Thursday, June 28

Shoutouts: Happy birthday to my sister, Amy, who lives in Huntsville, TX. I will be seeing her on our way back when our Route 50 part of the trip is finished. Also a happy birthday to Jeryl's sister, Tosca, who has a birthday today. We love you both!!

Avri, I am glad to hear you are enjoying my blog about our trip along Route 50. I have enjoyed reading your blog too. Aunt Jeri said to ask you if you could write about some good camping recipes. See, we are staying at KOA camps along the way, and for lunch we have a picnic, but for supper, we are cooking at the camp on a small electric burner or hot plate. We have a small fry pan to use and have two burners. So if you can think of anything fun, let us know on your blog. (Avri is Jeryl's 9 yr old neice and lives in NC. She loves to cook and is keeping her own blog about cooking for kids. If you would like to check out her blog, here is the web address: http://www.avristable.com/

Daisy, Heath, Austin, and Bri: thanks for following our trip. I appreciate the comment. It looks like you are having a fun summer too, from the pictures I see on facebook. Way to go on the fish you both recently caught.

Sigrid, thanks for the info on the Capitol and tours. I was wondering why it looked closed.

Now on to the Route 50 trip: On Tuesday afternoon, we left Knock-em-Stiff, Ohio after a very nice visit with Jeryl's Mom, brother and sister. Jeryl's Mom, Lorita, is keeping her dog Devo. He's a whippet, a member of the grey hound family. Devo was very sad that we were leaving but he has good company at her Mom's house with 3 other dogs to play with and assorted cats. Here are some pics of her mom and brother and Devo.

From Knock-em-Stiff, we headed down Route 50 to Cincinnati, OH, where we would be staying one night with my in-laws, Jorge and Justine Hersel. We had a great time together talking, putting together a puzzle, and eating at Longhorn Steakhouse. Here are pictures from our evening together.

Wednesday morning we headed to Indiana, where we would be staying with my son Michael, daughter-in-law Amber, and my granddaughter, Sophia, 20 months. On Tuesday, Michael and Amber celebrated their 2nd anniversary so congrats to them. They are also expecting their 2nd child, baby Noah, in August, and we are all very excited about that.

Michael is a mining engineer for Triad Mining and I am very proud of all he has accomplished. And Amber is a fantastic mother, photographer, and chef.

For supper that night, we went to The Log Inn, and were celebrating  Michael's 4th of July birthday early. This restaurant is one of the oldest original log inn and stage coach stops in the US. Abe Lincoln ate there in 1844. The food was great and was served family style. You order your meat, and then all the sides are brought out and placed on the table: mashed potatoes, German potatoes, cole slaw, corn, green beans, and rolls. You can get as many refills of the sides as you want. We had a great time and great food.

This morning (Thursday) I drove around town taking some pictures of Princeton. Those, plus some of the family, will follow. When I was taking a picture of the courthouse, I saw something a little strange. See what you think about the picture (with Jesus).

We headed out once again on Route 50 about noon and one of the interesting towns we went through was Shoals, IN, which is known for gypsum, catfish and the Jug Rock. We Googled the Jug Rock and this is the info we found: Jug Rock is a natural geological formation located outside of Shoals, Indiana, in the valley of the East Fork of the White River. It is composed of sandstone, and is the largest free-standing table rock formation (also called a "tea table") in the United States east of the Mississippi River. This unusual rock feature gives its name to the mascot of nearby Shoals High School, "Shoals Jug Rox."

Soon we crossed the Illinois state line and decided it was time for our picnic lunch. We stopped at Red Hill State Park and here are a couple pictures. It was located near a beautiful lake, part of it covered in lilly pads.

Another interesting town we passed on Route 50 was Olney, IL, the home of the biggest population of white squirrels in the U.S. We looked up the legend of the white squirrel and if you would like to read, here is the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olney,_Illinois

You'll have to scroll down until you see the info about the squirrel. They are trying to protect the 200 squirrels left and have outlawed dogs and cats running loose. Also if you run over a white squirrel, you can be fined up to $500. The police department's badge even has a symbol of the white squirrel. (See, now if we weren't traveling Route 50, you might never know about the Jug Rock or the White Squirrels. :0)

Finally we crossed into Missouri and made our way past the St. Louis arch, which was a breath-taking site indeed. Our destination was about 30 minutes past the arch, at a KOA camp in Pacific. The temperature was quite hot as we drove along and at one point was 114. When we stopped and unloaded into our cabin, it had cooled down to a "pleasant" 106. It felt like my face was touching a hot stove!

