Moving on

I know it's been a long time since I updated. I've been overwhelmed by the number of pictures that I took. It's hard to know what to leave in and what to leave out. So I guess I'll just start throwing some stuff out here.

The ride from Boston to DC wasn't too bad. The hotel wasn't too hard to find with the instructions that we had. We did have to fix a problem with our reservation. When I made the reservation it said nonsmoking/King. Our confirmation came back as a smoking room. I can't stand those. The bedding is especially nasty. But they did manage to get us switched. We ended up next to the elevator, but at least I didn't have to smell stale smoke in the room.

That evening we walked over to see where the subway, The Metro, was. It was a good two blocks, but an easy walk. This was the best way to get into town. And it was fairly inexpensive if we rode on the off-hours. We paid about $2 each, one way.

The next day we went into town and walked around the Mall. Definitely not a shopping mall :-) Here are some of the photos.

The Smithsonian Castle


The Smithsonian Natural Museum


To prove that I was really there :-)


And here's the person who took the previous photo


Our country's most obvious phallic symbol


The one place we did visit there that day was the National Archives. No pictures of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, or anything else in there as cameras weren't allowed. So here's the outside of the building.


That evening we went to visit Ichabod's aunt and uncle who live kind of by Georgetown. His uncle is a professor at Georgetown University.

Here's the set of that day's photos.

The first part of the journey

It seems like forever ago, but it was Saturday, September 13, when we headed out on the road to Boston. We went straight across Michigan through Canada and then on to Beantown. Took us about 14 hours. The first two thirds of the trip we had some pretty heavy rain courtesy of hurricane Ike.

The reason for the Boston part of the trip was to visit with my aunt and uncle who live just outside of the town. My aunt had a nasty infection on her shin with a huge swelling in her ankle so we mostly sat around. They have seven TIVOs and that means a lot of recorded movies and tv shows. That's mostly what we did while we were there.

The last full day, though, we went to their property that was about a half hour's drive away. They have some different things planted and quite a bit that's still wild.

Here's a sample.




Check this one out on Flickr in the Large size




Then, on the way back we stopped at a cool restaurant called Salem Cross. They had a big bed of dahlias in the front that they used on all of the tables. The place had a basement and two floors. There was also a barn/attic area. I was allowed to take pictures wherever I wanted.























The full set of pictures from this part of the trip are here.

They sent us on our with a big bagful of cherry and grape tomatoes that Ichabod helped pick from their property. As soon as I get the rest of the pictures ready I'll post about the rest of the trip.