we went to see The DaVinci Code. That was a very interesting movie. After reading the book I did not think they could make a movie, the story was too complicated, but they did and I enjoyed it. My judgment on movies is based on how much movie time I am in my body. Most of this movie I was in the movie.
Wednesday, Bob took us on an awesome tour of Washington DC. We started by driving to Arlington to see the Iwo Jima Marine Memorial. Then we drove to the East Potomac Park to Haines Point to see The Awakening. The Awakening is a five part cast aluminum sculpture of a giant coming up out of the ground. I took several pictures of the The Awakening from different angles. Bob thinks that the best cafeteria in DC is in the new National Museum of the American Indian, so that is where we had lunch. In the afternoon we drove around the Mall to see the buildings. I took one picture of the Supreme Court. Bob (who, like Rich, is an attorney) was quite annoyed with me. (One picture of the (important) Supreme Court vs. many pictures of the (unimportant) Awakening). Then we went to see the Presidential and War Memorials. We had never seen the WW II Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, or The Vietnam War Memorials. We also had not seen the FDR Memorial. Now on this Memorial day, I publish these pictures of some of our War Memorials.
Thursday, we drove to Pennsylvania. As we were leaving Bull Run, the road was blocked by a large Class A who had cut a corner a little too close, had dropped a wheel into a dirt ditch, and dropped his middle-bottom onto the road. While I was watching, the jack they were using to push up the middle broke and the entire rear end hit the dirt. What a mess. We finally were able to get around them and on the road a little late but none the worse for wear. Several hours later we dropped the 5th Wheel off at the RV Repair shop in Pennsylvania. They actually already had the new tank and thought they would have it installed by our return from Seattle. That was great news, so much more professional than the Florida shops who never quite got it together. After we dropped off the 5th Wheel we drove the truck to my brother Steve’s house in Chester, New Jersey. We had dinner with Steve, Sally (Steve’s wife), Scott, and Dave (their boys).
Friday, Steve drove me to a couple of local fabric stores. Unfortunately neither had much selection of quilt fabrics. The first was primarily a craft store so although they had cotton fabric, it had been selected by a national office not an individual. I prefer small privately owned shops since they generally have a personal imprint: the owner buys what they and their customers like. The second shop was an upholstery fabric shop. It was nice to look through some of their fabrics (ideas for our house). The fabrics ranged in price from $20 to $100 a yard. They had some lovely silks.
Saturday, we flew to Seattle. Steve drove us to the Newark Airport early. We finally got on the plane and started the trip. Many hours later we were back in Seattle and in the hotel.
Today, we went to the library to check out some books and went to a computer store and bought a new camera. The camera that went swimming with the alligators worked most of the time but was eating batteries. Someone once told me that the things that cause the most stress in our lives are the things that almost work: the coffeemaker that makes coffee but leaks, the camera that takes pictures most of the time but fails sometimes, the microwave that you cannot exactly set. We really liked the pictures that the old camera took, hopefully the new one will work as well.