Cuteness!

Look what was in my in-law's tree!!!!!

Baby raccoons! Aren't they the cutest things ever?!? I just wanted to pick them up and snuggle with them. These two seemed to like to hang out together while this guy was kickin' it by himself pretty far away in some branches:


I'm not sure how Jason spotted either of these. The first two were well above our heads. Jason said he just saw something move out of the corner of his eye. When we realized how small they were, we started looking for the mama in the tree. We never found her, but Jason spotted the third little guy REALLY high above us. You can tell how hard it was to see him since we only got one eye in the picture. He was a sneaky little thing!

Washington, DC - Part 3

Did you miss Part 1 or Part 2?

As we finished with the Smithsonian and walked outdoors, I briefly considered raiding the ice cream vendor in front of me and hiding under a shade tree. DC has hardly any shade for the sidewalks. We almost threw in the towel, but I really wanted to see the National World War II Memorial which was a little walk away. This was definitely worth the trip.


As you get to the memorial, you see this sign etched in stone and near it, the dedication:


This is what the memorial looks like in it's (almost) entirety:


If you look at the small waterfall, you'll see a large archway. Above it, it's inscribed with Pacific. On the opposite side of the memorial, there's the same archway that says Atlantic. They stand for the American victory on land, sea and air. The columns you see lining it bear the names of the 48 states, 7 federal territories and the District of Columbia. It celebrates the unity between these places. I wondered why they were in the order they were in. They weren't alphabetical nor were they in order of the years they joined the United States. I asked a Park Ranger and she said to face the stars you'll see below. Picture them as the hosts of a dinner. The person seated to the right is the guest of honor. That state is the state that joined in the fight first. The guest to the left is the next most honored and by now you're probably getting the picture. You know Jason & I had to represent the home state:


This was below each archway (I have no idea why it turned out sideways here):


Look closely at the picture below:


In the photograph below, there’s a wall that says “Here We Mark The Price of Freedom”. You can’t tell in this picture, but that wall is lined with just over 4,000 stars. Each star represents 100 men and women that gave their lives to the war. Can you believe over 400,000 men and women died in that war? There were also quotes all around the memorial.






This memorial was so beautifully done. I felt proud to be a granddaughter of someone who served! I hope we never forget what these brave men and women did for us.

After paying our tributes, we turned around to get a silly Washington Memorial shot:


You see, the World War II memorial is located right behind the Washington Monument. We wanted to visit the monument, but they were sold out of tickets. They have tours every 30 minutes and was sold out until July 15! But after walking right past it, I'm kind of glad we didn't have to sit in a stuffy elevator. I think you can see it perfectly fine from the ground.

After passing the Washington Monument, we started walking to the Metro. Our feet hurt and I decided that it was Beer:30. Luckily, everyone agreed! We stopped into a Mexican place (I know, I know....we're not in Texas) and got ourselves some Yuengling beer, chips and salsa and nachos. If you're in the DC area, make sure to drink some Yuengling....it's so good! We filled up on snacks then drove a mile (which took over 30 minutes!) to Sequoia in Georgetown and ate a yummy dinner. I had a crabcake salad and it was delish! We sat outside by the water and watched helicopters and boats go by. After dinner, we walked to a little french restaurant. I can't remember the name of it for the life of me, but it was super tiny and really, really good. We had coffee and desert. On the way, we passed some old locks and took a picture by one of the few boats that use it:


After desert, we were stuffed and made our way back to the car. We took the scenic way back home and then stayed up late talking! We had to come back home to San Antonio the next day (Tuesday) so we just took our time at the house and hung out on the back porch. Typical Texas stuff! It was such a wonderful trip and we can't wait to visit again! Thanks again Deb & Jason!

Washington, DC - Part 2

After relinquishing a certain House Representative's desk back, walking in the super-cool member's-only tunnel, visiting the Library of Congress and finally, ogling the Capital, we headed out to the Smithsonian museum of Natural History. (If you missed out on Part 1, click here)

The museum is free to the public since it is a National Park and upon entering, I wanted to run away screaming. This is what we saw:

Nope, the dinosaurs aren't the scary part in this photo. It's the people, the kids.....the strollers. It was nuts-to-butts packed in there and I had a hard time enjoying it. Did I mention that we decided to do DC on Monday, July 5th? Here's my photos from the dinosaurs, but they're not very good because I really wanted to exit out of there. I don't like being crowded and there were just too many people pushing, too many kids screaming and shoving and too many strollers blocking my way to really have a good time here.




Do you see what I mean about the crowds? It was tough to deal with. After checking out the dinosaurs and trying to regain my sanity, we realized we were a little hungry. We had dinner plans, so we wanted something fairly light. We headed toward the Smithsonian Cafe which was terribly crowded. The cafe was built as an afterthought so it's tiny. The tables seat 4 tops, with most seating 2. Somehow, 3 of us got to sit at a table while the other 2 stood up. Jason & I shared a wrap and a water which was pretty good and totaled about $12.

