Author: Jon Arnold

It was a pretty low-key week of school and work, but we did make some time for a mid-week trek through the Adirondack mountains:

As Carrie repeatedly noted last week, the bugs were bad. But the view at the top made it worth it:

On Friday, we drove into Vermont in what we would be the start of a wonderful sugar-charged weekend (more on that in a sec).

Our campground Friday night was just an overflow lot of a local RV dealership. It had been raining all day, so it was quite a sloppy mess:

But just down the road was Bragg Farm Sugarhouse, which sounded promising. He we are sampling some pure Vermont maple syrup. We left with a jug of our own as well as several other maple-y treats.

Amy found a local 10k race on Saturday morning in Montpelier:

…as well as the Montpelier farmer’s market. (The girls and I were back at the RV sleeping in.)

The big event Saturday, however, was a fieldtrip to the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, VT:

The tour was good:

…but the taste test at the end was great. They gave us a free sample of a new flavor they’re working on called “Milk & Cookies.” If you ever see that in the grocery store, we tasted it first!

If you wonder why Ben & Jerry’s ice cream is so delicious, just look at which ingredient warrants the largest vat. Mystery solved:

We also visited the “Flavor Graveyard,” the final resting place of retired Ben & Jerry’s flavors that got killed off:

That afternoon, we moved onward, this time crossing into New Hampshire for the evening:

We camped in the quiet, peaceful little campground of Moose Brook State Park:

Even had a campfire (a rare occasion for us):

This morning we took a hike on one of the park’s “unmaintained” trails. It was beautiful.

It was not without some challenges, however. Amy had a misstep and stepped into some muck:

…and a bridge had been washed out by the river.

Undeterred, we found a large fallen tree a little ways up-river that we used to get across:

We traveled most of the afternoon and are now deep into Maine. I though this would be our northern-most point of the trip, but I see now when I look at a map that we were actually more north when we were in Washington.

We’re now nestled into our camp spot for the week in Trenton, Maine. Even though it’s a school night, we’re going to watch a movie tonight.

…and enjoy another sugar rush:

This is going to be a quickest post ever, mainly because I’ve been negligent in taking any photos of what we’ve been doing for the last three weeks. Here’s a quick recap in bullet-point form:

• We were back in Indy the week of May 6 for a vehicle inspection so we could get the RV titled in Indiana. We spent a nice week with my mom and visiting with friends.
• We spent the following week in Ohio with Amy’s wonderful family.
• Last week, we camped in Northern Ohio near my home town of Avon Lake, OH.

…and this is where the trickle of photos resume, with my family standing in front of the house that built me. It had been about 15 years since I had seen the place, and I was surprised how I didn’t want to leave.

We camped a few days in the lovely little town of Stow, OH. Amy and I (and Natalie too!) even did some contra dancing (it’s sort of like square dancing, but cooler somehow).

We did our Sunday walk at Niagara Falls in Canada:

Nat, enjoying a spray of mist on the American side of Niagara:

We’re now camped at Allegany State Park in New York. A few miles away from our campsite are some pretty big rocks in the middle of the woods.

It felt really good to climb something again.

We’re camped here for the next few days, and then we’ll continue moving Northeast toward the New England states. We don’t have a definite route or itinerary yet, and that’s totally ok.

I’m playing catchup again. Here’s a recap of the last two weeks:

After leaving Washington DC, we made a brief stop in Baltimore. While it was a full workday for me, Amy and the girls made a visit to Fort McHenry National Monument:

This is the site of the War of 1812 battle with the British that inspired Francis Scott Key to write what would later become our National Anthem.

It was no fun driving an RV through the narrow streets of downtown Baltimore:

We camped in Delaware for two days before moving on to Pennsylvania. Along the way, we stopped in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, the site where George Washington and his army trained during the last winter of the Revolutionary War.

Our campground for that week was at a mobile home park in Hatfield, Pennsylania. Not much to look at, but it was a reasonably quite and happy place:

It was also conveniently located near a train station. I took Friday afternoon off of work to join the girls for a field trip of downtown Philadelphia:

We toured the US Mint and learned all about how coins are made (no paper money is printed there). I thought it would be super high tech, but it’s really just a glorified machine shop. It was pretty interesting.

