Washington to Virginia and Back

Before you think we've had a mammoth trek, it did only involve crossing a bridge and returning.

The day started with an al fresco breakfast on the balcony of the apartment, getting used to the sounds of Washington DC.  First stop this morning was right next door - The Newseum - a seven floor museum dedicated to free expression and the five freedoms of the First Amendment to America's Constitution.  In good tourist behaviour we followed the suggested advice from the orientation film, which was to start at the top, going up in the glass elevator, and work your way down. 

I'm glad there's some glass between me and that drop.

This was lucky as the seventh floor is a terrace overlooking Pennsylvannia Avenue, with an expansive view from the Capitol Building to the White House grounds (the ellipse, where they have the large Christmas tree). 

What's this? Why are they closing all the roads? President Obama obviously knew we were in town as he organised for his motorcade to pass beneath us just as we arrived. 

What you don't see in this picture is that the last vehicle in the motorcade is an ambulance, which seems something of an indictment of the times we live in. 

It's a wonder he goes out very often if he needs to close the streets and have that many people available every time he pops out for coffee and croissant. 

From the terrace we can also see the apartment block where we are staying. It's the brown one.

There's so much to see in this museum, the ticket you buy lasts two days. As you would expect there are lots of front page details some going back to the earliest days of printing. We found the one depicting the Gun Powder Plot interesting if a little gruesome, no 9pm watershed in those days!!

They also included a number of physical artefacts from the headline stories, such as;

Bits of the Berlin Wall

the door from the WaterGate break in, and the twisted remains of the antenna from the top of one of the twin towers destroyed in the 9-11 attack.

There was a virtual reality headset to try (but it wasn't very good).  

There's a map displaying where there is a free press in the world. 

The day is dry and reasonably sunny so we decide that a walk around the tidal basin to Arlington Cemetery and back via the Lincoln Memorial would be a good idea. 

En-route we walk through the sculpture garden of the National Gallery of Art 

A delightful fountain. We had to prevent Eric form going in for a quick splash.

There are lots of sculptures to see but this one in particular caught our eye

A gaily coloured house to be pictured in front of? But take a look at the next picture taken from the side.  Which gives a clue as to why in real life the walls flipped between being the outside and then the inside of the house. 

There are several large memorials around the tidal basin (and you can hire pedalos as well).  First is the Jefferson Memorial. 

The Roosevelt Memorial and The Martin Luther King Memorial are also around the tidal basin and are equally as large.

Walking on we reach the Potomac River and see two large rib boats that appear to be chasing each other up and down the river. One looks like it has blue lights flashing and there is what looks like a gun mounted on the front.  A gentleman with a badge on approaches us and tells us it's just a practice so not to be alarmed. He walks and talks with us pleasantly for a short while before we go our separate ways. Reaching the Memorial Bridge we are unable to see any access to it from the walkway we are on. Asking some passing strangers they tell us that we can't walk across that one but need to go to the next one. A mile further on we reach the next bridge, but looks highly unsuitable for walking. Again ask some nearby passing strangers, who turned out to be from the north of England! They told us we needed to go back to the previous bridge so off we set again.  The Memorial Bridge goes across to Arlington Cemetery, which is in Virginia. It has wide pavements and also very busy traffic.  

Wander around the cemetery in a contemplative way.  There are over 400,000 military personnel and their dependent buried here spread over 612 acres. 

We follow the undulating grounds to visit the Tomb of the Unknowns; soldiers with rifles hold vigil twenty-four hours a day. There are lots of trees, lots of squirrels and also lots of midges.  We do not have time to visit the Iwo Jima monument but make our way back across the bridge towards the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool.  

Good ole Abe.

Just in case you thought we'd forgotten to do any bird spotting.

What we believe to be a Chimney Swift. 

Then it's a fairly long walk back to the apartment taking a few pictures as we go - too many to go in here.

Eric gets a bit homesick when we cross the naval memorial site which features a map of theworld. 

But perks up with another chance for a splash. That's the National Archives building behind.

Back at the apartment we prepare for tomorrow's all day birding tour. 

To The Capital

As we had done most, if not all, the main battle sites yesterday we decided to head straight for DC.

