Trip review--Strasburg, Pennsylvania

After the hustle and bustle of DC and 10 lanes of parking lot traffic, we drove 2 hours to a small town in southern Pennsylvania called Strasburg. It was founded in 1733 and has about 2,500 people. I had seen an article on this town in Family Fun a few years ago. It is a train town. It has a 150 year old rail road with a running steam train you can ride, train museums, and a hotel that all the rooms are cabooses! When I saw it years ago, I thought, "Someday we need to take Mr J there." So about 6 months ago when I started planning this trip (I am a planner) I discovered we were going right by this town on our way to Erie and points north, so I knew we had to stop. I am so glad we did. It was a welcome change, and we felt much more in our element. This first picture below is what surrounded our caboose hotel. We were in the heart of Amish country, and it was beautiful! Big, huge farms surrounded the small town, and horse and buggies were everywhere. It was neat to see them plowing their fields today just like they did hundreds of years ago. Amazing.

We went from the crazy city to this, and I much prefer this!

At the train station getting ready to board the steam train.

All aboard! The train was not crowded at all. We were the only ones on our coach car.

The steam engine.

Our train boys. Everyone loved him in his hat. Super cute.

The outside of our coach car. It was a 45 minute train ride through beautiful Amish farms through the Pennsylvania countryside. Beautiful.

The Pennsylvania Railroad

We ate at the Good and Plenty which serves Pennsylvania Dutch food family style. So yummy! So much food! They served 5 desserts! My kids were in heaven. When the waitress told us not to get too filled up and to leave room for dessert because there were 5, Ben thought she was kidding. She wasn't. Oh. my.

This was our room at the hotel. We had the Santa Fe red caboose. It was really fun to stay there.

These bunk beds took up one part of the caboose, then the bathroom was in the middle and then the "master" bedroom was on the other end. The kids loved the bunk beds. It was a really fun place to stay. The hotel was actually located on an Amish farm. They had their big barn on the property, and had a petting area, their chickens were all over the place. It was great. So, if you ever are in the Lancaster county area of Pennsylvania, make sure and stop in Strasburg! Ride the train and stay in a real caboose! You won't regret it!

Trip review--Washington DC day 4

Our last day in DC, and I have to admit we were tired. Lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of walking (plus lots more). Did I mentioned we walked a lot? Anyway, we had capital tour tickets that morning through our senator. Word of advice if you ever visit DC, get your White House and Capitol tour tickets through your senator. Check their website. It is the way to go. The general admission tickets for the capitol line is miles long, and we got to go right in front. The tour started at the senator's office, so we got to ride the underground train from the office building to the capitol and back. That was Mr J's favorite part. The general admission tours had groups of 20-30, and we just had us and our personal intern tour guide. We waited in no lines, and we got to see things the general tour didn't. We were able to visit both the House and Senate chambers. It was neat. The architecture is amazing. It was really amazing to see the old House chamber and see the spot where Abraham Lincoln had his desk.

At the US capitol
The Library of Congress which is a jaw-droppingly beautiful building.

The Supreme Court Building

The new WWII memorial. It was cool with all the fountains.

And after this we drove away from DC and waved "bye-bye" then enjoyed the evening at Aunt DeAnne's, slept very well and got ready for another adventure.

Trip review--Washington DC day 3

This day started out really early! We had 7:30 a.m. tickets to see the White House, and you were suppose to be there 30 minutes early. Then add about 20 more minutes to find a parking place and the 30 minutes it took us to get down to the city---made for an early morning. They were super strict about security in DC, and the White House was no exception--ID's checked several times, scans, etc. You were only allowed your keys, cell phone and wallet to enter the WH--nothing else. If you brought anything else you were not allowed to enter because they had no storage space for anything. Because of this fact, we didn't have a camera--no pictures allowed inside, and so we had to leave the White House, go back to our car, get the camera so we could take a picture outside of it. No, we are not cell phone people, so we didn't have a camera on our phone. For the tour you came out the front door, and it was fun to turn around and look up at the 2nd floor and one of the windows had butterfly window clings on it. I wonder whose room that was? Just kind of fun to see on the front windows of the White House with kids' window clings on them. Today was Mr J's birthday, and we had to submit SS #'s, birthdays, place of birth, etc 3 months earlier to get the WH tickets, so they had Mr J's birthday on the papers, so the guards told him Happy Birthday. He thought that was cool.

In front of the White House. It was a short tour, but it was neat to see inside of it. I couldn't believe how ornate the curtains where :) The window clings were on the window above and to the left of the front door.

The Washington Monument. No, we didn't go up it. My fear of heights kept me grounded, but I told Ben he could take whatever kids wanted to go, but they weren't too interested, so we just walked around the outside of it. That was good for me.

One of our very favorite things was going to the National Archives building and seeing the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence. My kids are big National Treasure movie fans, so they loved seeing those.

We really enjoyed the Art Gallery's sculpture garden. We had lunch there. The huge fountain was a highlight.

Visited the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History today. Kids loved the Hope diamond, the dinosaurs, and the animals

When we were eating lunch at the sculpture garden we had this crazed squirrel that kept trying to eat our food. He was not shy at all. He was ready to crawl on Ben's lap to get a cookie. Notice Ben is the only one in the picture because the rest of us were too scared to sit down because the squirrel would come right up and try to take a bite out of your sandwich.

