monday began the vacation

We had a snag in our original plans to travel westward for our vacation.  We had reserved an RV here in the Emerald City, for the motor speedway city.  Turns out there was a double booking and we could only have the RV for a few days...not enough time to go to South Dakota as originally planned.  Wanting to keep this trip fun and historical, we decided to head north to DC to tour our nations capitol, then to Pennsylvania.  We were wanting to go into Philadelphia, but time didn't allow it.  We left bright and early Monday morning, and went the scenic route.  It was mowing day in Virginia.  We must have seen 50 mowers along our way.

Virginia has 7eleven gas stations and a must stop to make. 

Once we were into DC, our hotel...the Woodfin (Chase) Suites weren't quite ready so we decided to get onto the metro and go straight away into DC.  The Wardlings were amazed by the metro and had a blast on it.  It was their first time on a train/subway and they were in heaven.  We did have to say more than once to stop touching things and to get off the floor, but the ride was quite pleasurable.

The last time we were in Washington, we didn't make it to the Capitol Building.  That was our first stop this go around.  We were all very hot and very tired from the drive up.  It was just amazing to see.  We also hit the Botanical Gardens that day and decided to make it a day, returning to our hotel room by 7pm, giving the Wardlings an hour to unwind in the pool.

P was exhausted and crashed on the metro ride home.

tuesday

Tuesday was our first full day in DC.  We wanted to keep everyone hopping.  It was so stinkin hot!  First thing after breakfast , was a metro ride into DC.  We then walked the 4 blocks to the National Zoo.  Luckily there was a 7eleven across the street where we loaded the Wardlings up with Slushies. Then across the street we walked to the National Zoo. We loved seeing the Panda Bear and other animals.  We tried to stick to seeing the animals that we don't have at our zoo.

After the zoo, we walked the four blocks back to the metro, to head to the Smithsonians Museum of Natural History.

There we enjoyed seeing the Hope Diamond, ocean animals, dinosaur bones, paleolithic people...the wardlings even acted like cave men.

By this time we were all hungry and decided to eat in the museum.  What were we thinking?? The below picture represents our $85 lunch.  Lesson learned.

After all the walking @ the zoo and smithsonian, we had tired Wardlings on our hands.

wednesday

We began the day by a metro ride back into DC.  We first went to the castle, that is in the mall and then made our way over to the Ronald Reagan building for lunch with  Clyde's first greeny in Poland, and his family.  We did this a few years ago when we went to DC for Christmas. They are a lovely bunch the H family.  They will be heading to Brazil with the State Department soon. Fun job no?

After our good-byes, we went to the Smithsonian-American History museum.  As soon as we walked in there was C3PO's costume.  We had some very happy boy Wardlings.  We also saw Dorothy's ruby slippers. (Penny was more than thrilled to see Dorothy's slippers.  She wanted to know if she could try them on. Oh how I wish you could've sweetie pie.) Oh Happy Day!! Other hightlights were Kermit the Frog, Lincoln's hat and hands, Carol Burnet's curtain dress, the original stars and stripes flag, the First Ladies ball gowns...Erin liked the doll house minatures as well.

It was then back on the metro to get back to our hotel.  The Wardlings were both pros and getting on and off, and sliding their tickets, but were also very sick of riding the metro.

Then that night we drove back into DC to look around at the buildings @ night. we saw the Washington Monument and the Jefferson memorial.

thursday

We left D.C. a bit late and headed to Lancaster Pennsylvania.  We stopped @ the welcome center to stretch our legs and use the restroom. 

Once Jacob and I left the welcome Center, I was stung by a bumble bee, right below my eye.  That mug hurt too! Thankfully we had some sting relief pads and some benedryl in the car.  However, for the rest of the trip, I looked like I had been slugged inthe eye.  My first impression of PA???  bad, very bad!

Once we checked into our hotel, we drove to another visitors center where we got some flyers and some hints about where to go in Amish country.  The wardlings loved this buggy!

We then took a preview drive to checkout what we wanted to see the next day.

We noticed stars on all the houses and thought maybe it was a symbol of the Amish. We noticed how very rural the area was.  Fields upon fields of corn and yet there were many gardens behind the houses.  We saw cows and horses galore.

We also had some very tired grump Wardlings on our hands...

friday friday

Friday was mainly spent touring Lancaster and seeing the Amish.  We had some ice cream with whole milk in it and it was so thick...it was a meal.  We looked in the Bird-in-Hand farmers markets and shops and learned theat the stars on the houses meant to bring good luck.

We then took a buggy ride from Aron and Jessica's buggy ride company. We did have to wait for a few minutes but the ride was worth it. There was a little guy with his grandpa's rooster.  The Wardlings were amazed by the rooster.  The buggy driver was an Amish youth who hadn't joined the Amish faith as of yet. He was quite the instructor. We learned the Dutch is the Amish's first language, then English, and then German.  All the sermons are in German, but they don't learn German until school.  School only goes to the 8th grade and the teacher only has an 8th grade education herself and is typically 16-17 years old.  There is a one roomed school house, only 30 students and there is a school house for every 1 mile radius. The Amish think that an 8th grade education is high enough to live as a farmer.  They can go to a doctor, but cannot be one themselves. Also- @ the age of 16, the youth are given a choice whether or not to join the church.  They can go wild...but once they decide top join the religion and do those things, then they'll be shunned.

Their way of life is interesting to me.  It seemed to me that they tended to split hairs.  They live without electricity, because they don't want to be connected to anyone.  However, they have generators and solar panels to have a refridgerator and stoves.  They also have cell phones.  Which was explained that since the school house shooting, they felt it was necessary and since they aren't connected to anyone, it was ok.

Jacob had quite the time on the buggy.  After the ride, he goes into this story... He said..."Mom the horse lifted his tail and his butthole was this big and then it got this big (with a show of hands) and then, he pooped out big poops!"

Then we drove by an Amish auction and Erin said, "I think it is cool that these people are dressed up like Amish people."  We then explained that they weren't dressed up as Amish, they were Amish.

Once we were finished touring, we had a slight detour to Carlisle, PA.  Expedia totally screwed our reservations up.  We stayed in a less than pleasant place, with the next to smallest pool Josh had ever seen.  We didn't sleep very well, and since we have a big family we ended up getting 2 rooms, but they were across the hall from each other rather than being next to each other. The hallway smelled of armpit and smoke. Nice huh?!