Breakfast of fruit and yogurt was followed by eggs Dijon (a very thick small pie-sized omelette with a fancy name, as far as I could see). Then we were asked to make a choice of breakfast dessert. The options were Shoofly pie (that Pennsylvannia speciality), cinnamon cupcake slice, or lemon tort sponge. Rejected the Shoofly as we have yet to see one so not sure we want to take that risk. A fellow guest had it and less said the better - good decision made that time. Rejected the cinnamon slice as we seem to have had a surfeit of cinnamon, it appears to be a major ingredient in many American cookies, muffins and cupcakes. Also couldn't figure out 'cupcake' and 'slice' until we saw it, and it must have been an enormous cup to be able make a slice that big.  So the lemon it was and it was delicious, very light and fluffy, though it felt like it was four in the afternoon already and just finishing a high tea. 

We had a relaxing steady drive down the back roads via Olney to the inner outskirts of DC.

Then it all got a bit hectic. Certainly glad we decided to ditch the car for the days we are here. Concentrating on who's doing what in front, behind, and either side and just listening for directions from the SatNav and copilot we arrive at Union Station just fine, but who knows where the rental car drop off is? Certainly not us, so we ask a friendly security guard (well two actually, as the first guy was just a bit vague) and go around Columbus Circle a second time, and this time into the parking lot. At the very top of the ramp the signs for car rental returns are all over the place (not visible from the road). We may suggest they put some up outside the station just as a hint for the tourists. I guess if you picked the car up there it would be obvious, but for our one way drop off it was anything but obvious. The sun is shining and it's hot! Car sorted and eventually finding our way out of Union Station it's a brisk walk across to our borrowed apartment.  It's on the sixth floor and has everything we need. A cup of tea later we set out for a quick orientation stroll about town just to get the feel of where we are. 

Inside the main lobby of Union Station.

Outside in the sunshine Union Station looks just as grand.

Eric gets his first glimpse of The White House.

Mmm - it would take me three or four leaps before I could get to see Bo and Sunny the Obama's Portugese Water Dogs.

There was also this Zero Milestone, which we will have to investigate further. Although if we could understood the Japanese guide we would know all about it by now.

A slightly closer look at The White House. 

Scary to think who might live here next.  As we have been driving around there are many many signs in people's houses for Trump-Pence, whereas we've hardly seen any Clinton-Kaine ones. It's been fascinating listening to all the election news while we are here.  Someone at breakfast this morning told us that they don't believe their media channels and if they want to find out what is really going on they watch the BBC! 

Next stop The Washington Monument.

Next, a distant view of the Lincoln Memorial and one of the Reflecting Pools. Definitely need a closer look at this, will save that for tomorrow.

Walking on we find a reflective sculpture garden in front of the Hirshhorn Museum, with some very good pieces.

This Joan Miro sculpture was too scary for Eric. So we left.

Yet another distant view - this time of Capitol Hill. 

 A bit more wandering, pick up some groceries and return to the apartment to plan for tomorrow.

Gettysburg

A rather restless night with interruptions in the early hours between three and five from:

1. What sounded like an Amish carriage and horse trotting down the street - up for work early?

2. An unbelievably loud American railroad horn or whistle - apparently each class of engine has it's own whistle and each engineer has his own way of tooting it. Well, this one certainly liked tooting it - many times. Sounded like a Union Seven Spot Whistle to me. Believe it or not you can check it out on You Tube at Museum of the American Train Whistles! After two loudish multiple bursts of sound, which sounded like it was coming through the bedroom, it faded into the distance still tooting.

3. The refuse lorry collecting the weekly rubbish - they must also start work very early as this was 4:30. 

Oh well, we'd put ourselves down for an earlyish breakfast this morning anyway, so no need for an alarm! 

Breakfast was an interesting mix, both in terms of food and fellow diners.  We had a busy day planned and it wasn't long before we were on our way.

The host had given us a back roads tour map for the Amish farms, with recommendations on where to stop for the best quilts, Shoofly Pies, Handmade soaps, other crafts and the best soft pretzels in the world.  We managed to get around the circuit without making any purchases.  We didn't take any more photographs as it made us feel a little uncomfortable, a bit like seeing these people in a kind of "zoo"

The road to Gettysburg crossed the Susquehanna River. This was such a lovely name that we just had to stop and take some pictures.

We weren't sure how to manage the tour of Gettysburg battlefields but an initial visit to the Visitor Centre and Museum proved to be very beneficial.  A volunteer ranger advised us that a self guided motor tour would probably be best for us and provided an annotated map. He also recommended watching an introductory film narrated by Morgan Freeman; something called the Cyclorama and then the museum. This we duly did. 