At the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum one of the girls favorite things was Amelia Earhart's plane. The red one behind them. You couldn't get any closer to it than this because they were remodeling back there, but at least you could see it. Miss O really loved seeing the original Wright brothers' plane, too.

In front on Apollo 11. Way cool! :)

At the Museum of Natural History they had a special butterfly house exhibit with live butterflies everywhere. It was Mr J's favorite thing.

Out on the mall in front of the Capital.

The Old Post Office with statue of Benjamin Franklin. Being a humanities major, I am into architecture. This building was really fun to look at.

Mr J was wiped out a the end of this day--this was about 3 p.m. We were waiting at the parking garage for them to bring us our car. Not a cheap place to park. At the parking meters you got 7 1/2 minutes for every quarter if you could find a place. Big city traffic is not a favorite. I am very glad I am a small town girl.

Back at Aunt DeAnne's we celebrated a birthday!!! He had a lot of fun! He is very excited that we are home and he can have his first "friend party" this weekend! Thomas the Train is the theme. Surprised? Didn't think so.

Trip review--Washington DC Day 2

Continuing the story. . .

One of the coolest things we saw in DC was the canal and Great Falls National Park which we would not have seen had we not been staying with Ben's aunt and uncle. His aunt was so nice to show us around. She took us here, and we loved it. Miss A and Miss O at one of the locks on the Erie Canal.
At the Potomac river great falls. I didn't know the Potomac river had falls. They were gorgeous! Thank you Aunt DeAnne!

We enjoyed the National Art Galleries today. Our highlight was the country's only Da Vinci--housed in the National Art Gallery. Miss A was very excited to see it because she had just done a big research project on Da Vinci at the end of school. It was really cool because there was a drawing on the back of this, so you could walk around and see the back of the painting.

The kids' favorite thing about the art galleries was the underground walkway between the East and West gallery buildings. It has these space ship type lights that went on and off in different patterns. Super cool. We had to go on it twice. ;)

We enjoyed the Smithsonian Museum of American History today. Mr J, no surprise, loved the train section the best. It was hard to get him out of there. He could tell you all the different types, "That is a steam train, Mom. That is a diesel, Mom. That is an electric train, Mom" The girls' favorite was the First Ladies dresses, Apollo Ohno's speed skates, and Dorothy's Red Ruby Slippers from "The Wizard of Oz."

Final stop of the day was our Church's Washington D.C.'s temple. It is beautiful!

Trip review--Washington DC day 1

Okay, here we go. Lots of pictures. I thought it wouldn't be as overwhelming if I just put the pictures from each day one at a time. Both Ben and I had been to DC years before when we were in high school, but it was the first time for our kids. Hope you enjoy!

Arlington National Cemetery was our very first stop on Sunday in D.C. All those white headstones are very sobering.
The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington. A wonderful lesson in reverence for everyone.

At the FDR memorial. This was new to Ben and I. It was very big, open and had lots of waterfalls. It was made of 4 "rooms" with each room representing one of his terms in office.

At the FDR memorial.

FDR memorial. Mr J loved the dog.

At the Korean War Memorial. This was also new to Ben and I. It was very moving.

A look across the National Mall from the Lincoln Memorial towards the Washington Monument.

At the Vietnam Wall Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial. Truly awe inspiring.

Outside the Jefferson Memorial by the tidal pool. It was a full Day 1, and we all enjoyed it.

home again, home again

After almost 4000 miles, 2 weeks and covering 10 states (KS, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, New York) plus Washington D.C. and Canada. We are home!!!! So nice to go away, but so nice to come home, sleep in my own bed, and my kids are so excited to see their own stuff! Have tons of pictures to share later--aren't you excited??? I promise not to share all of them, just the best :) Hope you are all well, and it is nice to be back!!

DC days 1 & 2

We are alive and have survived 2 whole days in our amazing capital city. 2 more to go, and we will see if we survive those as well. Sunday we went to Arlington National Cemetery, and that is an amazing place. A great lesson in reverence especially for the kids. We were able to see lots of monuments Sunday--Lincoln, Jefferson, Korean War, and Vietnam War. Ben and I had not seen the Korean War memorial before. It was really cool.

Today we were able to go the Great Falls National Park which was amazing. I didn't realize the Potomac is so big and has such amazing falls! It was beautiful, and a great precursor for Niagara Falls next week. We were able to enjoy the National Museums of Art. We were able to see the only Leonard Da Vinci in the United States. Miss A was really excited about that because she had just done a big research project on him end of school. She even dressed up like him and gave a 2 minutes speech as him. Cool stuff. My kids loved the underground walkway between the East and West Art Museums. It has these awesome changing lights--like you are in a space ship or something. We had to go down and up it twice. We hit the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Of course the highlight there was the First Ladies dresses, and Mrs. Obama's is there already. They also had a pair of Apollo Ohno's Olympic speed skates there. That was Miss O's favorite find of the day. We were also able to go to the Washington DC temple which is gorgeous.

We have to get to bed quick because we have White House tickets for 7:30 a.m. (not by choice, you just take what they give you). We got stuck in rush hour traffic going "home" today, and my kids had a hard time with that. It doesn't exist in their world. Miss O asked, "Why is it called Rush hour when you go so slow?" We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.