6-20 6-24 Oswego Canal to Canada

We had an uneventful finish if the Erie Canal, now onto the Oswego Canal.  The Oswego cuts off the Erie and took us to Lake Ontario. We did it in one day.  It isn’t very long.

We spent the night at the Oswego Lock 8 wall.  We anticipated being there for a while waiting for a weather window to cross Lake Ontario.  We got up in the morning realizing the forecast was wrong and it would be a great day to cross, but be had a few crucial things to do before getting into Canada.  Scott changed the oil in the engine and we had to get rid of it. If they charge $25 to $50 to pump out our sewer tanks, I can only imagine what they would charge to get rid of used oil. I had phone issues, well I sort of dropped it in the bottom of a lock and had to get a new one.. Oopsie.  At Oswego, we jumped on our bikes going separate ways  to take care of things.  We got back to the boat around noon and some friends came through the lock on Kia Mae. They pulled up to the wall to get a package they had mailed to them.  They said they were going to make a break for crossing.  We had been gone all morning and hadn’t looked at the weather.  It looked like it was going to storm.  On investigation, it looked like the lake was going to be calm, but we might get a pop-up rain shower.  We both scrambled to do what we had to do and off we went together, with Kia Mae, on the spur of the moment.  We had expected to wait close to a week to make the crossing so we were elated.  We had perfectly calm seas and one heavy rain shower and some fog at the very end.  We were happy!

We thought we had to go into the marina and use a video phone to check in.  We hoisted our quarantine flag, Scott and Jim both dropped their dinghies and headed in with passports etc. in hand. When they got there, they found out they just needed to call in with their cell phones. It was simple to check in with customs. Down comes the quarantine flag and up goes the Canadian Flag.

The next day we had a bit of a trip to the entrance of the Trent Severn Waterway.  We arrived and got through three locks before we decided to call it a day.  How it works, you can stay on the wall for a nominal fee.  We got to lock three and told them we wanted to stay.  They sent the guy from lock one down with portable computer and credit card machine and the business was done right there on the lock wall.  The lock operators are incredibly friendly and helpful on the Trent Severn.  We found it interesting that Lock one is hydraulic, but so far, the rest of the lock doors are open and closed by humans turning cranks. There is obviously some mechanical advantage going on.

The locks don’t open until 9am, so we got up early to go exploring.  There is “The Big Rock” a short distance from the wall.  It is the largest boulder in Canada and possibly in North America that was moved here by glacier movement.  It weighs 2.2 million pounds. I’m not sure how they weighed it but quite sure they mathematically weighed it.  The rock is called the Bleasdell Boulder.  Reverend Bleasdell discovered it the mid 1800 when he moved here from England. He had an interest in geology. A botanist picked up on it and had Bleasdell show him the rock.  He spoke around the world about the rock but gave credit to Bleasdell for his find.  It has been the Bleasdell Boulder aka The Big Rock since.  In the 1990s Paul and Maria Heissler purchased the land all around The Rock. There are beautiful trails and wood all around it that we hiked on.  Glad we took the time to seek it out.

Back to the boat and more canal and locks.  We anchored at “The Blue Hole.”  However we don’t know if there are any true blue holes in the area.  It was quiet and peaceful with the view of a picturesque farm in the distance.

Thanks for reading.  We are loving Canada and the Trent Severn Waterway.

Karen and Scott

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We stayed at Sylvan Beach wall with several other Loopers.  We started from a closer place, so we arrive earlier than the others. We took a quick stroll along the wall, beach and into town. Sylvan lake is a large lake and with the right winds it can throw up some big waves.

Along the right side of the picture above, they have nicely manicured Bocce Ball courts.  We didn’t dig ours out as it was about to rain. Down further we came to an old time amusement park.  It hadn’t opened yet.  It was slated to open the next day, but upon closer inspection, I am not sure I would trust these old rides.  However, they sure do ad something to the little town.

 

Then we came to the beach. It looks like they just groomed the sand ready for summer.

We had about 12 Loopers that went to dinner at the Crazy Clam, which was just down the dock from where we all moored.  Food was good the company even better.  Boaters are fun people.

After dinner we strolled down by the water and there was a 2 man band playing in the park.  They weren’t half bad.  We felt bad that the crowd was so tiny. They were better than that.

We hoped for a spectacular sunset with all the clouds, but instead it was rather erie.

We are getting very close to the end of our trip on the Erie Canal.  Lots of neat little towns.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

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6-19 6-20 Remington Museum and Fort Stanwix

The weather has been rainy on and off.  If we waited for a forecast of no rain to travel we would never move.  What looked like severe weather on the radar, either dissipated or went around us. Onward we go.  We only had rain in one lock.  We bought good quality rain gear (aka Foulies) before we left.  It is amazing how well they work. Not a drop inside.  Of course, I’m on the bow, in the rain and Scott on the stern under cover.  We had dinner with a crew the other night and the guys all laughed about not getting rained on as they got playful sneers from their wives.  I don’t mind the rain as long as it isn’t cold.

