Washington, D.C. | Fulltime Ramblings

It All Leads to Intercourse

Posted on June 2, 2016 by taleena4

The rest of our stay in Washington, D.C. was filled with activities – visiting the various monuments, going to the National Zoo, being taken on a guided tour of the Capitol Building, and having a truly divine dinner at Rasika. Plus narrowly missing being witness to a shooting just outside the fence around the White House. You’ve got to love our nation’s capital! Thankfully spending a couple weeks in Intercourse to relax was next on the agenda after Washington, D.C., but you’ll have to keep reading through the capital details to get to that part of our trip! Aren’t I a tease?

The day after our last blog post, we hung around the RV for most of the day so Lewis could get some work done, then got all fancied up and caught the Metro down to dinner at Rasika. It was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend it if you’re in Washington for any reason and like Indian food. The food was plentiful and the wine list was much more in-depth than we were expecting. The waiter was also a fount of knowledge, and approved of all our choices for our meal. Of course, it helps that we’ve had a decent amount of experience with Indian food and know what goes well with what. Heck, I’ve even made my own paneer and ghee in the past.

The next day, we headed to the National Zoo. Now, this was unfortunately one of those rare occurrences of bad planning on our part. We arrived at the Zoo at about 10:30 am to find out that the Zoo was closing early due to a private event we were not aware of, with the back side closing first. If you’ve ever been to the National Zoo, you’ll know that the best way to visit it, because of the terrain, is to start at the Connecticut Avenue entrance and work toward the back, resulting in an easy downhill walk for most of the day. Because we had not been aware of the early closing, we had to rush downhill to the back side of the Zoo, then hoof it back uphill fairly quickly to see as much as we could before they started roping areas off. It made for a pretty hectic day and there were several things we didn’t get to see. That’ll teach us to do more in-depth planning and check schedules if we really want to see something.

A lioness with all her attention focused on the men setting up for a private event at the National Zoo.

We thought this tiger was catnapping until I zoomed in on his face.

Maybe this orangutan was trying out for a spot in the next Christmas nativity?

Forget the lions and tigers – the real reason everyone goes to the National Zoo is the (panda) bears!

On Friday we had our private guided tour of the Capitol Building, led by a staff member of our Representative and an intern. That was quite interesting, and we got to skip the tremendously long line the general public had to snake through to get their “I’ve been through security” badges. We enjoyed the tour, then went our way on the Circulator bus, which, if you use a Metro SmarTrip card, you can treat as a “hop on hop off” tour bus for two hours for only $1 per person. It’s probably the best deal in Washington, D.C. and made it very simple for us to visit most of the monuments. The bus also had to maneuver around a white car with its hood up, parked in a no-parking zone adjacent to the Circulator stop closest to the White House. It didn’t seem like a noteworthy occurrence, until we arrived back home, turned on the news, and found out the car was associated with someone who, about 10 minutes after we passed, had carried a gun up to the fence around the White House and been shot by Secret Service after refusing to drop the weapon. Last we heard, the guy was in critical condition after his “suicide by Secret Service” attempt. Oh well.

The view from the Speaker of the House’s office balcony at the Capitol Building.

The outside (facing the Tidal Basin) of the Jefferson Memorial.

Thomas Jefferson in all his bronze glory.

The Lincoln Memorial from the southeast corner.

Up close and personal with Abraham Lincoln’s statue inside the Lincoln Memorial.

Now for the part of this blog post that I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for – the part where I write about spending two weeks enjoying ourselves in Intercourse. Now before any of you readers either get offended or all hot and bothered, let me throw some cold water on your anticipation by explaining this is Intercourse, Pennsylvania we’re talking about, not anything more dirty-minded. It’s the heart of Pennsylvania’s Amish and Mennonite communities and is an excellent place to slow down and get back to what really matters in life. We also became grandparents during our stay to an awesome 7lb, 11oz baby boy whom our daughter delivered after being induced and an emergency C-section. We love you, Lucas!

Our new grandson. Isn’t he adorable?

