Flowers!

You know I can't pass up a botanical garden, especially if it's Smithsonian. Ichabod loves plants as much as I do so of course we visited. Here's the entire set of pictures. I'm going to have trouble deciding which ones to post here. I want to show them all, of course.

They had a traveling exhibition of globes. The theme was ecology.

This one had to do with proper roofing materials.


This one was just made of all kinds of stuff. If you click on it you can check out the larger version and the things are easier to see.


I liked this one, too.


And now I'll try to load too many flower pictures here.




This one's kinda hard to make out. It's easier to see in the large size.


This was out of focus, but I like the flower too much to delete it.












They had these metal ones, too. They were cool, but weird.




And, of course, an orchid.

Museums

The Smithsonian museums are really cool. I didn't realize there were so many and that admission was free. The whole set for this post is here.

This was the original building


The first one we went to was the Natural History Museum


Petrified wood


Critters ready to pounce


I couldn't get a picture of the Hope diamond, but I thought this was more impressive. It must have been about four feet tall


This is copper from Michigan. It seems like it was at least five feet wide.


My sister thinks this one should eat a sandwich


This was the Native American museum. They had no square walls, no corners anywhere.







We also went to the Air and Space museum and the Botanical Gardens but I've been too lame to get my pictures out on Flickr.

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.

I'm back

I'm back, but I've just been too busy (read lame) to finish my pictures and get a post up. We had a lot of fun and I promise I'll share the events and pictures with you.

See ya!

We're heading out in the morning. Bags are packed and I can't wait. If I find internet along the way then I'll try to catch up with everyone. :-)

Vacation, at last!

We put off going on vacation until Septemeber this year. Ichabod started at a new company the first of September last year so he, just now, gets two weeks' vacation. We're going to drive straight across Michigan, through Canada, to get to the Boston area where my aunt and uncle live. We haven't decided exactly yet, but we'll probably spend about three days there.

After Boston we're going to head down to Washington DC. Neither of us has ever been there. I'm really excited. At first we thought about Sedona/Phoenix again. I love that idea, too, but DC will be a new experience for us.

We'll be leaving next Saturday and I'm already getting things ready to go. Ichabod will throw some things in a suitcase Friday night and call it good. We balance each other that way. :-)

Not sure how much intranet we'll have while we're gone, but I'll check blogs when I can.