On the 19^th we hit the highest elevation of our trip at 420 feet above sea level at Lock 20.   At lock 21 we started head down.  There are locks on the Erie that are higher, but we are cutting off on the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario before we get to that level.  Yes, we are becoming pros at locking, so far this trip, we have done 57 lock.  Believe it or not that is only about half of what we will end up doing by the end of the trip.  The Trent Severn waterway has many locks to go through as well.

On the 19^th we stayed at a free wall a short dinghy ride to the Remington Factory and museum. It was close enough to walk to.  It was interesting to learn that the company was started by Mr. Remington needing a new gun, so he made one in his father’s blacksmith shop. He took it to a contest and won. Everyone admired his skill and started asking him to make them a gun.  Thus, the start of Remington Firearms.  They had quite a collection showing the progression of the technology in firearms.  Remington’s first firearm was a flintlock. They had a gun showing every progression up to today’s technology.  The company grew with getting government contracts during the wars.  After the Civil War the government pulled their contract.  That left a very big factory with not enough orders to keep it going. Remington went on to produce a multitude of other things, like a typewriter, bicycle, knives, sewing machines, and cash register. Over time they were able to get back into making guns.  They no longer do tours through the factory, but they did have a nice video showing the process of making several different types of guns.  It was interesting.

On the 20^th we went to Rome.  Rome is where they started to build the Erie Canal. There was supposed to be a Historical Village where we had hoped to learn more history about the building of the canal. When we arrive, we found it is permanently closed.  So I did a little research on Wikipedia and here are some interesting tidbits that I thought you might find interesting.

Why was it built: To Create a navigable water route from NYC and the Atlantic to the Great Lakes.

Length: 524 miles

Locks: 36

Maximum height above seas level: 571 feet

Construction began 7-4-1817 at Rome, NY

Completion: October 26, 1825

Did you know there were no Civil engineers involved in building the canal?  The two men who laid it out were judges with experience in surveying, that was to settle boundary disputes.  Amazingly their plan went off without a hitch.

First 15 mile:   from Rome to Utica.  I read somewhere that they started there because it was the easiest stretch to construct. Once they got that far, proponents against the canal started to see its value,  At that point,there was no turning back.

They worked in the marsh and swamp areas after they froze.  Smart!

Hope you found these few facts as interesting as we did.

We also visited the Fort Stanwix National Monument,

About 40 years ago, after careful archeological exploration, the fort was rebuilt as it was originally. I am going to honest with you.  The war history of this area was confusing to me.  It wasn’t clear cut, like the north against the south.  There were French, British, German and Canadian, loyalists, and Indians from the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora, and Oneida tribes. There were many facets to the battles in different wars to settle this area. Too much for my brain to absorb in an hour visit. The fort was constructed of very large timber, not the usual stone that we have seen at other forts. I’ll let the pictures show you what it was like.

FYI: We are now in Canada and the internet is spotty, so now that I am caught up, I am sure to get behind again.  Be patient and keep reading.  Send us a note we love to hear from people.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

 

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6-18-17 Herkimer Mansion

We find something new every day on our travels on the Erie Canal. Take for instance Lock 17. It is a 40 ft lock.  Most locks have two doors that swing open and closed. On a 40 ft lock those would be massive doors.  So they made half of the lock permanent with a gate like a garage door goes up and down to allow the water in and out.

The Herkimer Mansion was alongside the canal with nothing else there except a very small dock that one big boat like ours could tie up to.  We were intrigued by the Herkimer name because Grand Rapids, MI (our home) had a Herkimer Hotel.  We wondered if there was any connection. Well there is, but only slightly.  The man who built the Herkimer Hotel was from Herkimer, New York.  Herkimer New York was named after the Herkimer family that settled the area. There’s your fun fact for the day.

The Herkimer Mansion was owned by the Revolutionary General Nicholas Herkimer.  It was built in 1764. General Herkimer is credited for coming into the area to organize the men of the area to fight in the Revolutionary war. On August 6, 1777, during the battle of Oriskany, Herkimer wounded his leg (Presumably shot.) He was brought back to the mansion and a Doctor attended him there where he had to amputate his leg. Eleven days later he died and was buried in the family cemetery. We found it interesting that he did not have a head stone until 1847. That is 70 years after his death when a grandnephew purchased a headstone for him. In 1913 the state of New York took over the estate. They build a monument for him. In 1914 the State restored the home which was in poor condition.  It had and full restoration to put the house back to the way it was when it was built in 1960. We learned more history but I won’t bore you with all of it.

It was a lovely day and we enjoy our short stop and history lesson.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

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6-17-17   Loving the Erie Canal

The Erie Canal Is everything we expected it to be and more.  It is easy to navigate…follow the river to the next lock.  No Tide or depth worries. Free walls to tie up everywhere, some even have water and power.  Life is good. Here are some sights on our way to Canajoharie.