We parked our fifth wheel at Beacon Hill Camping, a small, quiet adult campground just a short walk up the road from “downtown” Intercourse and literally across the street from a real Amish family farm. On several days during our stay, Amish buggies or wagons came through the campground offering fresh fruits and vegetables, and homemade baked goods for sale. We absolutely loved this perk, and it helped us get to know some of the neighbors much better than if we were simply any other tourists staying at a nearby hotel and only interacting with them in the local stores and shops. We got to help the young sons of the Amish family across the street turn their dairy cattle out to pasture one evening, and we also were able to trade their father an “Amish taxi ride” in our truck to return his seedling trays in exchange for a couple quarts of raw milk. For us, this was a much more enjoyable encounter than any amount of visiting “tourist information centers” or museums about the Amish. Not to say there isn’t a place for the latter, but firsthand experiences are usually a lot more memorable.

Sometimes all you need is 7 horsepower (actually, I guess that should be mulepower)!

When you see this outside the local Costco, you know you’re in Amish country.

We did get over to Strasburg, Pennsylvania to visit the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, and Lewis’ mom came out from where she was staying in Gettysburg to visit us and take us to the National Christmas Center, also in Strasburg. The following day, we in turn jaunted over to Gettysburg to visit her and go to the Gettysburg Diorama, the Shriver House Museum, and drive part of the Battlefield itself. Later in the week, we also went on a private buggy ride through the town of Bird-In-Hand, seeing more Amish farms up close, passing beneath a 200+ year old bridge, and going by a historic grist mill (now an art gallery).

The view from the overlook at the Strasburg Train Museum. Yes, those are real full-sized locomotives and train cars, some of which you can even enter.

The St. Nicholas from Holland in the National Christmas Museum, one of many such in the 15+ separate gallery rooms.

A view from one end of the Gettysburg Diorama, the largest military diorama in the United States.

The Devil’s Den at Gettysburg Battlefield, site of intense fighting on July 2, 1863.

Camels on an Amish farm.

Now we have just a couple more days to relax before continuing our journey up to Maine and our friends there. Until next blog post…

Our Capital Adventure

Posted on May 18, 2016 by taleena4

Our week in Roanoke Rapids went by pretty quickly, and was a good way to relax a bit before we continued on up the East Coast to Manassas, VA and Washington, D.C. When we arrived at Bull Run Regional Park in Manassas, VA, we were greeted by the sounds of fairly close gunfire. Now, that may sound extremely alarming to those that aren’t familiar with this park, especially when you consider the crime rate around Washington, D.C., but this was nothing to be frightened of. In addition to a great campground, the park also contains the only public gun range in northern Virginia, and although it was a bit more noise than one would think about in a park, it didn’t disturb us or ruin our stay. We simply imagined it to be the shots of Confederate and Union troops confronting each other just down the road, as they did over 150 years before at the battles of First and Second Manassas. And speaking of that battlefield…

Because Lewis was doing light duty for his work both this week and the next (his first “vacation” in nearly 10 years!), our first day was spent touring Manassas National Battlefield Park, site of the battles of both First Manassas in July of 1861 and Second Manassas in August of 1862 during the Civil War. The weather was chilly and rain showers kept us fairly well damp the entire time, but we still got out of the truck and wandered around Henry Hill, center of the fighting during First Manassas, and the various sites along the driving tour of the much more spread out Second Manassas battlefield. It was not nearly as well marked as the battle grounds around Vicksburg, but the 45 minute introductory movie in at the Visitors Center and the 8 minute interactive audio map at the Brawner Farm helped us keep straight on what happened where and when during these two separate battles.

The Stone House, used as a hospital during both battles, at Manassas Battlefield National Park.

A monument of Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, who received his famous nickname at this exact location during First Manassas.

We also took a half day to visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, a sort of “overflow” site for the National Air and Space Museum and adjacent to Dulles International Airport. These two huge hangers display the planes, rockets, and spacecraft that simply won’t fit in the museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. proper, like the Enola Gay, a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the Concorde and the Space Shuttle Discovery. We spent much longer here than we thought we would, but it was such an engrossing experience that we kept finding things to see and linger over. Even leaving the parking lot at the end of your visit can be a jaw-dropping event, as the road runs close to the end of one of the runways for Dulles and can result in planes flying very low over your vehicle if both your timing and the wind direction are right.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The bomb, “Little Boy”, targeted Hiroshima, Japan during WWII.