More public transportation, this time the Philly city bus:

I love Philly cheese steaks, so I of course had to try the original. Pat’s King of Steaks claims to have created the Philly Cheese Steak sandwich in 1930. It did not disapoint.

However, just across the street is Geno’s Steaks, a competitor of Pat’s since 1966. We had half an order at Pat’s and then a half an order at Geno’s to compare. The verdict? Both were excellent, but Geno’s was the agreed favorite (better buns).

Amy mastered yet another major city mass transit system:

Heading home on the train after our afternoon in Philly:

There was a little bit of schoolwork waiting to be done that evening. Schoolwork on Friday night; that’s rough.

We got an early start Saturday so we could spend the entire day in Philadelphia. Lots to see.

The Liberty Bell:

We caught a demo of how stuff was printed during the late 1700’s:

Independence Hall:

The Assembly Room in Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and the Constitution was signed in 1787. This is the room, in other words, where our country started:

The inkwells used for the signing of the Declaration of Independence:

The original House of Representatives:

The original Senate:

We strolled by Betsy Ross’s place, but it didn’t look interesting enough to pay an entrance fee (we’ve grown too accustomed to things being free).

Philadelphia has the oldest continually inhabited neighborhood in the country. People have been living in these homes since 1702!

On Sunday we drove back to Valley Forge. (Amy got up early and drove out for a morning run; the girls and I met up with her later that morning.) It’s a very beautiful place.

There was a guy renting bikes in the parking lot, so we did a family bike ride:

It was a great way to see more of Valley Forge:

Just passing through the town of Intercourse, PA. (Too…many…jokes…)

We spent last week at a campground in Dover, PA that was also a working farm:

Natalie got up early most mornings to spend time with the animals:

On Wednesday afternoon, we drove to Hershey, PA for the day. I got some work done at the local Hershey public library while Amy and the girls toured a Hershey amusement park (which was mostly closed and pretty lame). And the streets were not flowing with chocolate as expected.

We packed up on Friday and drove to Gettysburg for the afternoon:

Have you ever heard of a cyclorama? (I had not.) It’s a 360 degree painting that wraps around the inside of a circular room and makes you feel like you’re “in” a scene. It’s really cool, and there is an impressive one at Gettysburg depicting the famous battle. I thought this amazing painting was new, but it was created in 1883! So it’s the 19th century equivalent of IMAX.

Every national park has an educational movie of some sort, and they are consistently some degree of bad. Gettysburg’s movie, however — narrated by Morgan Freeman — is excellent. Excellent.

Looking out over the battlefield from the Union’s point of view on Cemetery Ridge. That tree line in the distance is where the Confederates emerged and tried to deliver a final blow to the Union army after 3 days of fighting. A lot of people died here.

We caught a ranger-led talk on the battlefield. As always, it was excellent. National Park Rangers are consistently awesome.

I was struck by two things: 1) how large of an area the Gettysburg battlefield is, and 2) its scattering of monuments and memorials. This photo shows just a few, but they were everywhere.

No one knows exactly where Lincoln stood to give his Gettysburg address at Soldiers’ National Cemetery, but this monument suggests it was somewhere near this spot. If you’ve not read the Gettysburg address in a while, read it; it’s sheer poetry.

Across the Gettysburg field on the Confederate side, where General Lee watched the battle unfold and his army fall:

We camped Friday night at state park in Chambersburg, PA. It was nice to have some woods to walk through the next morning; it had been a while.

On Sunday we stopped at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, PA. This is where the 4th plane from the 9/11 attacks crashed after the terrorists’ plans were thwarted by the passengers and crew.

Camping at a Walmart is never a delight, but the Walmart in Triadelphia WV comes mightly close. With wide, long, level spots exclusively for RVers, it’s like the Ritz-Carlton of parking lots:

On our way through Columbus OH, we got to visit with my Aunt Grayce for a bit. It’s always good to spend time with such a remarkable lady.

And then by late afternoon we were back in Indiana:

We had to come back to Indy to resolve a license and registration issue with the RV. It has to do with the fact that we bought the RV in California but it needs to be plated in Indiana which requires a vehicle inspection. We planned on just being in town for a few days, but this RV issue might take a week or two to resolve.

