11 June Washington DC

Picked up a rental car (a Dodge sedan) for a few days to make it easier to do some of the stuff on our list.  Picked up our guests and spent a few hours at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum out by the Dulles Airport.  It was amazing - they have the actual Enola Gay here, also the Concorde, a Blackbird and the space shuttle Enterprise which was absolutely huge and incredible to see up so close that you could see the individual tiles.  As for most of the Smithsonian museums, there was no entry fee, the only cost was $15 to park.  After a quick bite at McD’s which was the only food available on site, we were off back to the coach to get settled in and get ready for the Washington DC Night Tour which was picking us up at 6.50pm.  

This was a good value tour at $47 each, we got delivered back to the camp around 11pm.  It was very chaotic, our bus driver commented that it was the busiest she has seen for a long while - picture about 50 full size buses all jockeying for position to let their passengers off and then find a place to pick them up again 15-30 minutes later at each of the highlights, in a big city with all sorts of other stuff going on. There were lots of schools kids as they are now all on their summer holidays.  It was really interesting to see and hear about the flight path of the plane which flew into the Pentagon on 9/11.  Keep pinching myself – are we really seeing all these famous buildings with our own eyes, not just on TV. 

12 June Washington DC

Thanks for all the birthday wishes guys – had a lovely day in a special city!

Today the plan is to use the Metro to get into town and do a hop on hop off tour.  The Metro is easy - once you study it.  We walked a few blocks first to get to the front of the White House etc. before we got on the bus.  Again it was very hot out and we didn’t want to miss anything so we were on the upper open top level of the bus and only had to dodge the odd branch!  We did the loop to see where we wanted to stop next and chose the Lincoln Memorial which was way less crowded today than the night before.  It was very impressive looking down from the top of the steps along the reflecting pool to the Washington Monument. Wandered around the Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, WWII, Korean and Vietnam memorials and along the Potomac River.  

We keep seeing dark grey helicopters (I reckon they were the Obama’s going out for Macca’s).  Security is definitely visable, you see lots of guards/sentries, but it’s not obtrusive.  Our bags were xrayed going into the White House Visitors Centre and searched going into the Smithsonian NASA. 

13 June Washington DC and Annapolis

Another beautiful hot day in Paradise.  Off in our trusty steed to Annapolis, the State Capital of Maryland and the home of the US Naval Academy.  It is a lovely quaint 18^th century town, right on the bay, with narrow, paved streets, lots of seafood restaurants, artisan ice-cream parlours (the salted caramel was unbelievably good) and all types of wonderful shops loosely based on a nautical theme.

Booked a cruise out to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, you might remember me talking about crossing it on our way to WDC.  It was spectacular driving over one of the longest over water structures in the world and it was equally spectacular floating underneath it. Annapolis is renowned as America’s Sailing Capital.  It is Saturday here and there are many boats of all types out, not much wind though so not sure how the yacht racing will go. 

Of course we have to try the seafood as we are right on the bay.  The soft shell crab meat was lovely – tender, tasty but very rich.  Not so sure about eating the soft shells, it was like eating a prawn shell (a little bit of surreptitious spitting out may have occurred). The oysters were disappointingly deemed tasteless though, I guess we are very spoilt by our local bounty.   Another lovely dinner and glass of wine with friends!

14 June

We have two days to get to New York so we are trying our first no cost overnight camping spot at a Racetrack/Casino near Wilmington south of Philadelphia and about halfway to NY.  It’s Sunday today so no horse racing, but it is on the cards tomorrow.  However the casino itself is pretty full.  There seems to be some kind of poker championship being held and of course miles and miles of pokies.  There is a full service restaurant, a burger/sandwich bar and a pizzeria, the food did not appear to be subsidised as I imagined it would be in a casino - I guess you need to be at the huge Las Vegas casinos to get that.  Anyway we had a healthy salad at home, with not a fry in sight!  A good night, no problems, we had thunder and lightning, some rain and the camper next door started his generator when he got back around 10.30pm (won't park so close in future) but apart from that, free camping is pretty good!

15 June

Today we are going to the Big Apple!  Had some rain last night and some thunder and it’s a bit grey today, still warm though 90F at 8am.  Horse trucks are starting to arrive so we should probably think about getting underway.  Next post will be from NYC - yay!!