Up close and personal with Space Shuttle Discovery.

An interesting view of the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” spy plane. Not something easily observed in a plane with a flight ceiling of 85,000 ft and top speed of 2,200+ mph!

The Concorde, the fastest commercial airliner in the world for most of its 27-year career.

While we didn’t manage to be selected for tickets to visit the White House (darn it!), we did manage to get on the tour list for another hard-to-visit attraction within D.C. proper – the State Department’s Diplomatic Reception Rooms. Normally the location of “official government entertainment” in Washington, D.C., the Diplomatic Reception Rooms are where the Secretary of State, Vice President, and Members of the Cabinet sign treaties, work on trade agreements and host foreign dignitaries. The rooms are filled with museum-caliber antiques and artworks that are meant to represent the era of America’s conception and youth (1750-1825) as well as commemorating past accomplishments of our nation and are absolutely stunning visually. It was well worth our time and the extensive security screening we had to go through before the tour.

The Thomas Jefferson State Reception Room, used by the Secretary of State for smaller official lunches and dinners.

The writing desk upon which the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, ending the American Revolutionary War.

The Benjamin Franklin State Dining Room, the largest of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms.

The last location we visited while staying at Bull Run was Arlington National Cemetery. Once the land which belonged to George Washington’s step-grandson as well as the family home of Robert E. Lee, Arlington is now the final resting place of over 400,000 service members and their families, along with other notable Americans. On the day we visited, 27 funeral services were scheduled, including a high honors one for U.S. Air Force four-star general William Young Smith. The persistent drizzle that fell from the sky for much of our visit was like tears of the heavens raining down upon us as we paid our respects to those buried within the hallowed grounds.

Looking over a portion of the “Sea of Stones” at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Tomb of the Unknowns, with a Sentinel (aka ‘Tomb Guard’) from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard).

As the week drew to a close, we moved our fifth wheel to Cherry Hill Park on the other side of Washington, D.C. in College Park, MD to continue our adventure. Our nation’s capital contains so many sights to see and attractions to visit that it is impossible to see even a small fraction of everything in a week. Heck, even a month probably would not be long enough to take the majority of it all in!

Our second week in the Washington D.C. area began with visits to the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the National Air and Space Museum, all part of the Smithsonian. These museums have changed quite a bit from when I visited them during a seventh-grade school field trip (the National Museum of the American Indian didn’t even exist back then), and I honestly don’t feel it’s in a good way. Sure, the displays have been updated and new information added, but gone is the truly informative, educational feel and now they seem to be more dumbed down “edu-tainment” – lots of looks but very little content. Even the gift shops, which can now be found on each and every floor of each museum, contain pretty much the same stuff from one museum to another, and most of it is made in China. Definitely not the neat gift shops in which you could spend bunches of cash on cool, unique historical or space items that they were back in the late ‘80s. And there might not be any sales tax on your purchases because the museums are federally funded, but they certainly jack up the prices of the items to make up for the lack. Oh well, times certainly change.

The male African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana) still stands in the Rotunda of the National Museum of Natural History.

The Hope Diamond, all 45.52 carats of it.

A 2000-year-old mummy, mostly unwrapped, at the National Museum of Natural History.

The kitchen of award-winning chef, author, and tv personality Julia Child, which she donated to the Smithsonian in 2001.

An Apple II personal computer from 1980. I remember using one just like this in school. Thankfully technology has come a long way since then, or this blog wouldn’t exist!

Lakota (aka Sioux) clothing and tools dating to around 1880, on display at the National Museum of the American Indian.

Later this week, we’ll be hitting some of the monuments around town and the true nerve-center of Washington, D.C. – the Capitol Building, as well as having a nice dinner out at Rasika, named one of the top 20 restaurants in America by Zagat in 2014. After that, it’s off to Pennsylvania on our way to Maine. More on all that in our next blog post, so until then…