The film proved anything but boring, which was our initial expectation.  

The Cyclorama turned out to be  a 360 degree view of a 130 year painting that was 40ft high and about 370ft long.  It was an amazing depiction of the battlefield scenes that played out over three days in July 1863.  

It is difficult to appreciate from the photos how they have managed to merge the painting and the matching physical artefacts.

In the photograph above the detail in the foreground are real items of palisade and rock. 

The museum had a number of artefacts, including this 'operating table'

Touring the the rest of the battlefield sites was similarly impressive with monuments scattered over many acres of well preserved countryside. 

Lincoln didn't actually deliver the Gettysburg Address from this spot, but close by. This is a memorial to that.

The battlefield itself covers an immense area and the tour is a 24 mile drive, shown in red above. 

The landscapes were beautiful in places.

Site of the first battle.

We broke up the tour by booking in to our nights lodgings.

It was in a house that we learned later we had seen in the film of the civil war battles. It even has bullet holes in the wall, but we are assured they have stopped shooting now. 

Eric checks out the result of gunfire back in July 1863!

Site of the last battle.

Followed by a walk around historic Gettysburg itself on the way to dinner.  Washington DC tomorrow.

Into Amish Country

Breakfast was a jovial affair, with two young couples from New York City area joining us, one the same characterful couple as yesterday, and the others up here for a wedding. They needed to get back today as they had left their four children wth the grandparents. They barely looked old enough but it was explained that they had two sets of twins (5 and 7, three girls and a boy). An interesting but perhaps rather strange comment from the lady was that she hadn't really wanted girls as they are emotionally too high maintenance, and that the boy was rather outnumbered. Not a boring conversation anyway!  Weather is much the same as yesterday with the mist hanging around the mountain.  As breakfast at this B&B didn't start until 9am and everyone had a rather laid back air we didn't leave the breakfast table until gone 10 (yesterday it was gone 10:30!).

Consequently there is not a great deal to report today as it was mainly a long drive to get as far along our route towards Washington DC as we could without being too tired of driving. Google said four hours to Lancaster, Pennsylvannia. Flossie said five and a half. Mmm, who should we believe? Original plans based on Google estimate were to have a quick stop at some waterfalls, Bushskill and Raymondskill, and hopefully Ephrata Cloisters.  Didn't quite work out, Flossie had more of an idea of the timing and our route plus the low speed limits meant it was about five hours with just a few comfort stops.  Eric decided to have a long sleep. 

Our destination, the city of Lancaster is in the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch/German area of the US.

Our route took us through mainly rural and pretty dour countryside for the most part with some obviously more affluent towns. It was along the Delaware River for a large section but our main view of the water was from this bridge.  Not only from both sides but also underneath - the driving surface was an open grill structure! To be fair the holes weren't very large. 

We did have quite a scenic drive through Delaware Water Gap, with occasional glimpses of the Delaware River through the colourful trees. We took a photo at one of the comfort stops but the picture was definitely not very inspiring. That's a different state across the other side of the river, New Jersey.

If you have a weird sense of what makes an interesting picture then this one may be more to your taste.

What appeared to be enormous piles of three different coloured heaps of sawdust. No indication what for, or any sign of an actual mill. We are easily amused sometimes. 

We also passed another sign for a local cemetery, and on the same sign, underneath the name, were the words 'No Hunting'. Perhaps hunting in cemeteries would be a popular pastime here if it were allowed?

The weather that had started with some mist, then just low cloud, had improved greatly after we hit town and checked into the B&B.

Rather than unload the car we made straight for a diner just outside town recommended by our host, Lark.  It was called Good and Plenty, and you could eat home-cooked Amish, Mennonite or Brethen food all sitting together on a long table. The food was extremely reasonably priced. We tried some of what they called apple butter on homemade bread. One off us was very taken with this (probably because it had lots of sugar in it).

This was deep into Amish territory and we immediately saw the first signs of their lifestyle.

An open top version.

And a closed in one.

We intend to explore more tomorrow.

After our very inexpensive meal we decided to relax for the evening in our lodgings, which are rather pleasant.

A very big bedroom,

A separate private lounge,

The original 1860s bathroom (we hope the plumbing works!).

 And a little bit of culture 

Time to chill out in the shared lounge looking at what else may be interesting in the area before turning in for the night.