Whatever, though. We’ll just get to spend more time with family and friends before embarking on the final leg of our RV odyssey: seeing the New England states.

Our internet has been a bit spotty lately, and I’m pretty sure last week’s post did not upload in its entirety. It’s fixed now.

We enjoyed a lovely week in Colonial Beach, VA, far away from anything meaningful to see or do. It was great to just relax, get caught up on some work, and even hang out with a fellow traveling family over s’mores.

Here’s Amy and Nat catching up on some schoolwork:

There was a constant layer of pollen everywhere:

On Friday, we relocated to Greenbelt Park to be closer to DC for one more sight-seeing weekend. We had some fun neighbors in the spot next to us:

As planned, we spent the majority of the day at the Holocaust museum. It’s difficult to comprehend that something so awful as the holocaust happened, and that it wasn’t even that long ago. Sad and frightening. (I don’t have any photos; photography was not allowed.)

Today was our final mission: Ford’s theater:

To my surprise, photography IS allowed here. We listened to a park ranger give a talk on the history of Ford’s Theater and the night Lincoln was shot.

The museum in the basement of Ford’s Theater had some really, really amazing stuff related to the conspirators and their plot to assassinate Lincoln:

The .44 Derringer pistol used by John Wilkes Booth to shoot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head at 10:15pm on April 14th, 1865:

A blood-stained pillow used in the care of Lincoln after he was shot:

We walked across the street to visit the Petersen boarding house where Lincoln was carried after being shot:

This bedroom at the back of the boarding house is where Lincoln died the next morning:

It was a bit crowded today due to a few school or youth groups that were also visiting. But the crowds in DC are noticeably less compared to a couple weekends ago when the Cherry Blossom Festival was going on.

To finish off the day, we intended to watch The Conspirator, the story of Mary Surratt, one of the Lincoln conspirators and the first female to be executed by the federal government. All the local Redboxes were out and Blockbusters seem to have all closed, so I resorted to trying to stream it via Netflix.

Alas, t’was not to be. Netflix over a crappy cellular internet connection is a cruel joke:

It took us three very full weekends, and a few side trips in between, but we feel like we saw Washington DC. Truly, one could spend a lifetime here and still not give everything the study and attention it deserves. But for us, it’s time to move on.

Next stop: Baltimore?

After hitting DC pretty hard last weekend, we took Monday off. Amy and the girls took a trip to the zoo on Tuesday. It was a very warm afternoon and they said the animals weren’t putting on much of a show. However, the admission price was free, so they didn’t mind:

I took Wednesday off, however, and we all made another full day of sight-seeing. We picked up some gallery passes to the Senate and the House of Representatives courtesy of our Indiana Representative Andre Carson:

Lunch outside the Capitol Building:

After lunch, we visited the Congressional galleries, but I couldn’t take any photos. We did witness a vote underway in the House and a speech about gun control in the Senate:

Next up was the Supreme Court building, the facade of which is apparently under renovation:

It was very cool to see those nine chairs. Ironically, this building smelled like a church.

Then we stopped next door at the Library of Congress:

This is Thomas Jefferson’s book collection that he sold to the Library of Congress after their own book collection was mostly destroyed by fire. This is a bad photo, but I was literally shooting from the hip (photography of this collection was not allowed; I had to be quick).

The Library of Congress is a stunningly beautiful building:

This is the Gutenberg Bible, one the first books to emerge from Johann Gutenberg’s printing press in 1455. One of the greatest inventions in human history, the printing press allowed the mass production and accessibility of accumulated human knowledge. This is one of the coolest artifacts I’ve seen on this entire trip.

It was amazing what a difference a couple days can make. The cherry trees were in full bloom, much fuller than what we saw the previous weekend:

There was a very cool barred owl that would swoop through our campground throughout the week. Amy was trying to lure him closer to the RV by playing owl sounds she found on YouTube:

Saturday was the beginning of another intense sight-seeing weekend, starting with George Washington’s Mount Vernon home:

Hey look, it’s me, from the future!:

The tombs of George and Martha Washington:

That afternoon, we visited the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum. It’s out by Dulles International Airport, yet it’s part of the Smithsonian system. Lots of amazing stuff there. I couldn’t believe I was standing under the Enola Gay, the airplane that dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Very sobering.