Next, we headed upstairs to get away from the people and briefly checked out some flying animal skeletons. But the real gem of the museum was just ahead. We walked into the next room and saw this beauty tacked up on the wall:

It's a huge piece of copper (probably 6 feet wide) that had been found between slate underground. I seriously wanted to take it and hang it on one of my walls at home. It was perfectly preserved and gorgeous. Now this is the stuff I came here to see! As I turn around, I notice another fairly large crowd hovering around a smallish display. I somehow finagle myself in between a few people to discover it's the Hope diamond. I actually had a "hands-free" shot until this camera happy person stuck their hand in as I pressed the take button. Damn them! The Hope diamond was neat but honestly wasn't all it's hyped up to be. What makes this diamond special is the story behind it. It's got quite a history of being cut and resold and stolen, etc. Can you believe the original diamond was actually 112 3/4 carats compared to it's measly current 42 carats? Ha ha.

Behind the diamond was another cool find:

It's quartz sand that was slowly deposited and eroded by water. How awesome is that? Check out these gorgeous hunks of topaz:



The gem section of the Smithsonian was as crowded as the dinosaurs. I think every female (and possibly a few males) got a major case of the "I wants" in this section. It became nearly impossible to photograph most of the pieces. Although the Hope diamond is cool because it's big and blue, these diamonds are a heck of a lot bigger.

On the left is the Oppenheimer diamond (uncut) and weighs in at an astounding 253.7 carats. The diamond on the right is the Portuguese diamond (cut) and is the largest cut diamond in the collection coming in at 127.01 carats. How's that for bling? Or would you prefer the Logan sapphire (only 423 carats!)?

After the gems, the museum opens up to a large section of natural minerals and gemstones. One of my favorite stones are geodes:

They look like normal rock until you cut them open and get a beautiful surprise. The one on the top is almost 3 feet long. They cut off a small piece on the top so that you could look down at all it's beauty.

There were so many different minerals to see, so I didn't take pictures of most of them. I would never be able to read the labels later. However, this specimen gets my vote for Most Useless But Still Cool Item:

Yeah, it's the alphabet. In diamonds. Why anyone would need this I don't know, but it's still pretty to look at. My last photo in the museum was of a giant piece of quartz. I'm talking huge. Must larger and taller than myself.

From here I walked into a cave-like place. It showed you how minerals were mined from caves. I didn't spend much time in here since we got to see the real thing in Colorado. We then moved on to the sediment rock and space rock. By then, we'd gotten a call from our companions (we had lost them a long time before) asking where we were. We met up downstairs in the sea life section (HOW did we miss a giant whale hanging from the ceiling?) and decided that we were all at information overload. By the way, the sea life part was neat, but compared to the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi, TX and the National Aquarium in Baltimore, MD, it was an easy pass. I think we might have seen half of the museum in almost 3 hours. That's about all any of us could take. If you are planning to visit them, just pick and choose what you want to see. You can't read or see it all. It's almost impossible!

We exited the museum and and got back in the heat and sun. We almost decided to turn back, but instead we pressed on to one more really cool thing. It was by far my favorite! Stay tuned!!

Washington, DC - Part 1

DC may not be a giant city, but there's more to do than you could ever imagine. Seriously. If you had a week to check it out, you still wouldn't see all the attractions and historical sites. It's both frustrating and amazing at the same time. Since Jason & I have friends there, we don't push ourselves to see EVERYTHING possible. We just go see what interests us this visit and save more for later. First thing first, our friend needed to stop by work to get some passes and things. Since she works for a certain House Representative, we get to do a few things that normal tourists wouldn't get to do.

Like sit in that House Representative's chair in his office:


Or, walk in the tunnel from one of the House buildings all the way to the Library of Congress. Yeah, we were doing our I'm-so-cool-because-I-know-someone-who-works-here-walk. Sorry, no pics of that. (of either the tunnel or the walk)

The Library of Congress was gorgeous! It is a truly beautiful building and a piece of art. This is the view from the outside. I actually took this picture last because we entered the building from underground.

Inside, there is architectural detail everywhere from floor....


to ceiling.....



I did get to see the main reading room, but no cameras were allowed in there. You also had to view it from above in a glass-encased balcony that made me both claustrophobic and hot at the same time. They keep you in glass so that they can regulate the temperature and atmosphere (germs and such) of the room. We didn't look at the building much more than this as we had other plans for DC. Here's our obligatory picture before leaving:


From here, we walked across the national mall to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. On the way, we walked right by the Capital building:


And so as not to let this post get incredibly long and to allow more bloggy time for me, I'm ending Part 1 here. Stay tuned for Part 2 - The Smithsonian Experience.

Gettysburg, PA

On July 5th, we visited Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Jason was really excited for me to see it because he loved it when he had visited about 5 years ago. When we got there, we were all surprised to see a new visitor's center built in 2008. We went in to check it all out. This is the day where my pictures run really short. Most of Gettysburg and the rest of the day are on our friend's camera, but I'll give you a run-down regardless.

