Saturday morning we got up and started on our llllooonnnggg drive to my sister in law's house in Northern Virginia. In the middle of the afternoon, we saw a sign for the Russell Stovers Candy outlet in Athens TN. Of course, we had to stop and buy. We bought a 3lb. box of "bloopers" candy for $4.99, if we had bought the same size box of perfect chocolate it would have been $35. Just a bit excessive for our budget. For dinner we ate at the Apple Barn Restaurant in Pigeon Forge, TN. I have wanted to go there for years and never had the chance. When we were there after Christmas, we couldn't find it. Mom was in Pigeon Forge last week and told us how to get there. The food was really good. Then we drove to Bristol, TN to spend the night. We got to the hotel at 10:30 and we all fell exhausted into the bed.
Sunday morning we hit the road again. We stopped in Staunton, VA and ate lunch at "5 Guys Burgers and Fries"...really yummy! Then we went to tour Woodrow Wilson's home and Presidential Library. Did you know that he couldn't read until he was a teenager and that he couldn't ever write really well. As President, he either dictated everything or wrote in his own shorthand (that only he could read). We have toured the homes of Washington, Adams, Polk, Jefferson, Lincoln, and the summer homes of Roosevelt and Eisenhower. We have taken lots and lots of pictures with no restrictions. At Wilson's home, photography was not allowed. I don't even know why, very few of the items in the home were even the family's, most were reproductions. This didn't make sense, at all.
We got to Sabrina's and got lots of hugs from our niece and nephew. We ate a wonderful dinner and stayed up late talking and catching up with all the "gossip".
Monday was on to Washington DC and the Museum of American History. It was worth the wait and we had lots and lots of fun. We took tons of PICTURES of these national artifacts with no one telling us no. (Go figure!) We are not exactly sure what happened at one display, but either Eddie or I sat off an alarm. We both leaned over a display to look at it and the alarm sounded. (Did you know that folks used to use hair and plaster as insulation in houses between the outer and inner walls? We were looking at the hairy plaster when the alarm went off) After we ate our tremendously expensive lunch (4 lg. pieces of pizza and 5 drinks was $50) we finished the tour. They had a whole wing of American Inventions...toaster, vacuum cleaner, lightbulb, different engines, waffle iron, and marshmallow toaster. Yep, it was a little tin box that you melted your marshmallow in. There were lots and lots more but the kitchen gadgets stuck out in my mind.
Sabrina and I had a great time looking at the tv kitchen of Julia Child and all her dodads and gadgets. We took lots and lots of pictures there. Katie and Greg watched the cooking shows that played continuously on the tv's in there. That woman was such a character. Did you know she was 6 ft 2 in. tall? That was our last exhibit before our long hike back to the car.
I wore the pedometer today and we walked 3.02 miles (except for Katie, she rode that mileage). And that was just in 1 museum. We spent about 5 hours in that one building and didn't see everything. The Lord held off the rain until we got back to the car and then the bottom dropped out of the sky.
Greg and Eddie cooked us a delicious pork shoulder for dinner. Now we are sitting here, stuffed full of good food and exhausted. Got just enough energy to blog and then its bed time!
Tomorrow is another day! (hummmmm, where have I heard that before?)
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