November 2, 2007 it's time to do catching up again since we head out tomorrow for Virginia. Tuesday, after getting set-up, we drove to Costco to get a few things, other then that we came back to the coach and BBQ'd dinner.
Wednesday, Oct. 31st we drove to the new National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, Virginia. What a site to see, the hanger that you walk thru is 1000 feet long and 10 stories high, and when complete they plan on having 200 aircraft displayed, I believe right now they have about 140. When it is all complete it will be approximately 760,000 square feet. When you first arrive you see the observation tower, we saw a movie in the Imax Theatre called "Fighter Pilot" which was very good, then went up to the tower. The 7th floor, where you 1st get off, you can see, on a clear day, up to 70 miles. You also can watch the Dulles Airport with planes landing and taking off, we had a pretty clear day the only thing was Dulles's slow time is between 10:30 and 12:30 so all we saw was 1 plane landing. Then we went down to the 6th floor which is a replica of an aviation tower running now in one section you actually listen to Newark tower that is going on right then. That is one hell of a job to guide all those planes in the air and airports, believe me those people deserve a lot of credit. After that we then did a tour with a guide that explains a lot about the planes that are on display. The tour last about and hour to 1 1/2, ours lasted 2 hours. The guide we had was a fighter pilot in his younger days and has long since retired and volunteers his time to do these tours and he is very passionate about it. Anyway, good tour, then we did the walk thru ourselves after we went back to the car and ate the lunch I had brought for us. They have in the monster hanger every kind of flying machine it was amazing. We went thru the "Wright Brothers" to the "Space Shuttle" and everything in between. It is a must see. We stayed to late for the Virginia/D.C. traffic so needless to say we sat in traffic for over an hour, once we were getting close to the RV Park. By the time we got back, walking Valley around, cooking dinner it was 8pm so there was no way we were driving anywhere for Halloween, so we stayed in the rest of the night.
Thursday, November 1st, we drove to the "Metro" the train service here, and rode into D.C. We walked to "The National Archives and toured thru that, the main reason Dave wanted to go is because the Original Bill Of Rights has a new display there. He saw a show a while back where it took them 4 years to take out the Original "Bill of Rights" to a more protected and would keep them better preserved case, which it really needed the ink is getting so light. We also walked thru the Vault section which was neat too, all the records that they have to keep, movie reels since the beginning, anything that has to do with history, school rules even, amazing.
After that we walked the "Mall" that's the D.C. parkway which I'm sure you have heard of. It was great weather, joggers were out and a lot of people on their lunch breaks walking around. We went to the "World War II Memorial" which we have not been too, I believe it was completed 4 years ago. Great memorial right in between the "Washington" and "Lincoln" Memorials. We sat at a park bench and ate the snack we had brought with us then at 1pm the park ranger gave a short tour and talk about the WWII Memorial. Come to find out that within the Memorial is a lot of things from WWII, boots, dog tags, scarfs, hats ect. the workers had planted these things inside the walls thinking hundred of years from now the archaeologist will break thru these walls and find these things and do studies on them, pretty clever. After that we went back to the Metro and took it back to the station and went back home. At 5pm we drove into Crystal City and met up with Dave's ex boss and his girlfriend and had dinner together. He asked Dave if he wanted to come back to work and Dave said NO WAY. Tim, his ex boss, his girlfriend sales Arbonne which her and I talked about, me telling her about my niece, Marisa, and nephew, Michael, and her telling how Arbonne hasn't taken off at all in D.C. We did talk about there wedding she is working on for next year, it was a very nice evening. I must admit I didn't want to go to dinner because I thought Dave and Tim would talk shop but that didn't really happen at all, very enjoyable.
Today, November 2, we drove to Mount Vernon, the home of George and Martha Washington. I must say they lived very nicely, at it's biggest point they had 8,000 acres. George was very lucky, he married Martha who was a rich widow with 2 kids, and where they lived Martha paid for, he just made it bigger and built it up. I won't go into details with this place, the blog is long enough right now, but I will say it is another must see.
I'm sure you have noticed we didn't go see the White House, and most of the Monuments because we have been here so much because of Dave's career that we have no interest of seeing them again. Anyway, the main thing to see is the Smithsonian's because they change those all the time, we just didn't have time but really not interested right now.
That's it, we will leave tomorrow around 10am once the traffic has cleared and head for Virginia, Jamestown touring is next.