And now we are ready for bed, after watching America's Got Talent, one of our favorite summer pasttimes. Tomorrow we head towards Kansas and let's hope the temperatures cool down a bit. Thanks as always for following and if you would like to leave a comment, remember you have to choose an ID, and it can be anonymous or name/URL (but you don't actually have to leave a URL). If you don't choose an ID, your comment won't get sent to me and then I can't publish it. So choose the ID, type your comment, and click on submit. If you choose the anonymous ID, please let me know in your comment box who you are so I can give you a shout out in a future posting. Happy Trails!!!

Knock-Em-Stiff, Ohio

Sunday morning we left our KOA camp at 9:30am and headed to Ohio, a drive of about 12 hours total. As always, we were traveling on Route 50, first through a bit of Maryland and then into Virginia for a good part of the day. It was very scenic and we enjoyed driving through many little historic towns. That's one neat thing about driving Route 50 is we get to see alot of places most people never will, since they travel the Interstates.

In a bigger town we spotted a Ross and stopped to check out the deals. We bought two smaller travel bags, with the intent of leaving my bigger bag at Jeryl's mom's and packing my stuff in the two smaller bags. The back of our car is pretty full so we decided to get rid of some of our stuff at her mom's house and then get it later. She only lives 2 hours from where we live in Carlisle.

Then it was back on the road and soon it was lunch and we spotted a sign for Sky Meadows State Park, near Paris, VA. Neat, because Jeryl works in Paris, KY. (Virginia also has a Richmond, Lexington, and Winchester.) We decided to stop there for our usual picnic lunch. It cost $4 to get into the park and the ranger said there was a brand new picnic area. We were the only ones there and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

We walked around the picnic area and took some pictures and then drove back to the gift shop, where there is also an old homestead you can view from the outside. During the Civil War, the military used part of their field for an encampment and 3 of the owner's sons ended up fighting in the war. You can view their house and other buildings, but only from the outside.

After lunch it was back on the road. Do you know what a round about is? They are used to "calm traffic" because the curves cause you to slow down. And they help to control the flow of traffic. Time is saved because you don't have to come to a complete stop, like at a stop sign. Well at one point, in the middle of nowhere on Route 50 in Virginia, we came to 3 round abouts in less than a mile. We thought that very strange they would need that many in such a short distance. Here is a picture of a map of them I found on the Internet.

We went through the 3 in a row and I didn't even realize there was a 4th one since we didn't go that way.

Soon we drove into West Virginia and we would soon come to dread traveling that part of Route 50 because it was downhill most of the way, with 8 and 9% grades and many, many curves. Jeryl did all the driving and I know she had to get tired of all those curves and constantly putting on the brakes. This is a typical scene in front of us then.

About 6 we stopped for supper in Clarksville, WV at a "Park and Eat" restaurant. We hadn't heard of those. They had a bakery as you walked in and big posters for doing birthday cakes for your parties. When they brought out some bread for us to go with our meal, it included a sour dough roll and a small cinnamon roll. So that was a nice treat for us. The food was pretty good.

Soon we were back on the road and to our surprise, we went through a little part of Maryland. At first we thought we had gone the wrong way but Jeryl remembered that a little piece of Maryland comes down into the top of WV. It was funny seeing we were back in Maryland after being out of it for so long.

We finally arrived at her mom's around 10pm and thankfully sat down to rest. We had a good day Monday visiting with her family and now today we are getting ready to once again get on the road. It will be a short 3 1/2 hr drive to Cincinnati where we'll stay the night with my in-laws, whom we visit as much as we can and always have a good time talking with them. So until the next time I update, happy trails! And thanks for following our journey. Don't forget to leave us a comment some times. :0)

Saturday in DC

(For those of you on Iphones, you won't be able to view the videos on this blog unless you download the Puffin browser (it's free!) and view this blog through that browser. It allows you to watch flash videos, unlike the Safari browser on most iphones. So if you didn't know that, you are in for a treat because you will now be able to view flash videos. :0)

We left Ocean City, MD bright and early at 6am and headed to DC, about an hour and a half drive. Arrived at our KOA by 7:45 and had to sit and wait until the office opened at 8. We wanted to take the 9am shuttle into DC and luckily they had some spots opened. We would check into our cabin when we got back from DC so we awaited the arrival of the shuttle and soon boarded and were on our way.