This is hardly a centerpiece of the museum, but seeing the spaceship prop used in “Close Encounters of the Third kind” brought back memories from another era of this trip. (We watched that movie after visiting Devils Tower — also part of that movie — back in July.)

The Space Shuttle Discovery:

Sunday morning started with a trip to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History:

As we should have expected, there is just so much fascinating stuff to absorb there. I really enjoyed all the exhibits on human origins.

We saw the Hope Diamond in all its 45+ carat glory:

Unfortunately, the only photo I have of our next stop — the National Archives — is this outside shot. Photography is strictly forbidden inside, and there are guards everywhere to make sure you comply. But it was otherwise a big highpoint seeing the Magna Carta of 1297, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, up close and personal. To see these documents — the tangible manifestations of such grand ideas that have shaped our society — is quite amazing.

On to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum:

Emily, taking in Amelia Earhart’s iconic red Lockheed 5B Vega:

The pièce de résistance: the Wright Flyer. Amy and the girls (and me, via osmosis) did a lot of road-school studying of the Wright brothers during the weeks leading up to our stop at Kitty Hawk, so it was rather meaningful to behold their little invention that changed the world:

A lovely view of our capitol after a busy weekend:

Last stop for the day, the Smithsonian Museum of American History:

As with the other museums, there are approximately 1 billion things to see and learn about here. These are just a few things where I bothered to raise my camera and take a picture…we were all so tired by this point.

Here are the benches from the Woolworth’s store in Greensboro NC that is now the International Civil Rights Museum (we toured that back in November). Yet another moment where two eras of our trip have come together.

This little wood desk is where Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence:

Julia Child’s kitchen:

We got a kick out of this; it’s the placard by a display showing a family living out of a trailer, one of the pieces in the “America on the Move” exhibit about transportation. Carrie has been calling us “trailerites” ever since. 🙂

As I mentioned, we were exhausted both physically and mentally by the end of the weekend. One’s legs can only walk so far, and one’s mind can only absorb so much.

We packed up Monday and drove about an hour and half to a sleepy little campground somewhere in VA. I don’t even know what city I’m in and I don’t really care. There is nothing to do here, and we love it!

We’ve been taking it easy this week and catching up a bit on work and school. Washington DC has not seen the last of us, however. We’re gearing up for one last mission this weekend to see Ford’s Theater and the Holocaust Museum.

We enjoyed our final week in Florida. Here are the girls at school on a lovely Monday morning at Silver River State Park:

Before leaving that park on Tuesday, we took a long lunch to do some canoeing:

As much as I loved the airboat ride several weeks ago, it wasn’t exactly a peaceful encounter with nature. This was.

The big pay-off of the canoe trip, however, was seeing the monkeys:

That’s right: monkeys. Back in the 1930s, a local tour boat operator released rhesus monkeys along the Silver River to enhance the scenery for his tour boat patrons, and the colony survives to this day.

We traveled west through the northern part of Florida most of the afternoon on Tuesday. Amy drove, and it was homework and work for the rest of us.

We first arrived in Florida a week before Christmas, and here were are finally seeing a new state on Saturday:

Despite the sunny weather, the temperatures were COLD! After enjoying shorts and T-shirts for the last month, we were into jeans and light jackets by the end of the week. Then this weekend, it was hats and gloves!

This is Amy’s group of running buddies she found near Mobile, AL for a run this morning. She’s gotten pretty good at finding and connecting with local running groups and making fast friends. (Get it?…”fast friends”?)

While driving through Mobile, we caught a glimpse of the crippled Carnival Cruise ship that you might have been hearing about in the news lately:

Continuing our westward trek, we knocked out two more states today:

Much of downtown New Orleans looked pretty rough from the overpasses; it’s hard to tell what is just simply run down and what might be remnants of Katrina. It was cool to see the Super Dome, though.

We’re camped at Bayou Segnette State Park for the week, just a few miles from downtown. Being in such a culturally rich part of the country, we have much to see and do this week in “N’awlins.”