When we entered the visitor's center, we were surprised to see how large it was. We walked around a little and saw some old Civil War-era guns, uniforms and general relics. We weren't prepared for the rest of the museum to CHARGE us. After all, this is a National Park so it should be free. It was around $12 per person (there were 7 of us) and then $30 or $40 to do some type of tour which included a movie. We weren't doing that. We went to the visitor's center store where I bought an 1863 Infantry Tactics book to send to my brother. I thought he'd get a kick out of it.....seeing how much things have changed, especially since he's in a war zone now. Outside, I got some pictures of the Maryland state flower, the Black-Eyed Susan (yes, I know I was in PA when I took the pic):

Also, some Queen Anne's Lace:

Then, we headed out to the Eisenhower viewing tower to view the Gettysburg battlefield. On our way there, we missed the turn and turned onto the next street. We were trying to find a place to turn around when we saw the sign that said it was a private driveway. Our two vehicles immediately began to make u-turns on a tiny one-lane road when all of a sudden, a red PT Cruiser races down the road the same way we came and blocked us off! He wanted to know what we were doing on the road and he meant business! There were no signs on his car, but he was in a Park Ranger uniform. We looked at the guy like he was stupid, informed him that we missed our turn and were trying to turn around, then left. He gave us the stank eye the entire time we passed him. Then, he followed us to make sure that we were going where we said we where going. What a weirdo!

We found out afterward that the road goes straight into the Eisenhower family farm residence. The tower is also located on the farm, but it's the public part of it. The tower is really, really high and you have to climb up stairs to get up there. Even though I'm in shape and we'd done a lot of walking, my thighs were burning going up those steps. But the view was worth it.

The farmhouse is in that picture, but it's almost impossible to spot, even after zooming in. It was pretty far way from where we where. Directly behind us was this view:


The right peak is Big Round Top and the left is Little Round Top. You can't tell in this picture, but Little Round Top has rocks on it that you can visit. Little Round Top is where the Confederate troops tried to attack the Union troops unsuccessfully on July 2, 1863 in the Battle of Gettysburg. We looked at all the ground that the Civil War took place on......imagining a type of war where you walked onto the battlefield to almost certain death. These were men and women who were extremely brave.

When we climbed down, I checked out some canons on the bottom that belonged to the army of Northern Virginia (remember they seceded from the Union):


By now, were were hungry, so we went to eat at The Dobbin House, where our friends had their wedding reception. We ate in the tavern downstairs, which was lit almost exclusively by candlelight. This place was really neat! It was built in 1776 by Irish Reverend Alexander Dobbin who came to help settle the area. And settle he did! He had 10 children with his first wife and remarried a widow who had 9 children of her own! Can you say Duggar family?

Later, in the mid-1800s, the house served as a station for the Underground Railroad (we saw the crawl space they hid in) and then a hospital after the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. This was a truly unique place to eat....the wood is over 200 years old...that's hard to imagine! I wish I had taken a picture of the outside, but you can see it on the website I tagged above. After dinner, we headed back to the house and then watched movies.

Day 4 - Antietam, MD

Day 4 (July 4) was spent lazily getting dressed and sending our friend to get us a good picnic spot on the Antietam battlefield for the night's festivities. Antietam is the site of the Civil War's bloodiest battle. In fact, it is still the bloodiest one-day battle in U.S. history. Each year in early July (usually not on the fourth), the Maryland Orchestra plays American songs to about 30,000 spectators on blankets. About 20,000 people died in that battle. It was very hard to imagine that 2/3 of the crowd would be dead if that war had occurred while we were there. Very mind blowing.

If you look closely in this picture, you'll see that sections have been drawn out on the field so that you can put your blankets down and then still leave plenty of room for walkways. It's very, very organized!

We were right in the front since we staked out our claim early as you can tell from here. We were able to get a congressman's parking tickets so we had excellent parking as well!


While we waited for things to start, I walked around a little and found some canons. These will be used for the 1812 Overture in the program:

I also found older canons that were used in the Civil War:


Just before the show, we got a fly-by of some antique planes flown by veterans. The picture came out crappy, but they were a lot closer than this looks:

The show started and we began with "The Star Spangled Banner" as we watched a flag being raised over the stage. We also listened to several old American favorites as we sipped on wine and beer and stuffed our faces with veggies, fruit, cheese and crackers. Here's Jason & I:

Check out those Popeye arms! Ha ha! Here's our friends Jason & his wife Deb:

We all watched the sunset:

As the sun went down, we saw some flickering lights and realized they were lighting bugs. It has been YEARS since I've seen them and it felt like such an Americana moment as we listened and watched in awe this beautiful sight:

As the last song of the night played, the flag was lowered and the fireworks went off! I think these pictures are too bad for an amateur:



After the loooooong, awesome fireworks show was over, we sat around for about 3o minutes before trying to leave. Although we got amazing parking, it would still take an hour to get out. So, we chatted and finally loaded our stuff back in the truck. By this time, it took about 30 more minutes to get out and head home. Then, we all just watched some boob tube and headed to bed. It was an awesome way to spend the Fourth!

Wow........

The forecast says it will be 104 degrees at 5pm. Nope, that's not the heat index, that's the actual temperature. My combustible self will be indoors, thank you!

Be jealous.