The shuttle cost us each $12.50 but was well worth not having to drive into the city ourselves. It took about 45 minutes to our drop off point, at the Capitol. With the sun just over the top of the Capitol, I thought it was the perfect picture to start off our day.

You can't take a tour of the Capitol any longer so we headed off to see the sights. We could see the Washington Monument in the distance, so we headed that way. It was a very long walk and the day was becoming hot, but on we walked. Here is a view of the W. Monument as we approached.
 
That Monument is also closed due to an earthquake in August 2011. There is damage to the structure so it is not open to the public but just seeing it from the outside is a treat in itself.
 
From there we decided to walk on to the Lincoln Memorial but as we did, to our right we saw the White House so decided to detour over that way. We didn't have any tickets to tour so we just took a quick picture in front, along with the thousands of other tourists doing the same. :0)
 

Here is a short video of the white house, but it's not a real close look.

 

Next, we headed back to the Lincoln Memorial but along the way we came upon the Vietnam Wall Memorial so we walked along there and took a couple of pictures. It was very quiet along the wall and you could feel the presence of all the deceased military who gave their lives in the war. Many, many visitors were taking pictures of family member's names on the wall, leaving mementos under the names, or doing rubbings of the names.

At the end of the walkway along the wall, you come to the base of the Lincoln Memorial. It is then a long, steep climb to the top but once inside you see the majestic Lincoln statue and it is a sight to behold.

 
There was also a very good view of the Washington Monument from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Normally there is water in the reflecting pool, but they are also working on that so that is a tarp you see in the pool, with just a bit of water down the middle from a recent rain.
 
Leaving the Lincoln Memorial, we headed back towards the memorials to WWII and the Korean War. At the WWII memorial, they have a fountain surrounded by pillars, one for each state. The Korean memorial has a "rice paddy field" with statues of soldiers walking through it and a neat reflective wall surrounding it, with images of the men from the war.
 

By then it was lunch time and a friend of Jeryl's had recommended we try the cafe at the Native American museum so we headed there next. There was a variety of food, all related to the culinary traditions of the Indians. Jeryl had a spicy buffalo sandwich and I had the best baked bread, topped with blueberry. It was a very big loaf, about the size of my plate, and had a crunchiness to it as you ate. It felt good to sit in the AC and rest our feet for about 30 minutes.
 
Next, we were off to the various Smithsonian museums. Along the way we went through a garden and saw some neat sights.

We went into the Natural History museum and our favorite part was an art gallery of wildlife from around the world. Here are some of the neat photos and a couple of the outside and inside of the museum.

We also saw an exhibit about a prehistoric snake found in Colombia, South America. The snake is called Titanoboa and the exhibit is a reconstruction of the snake, from the skeleton of the snake found in an open-pit coal mine. The skeleton was 48 feet long and they figured the weight would have been 2,500 pounds. Here is a pic of me in front of the exhibit.

Next, it was on to the American History museum. Among the many great things we saw there was the Hope Diamond.

Our last stop was the new Martin Luther King Memorial and we headed that way from the American History museum. As we walked, this really cute squirrel came up to us on the sidewalk and immediately flattened himself against the pavement. It was too cute. Someone walked by and commented that must be the new "security" in DC. Here's a pic. We treated him with some nuts we had in our bag. He wasn't afraid of anyone.

Here are a couple pics from the MLK memorial.

It was almost time by then to meet our shuttle back to the KOA so we headed back towards the Capitol. We got a great view of the Jefferson Memorial along the way.

Here is a short video of the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument.

Back at the capitol, we took a walk around the back and sat down to rest. Someone passing by saw me taking pics of the Capitol and asked if we wanted a picture of us so here we are, resting our tired feet.

Finally the shuttle arrived about 4:20 and we happily trudged aboard, ready for some rest from our long day of walking in DC. I believe it was 7 hours total. We were definitely ready for some rest back at the KOA. Here are a couple pictures of our camp. There was a great deck with a picnic table and swing. We ate our supper there.

There was also a neat jumping area for the kids. At one time it was completely covered with kids. I wanted to take a jump but was a little embarassed because of all the people sitting in their camps, RVs, etc so I just felt it instead. It's like a giant trampoline, surrounded by sand and the kids loved it.

Our cabin had 2 bedrooms, AC and a table, and that's it, just the bare necessities. There were 2 general shower and bathroom houses for the entire camp to use.

After a good night's sleep, we headed out about 9:30am the next morning, back on our Route 50 trip to Ohio. More to come on Sunday's trip later. Thanks for reading and happy trails!