Wednesday 4 January 2012

Back by popular demand!

Ooh, despite my best intentions - time has gotten away on me.  This time I can not use no internet as an excuse but can only say 'I'm soooo sorry', basically we have been so busy I haven't had time to sit down and blog so I'm going to break this session into a few separate blogs for easier reading.
Day 26: Today we dedicated to the Smithsonian Museums.  For those of you familiar with the Smithsonian there are actually 19 museums under the 'Smithsonian' banner.  Due to limited time and energy we only visited four, but that was all we really wanted to do anyway - still took us about five hours and that was running through them looking at what we wanted to see.  My 'must see' was Dorothy's red shoes from the 'Wizard of Oz', very exciting.  Did you know that they had to pad the bottoms of the shoes because the 'Yellow Brick Road' was actually made of wood and made a tapping noise when walked on. You heard it first in my blog.  We also visited Julia Child's kitchen, if you're not sure who she is watch the movie 'Julie and Julia'. We visited the Museum of Natural History because Tiahna wanted to see some of the scenes from 'Night in a Museum' but we followed up on that more in New York later in the trip.  We finished at the 'Air and Space' Museum which I think Edith would lose Paul in for several hours if he ever gets the opportunity to visit!  We saw Abel the monkey that went into space and also the toileting facilities that the astronauts use - hmmm.  Finished the day with dinner at 'Johnny Rockets'.
Day 27: Today we checked out of the hotel (our favourite so far) and then bit the bullet and went to the Budget car hire at the airport as we had been having a slight leak in one of the tyres.  We had planned to take it in sometime during our stay at Washington but were always in a hurry to get somewhere.  A pain going with the car full of luggage but thought we shouldn't risk driving long distance on a tyre with a slow leak.  Unfortunately our only option was changing the car for another car and they didn't have any Chrysler 300's so we had to say goodbye to our red beast and choose a new car.  The good news is they ended up giving us a car in a higher rental category and let us choose what we wanted - so after much getting in and out of cars and checking 'trunk' space (don't call it a boot here, you confuse everyone) we settled on a 'Ford Edge' which is an SUV.  It only had 8000miles on the clock and is a limited edition model so has all the 'bells and whistles' that Gary like to play with.  It also has more luggage space which at this point of the trip is a blessing, we were beginning to have trouble fitting everything in the Chrysler. Tiahna is impressed with the way we can change the 'Ambiance' lighting in the car and choose from about 8 colours.  We also have 'piddle seats', well that's what we call them.  The seats heat up which is great in cold weather but Gary and I feel that when you sit in them it feels like you've....... well our name for them says it all.
Drove on to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and checked into a La Quinta hotel.
Day 28: Ran a few errands in the morning and then went to 'Olive Garden' for lunch.  It was one of those places that we'd seen everywhere and heard was good but hadn't had the opportunity to visit yet.  I had a fantastic all you can eat soup and salad buffet with lots of yummy soups.  I'll definitely visit there again!
We then drove to the town of 'Intercourse' to show Tiahna where and how the Amish people live.  Lots of horse and carriages everywhere, we were disappointed to  discover that the Amish Co-op that we visited three years ago wasn't around anymore so we couldn't take Tiahna inside.  Gary visited the 'World's Largest Knife Shop' which he had discovered on our last trip - we lost him inside for a little while. Surprise, surprise.
Drove on to Philadelphia and checked into our next hotel (I've lost count on how many we've stayed at now) ready for the next day of adventures.
I need to go and have some breakfast now so I'll end this blog and continue with a new exciting chapter when I get back.
xx
Kim

No comments:

Post a Comment