Car Games

We declared the license plate game null today, because it was stressing me while I was driving and Claudia was contradicting our printed directions. The results of yellow car and slug buggy are in the shotgun binder, but Ricky's already asleep (or nearly so) and so he will post those results tomorrow.

Pictures from DC

This blog post will mostly be just pictures from DC. I figured you all would like to see them.


Ethiopian Place

White House

Vietnam War Memorial

Diana Loves Michigan

Washington Monument

We'll need a bigger tree!

As I sit now in our tent listening to the chirp of whatever bugs we've locked out with our super-duper zippers, it's hard to believe we woke up this morning to the view of mostly-naked British Marines and the capitol city in the sun.

With much deliberation over food (Ricky wanted to buy us all breakfast because he didn't want to eat the "free breakfast!" that the hostel offered), we finally departed, hungry still, from the hostel and headed to the parking lot at Union Station. We circled the gorgeous marble building several times to no avail, but finally found a parking garage beneath some official building referred to only as "Building Three." With Odysseus safely stowed away for the time being, we headed towards the national mall.

We did not get past Union Station's food court before getting sidetracked by the delicious smells of our lunch-to-be. Our stomachs thus satisfied, we moved on to the Library of Congress.

At the Library of Congress, or LOC as they refer to it on most official looking documents, we wandered about the various reading rooms and took in all the literary goodness. One exhibit was a recreation of Thomas Jefferson's library, complete with his methods of sorting the books and computers displaying scanned pages from the untouchable collection.

Next stop made me very super over the top happy: the Folger's Shakespeare Library! There was an exhibit about the ocean and its portrayal throughout English Literature. More importantly, the entire building felt like a shrine to Shakespeare. My highlight of the day was the ring Diana bought me, which says "All the world's a stage" around it. Thanks so much Diana!!

After we left Shakespeare, we made our way past the Capitol and Supreme Court buildings, plus lots of other official stuff, and made for the Botanical Gardens. There Diana really thrived (pun intended?). We split off from the boys for much of the time as Diana took literally hundreds of photographs (circa 500). If you're lucky, she'll share a few in her blog post (speaking of which, Diana and I have just conferred and decided that she will add to my story-post and in her post just share photographs, so assume both of them are vaguely joint efforts). After Jake, Ricky, and I spent a quarter of an hour being "couch potatoes" in the spud exhibit in the conservatory, we opted not to go to the Air and Space Museum and just get on the road early.

It's a good thing we decided to leave early, because after the pit stop for a camping stove and extra fuel, we hit major traffic. We didn't arrive at the campsite near Richmond until half past eight, and set up camp in the very last few minutes of daylight.

Upon reaching the campsite, the boys decided it was time for them to become men: they ran off to some secluded area to pee on trees, then returned to play with fire. Meanwhile, I orchestrated setting up the tent and Diana cooked dinner (ok, so she poured two cans of tomato soup into a pot and heated it up... don't underestimate the talent it takes to set up a camping stove in the dark, though!). After we ate (the girls used spoons, but the MEN had to drink their soup in a manly manner straight from the bowl while Ricky grunted happily at us), Diana and I ventured off to find more lady-like places to do our business and also somewhere to wash our dishes. The boys opened a flashlight battery case, to prove they weren't wusses. They weren't.

Now my post has gotten very long, it is late, and we have only limited battery power. Surprisingly enough, there is free wifi at this site. No electricity or water near our tent, but plenty of free wifi. Oh the great outdoors...

So anyhow, I suppose that's all folks. Glad you stuck with me this far. Enjoy Diana's pictures. See ya.

~MB