We went to the wall at Canajoharie, which means boiling pot in Mohawk.  There is a lovely park along the wall. The day we arrived the weather wasn’t great and it was later in the day.  We walked through town, which was another quaint town.  We will see the boiling pot in the morning.  Early that morning we got a knock on our boat by the local firemen. They were letting all the boaters know that the river will be closing from nine to Noon for their Rubber Ducky Race which is a fundraiser and celebration of the town Palatine on the other side of the bridge. As we got ready for our day we saw a couple of Amish buggies pull up.  They unhitched the horses and tied them up while they went fishing off the dock.

The skies were clear so we hoofed it to find the Boiling Pot on the Canajoharie Creek. It was easy to find and we knew what it was as soon as we saw it.  It is a large perfect circle carved in the rocks by water.  I am not sure how deep it is, but it looks deep.  There is an old defunct dam there with the water free flowing.  There are so many pretty falls and rapids all down the creek.  We walked a long way down the river and just kept finding more and more rapids/falls. We met a young man on the way and he told us we could walk all the way down.  However, we got to a point on the river that there was no way around.  We found some rough trails with too much poison ivy on it for our comfort. Back down to the river to backtrack the way we came.  We ran into the young man again and he directed us up a trail.  However, I was in flip flops and Scott in Teva sandals and the trail got a bit muddy.  We were able to navigate around the deep sucking mud, but still got a little dirty. When we got back to the main trail we looked at our feet and decided we needed to go wash up in the river.  I had mud smeared and splashed up to my knees.  Scott fared better than I with just muddy feet. We really enjoyed getting back to the wilderness and waters.  It was a great hike.

When we got back to the park around noon the rubber duckies hadn’t been set free yet.  Apparently, they had technical difficulties. We scratched our heads a bit when we realized they just dumped tubs of ducks from a boat.  Hmmm.  It was hot and we were hungry and thirsty.  We heard there were food stands and a car show up the hill. We grabbed some lunch, but didn’t spend a lot of time at the car show.  We got back just in time to see the ducks floating and saw the winner hit the finish line.

We chatted with several new Loopers and traded cards. We have 2 of 500 left.  More are waiting for us at our next marina stop in a few days.  Just in the nick of time. We love that the Loopers are closer together than they were in Florida and up the east coast.  Having a great time meeting new people.

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Thanks for reading,

Scott and Karen

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We are on the Erie Canal!! Yet another part of the trip we have been looking forward to. We went through Lock1 which is actually on the Hudson River but is the entrance to the Erie Canal.

We stopped at a town wall in Waterford just before Lock 2.  It is a lovely quaint town, just like what we have heard about.  We hiked a trail along the original Champlain Canal.  We suspect the trail was the original that the mules used to pull the barges through.  There was one spot on the canal that had cement in the middle. There was a sign explaining the there was a weighing station there. They used displacement of water to weigh barges and charged them by weight. It turned out not to be very accurate.  The men called it the “Guessing Pond.” It was warm so we hunted down the public pool only to find it not quite open yet.  That’s okay we enjoyed seeing more of the town.  This has to be the first town that doesn’t have multiple icecream shops.  I normally don’t eat ice cream because it doesn’t always agree with me, but that I day I had a real craving.  Figures there would be no ice cream shops.  My stomach and my waistline are thankful.

There were lots of Loop boats on the wall.  We had docktails on the back of Debbie and Steve’s boat Gypsy Palace.  I counted 24 people, Margo the Macaw and a handful of dogs on the back of the boat.  That boat is huge.  Met lots of new people as well as connected with many we had met but hadn’t seen in awhile.

We hadn’t caught up with our friend Michael and Margo the Macaw  in a while so we had them over for dinner.  Margo is quite the character.  She perched on a handrail and entertained us while we ate. Michael’s boat “Perch” is a go-fast-boat, and we are a go-slow-boat, so we try to take advantage of a visit when our paths meet.

The next morning the adventure of locking through the Erie canal began.  The first set of locks is known as the Waterford “Flight of Five”  These five locks are one right after another.  We climbed a total of 169 feet in five locks.  It is the highest change in elevation in the shortest distant in the world……and we did it in our own boat.  Everyday’s an adventure with lots of firsts.

There will be more posts from the Erie Canal. We will only be doing about half of the canal then cutting north on the Oswego Canal to Lake Ontario where we will cross the lake into Canada.

Thanks for reading.

Karen and Scott

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We met up with so many Loopers we hadn’t seen in a while in NYC. We all went out to dinner and had a great time catching up with each other.

We all left our marina in the Great Kills area the same morning.

 

We then went by the Statue of Liberty in our own boat.  It was such a thrill.  It is one of those things I think every Looper looks forward to.  WE DID IT!

Seeing NYC from the Hudson river was also a treat.

As we got closer to the city the boat traffic got worse and worse.  We practically had a traffic jam with all the ferries going across the river and the boats and commercial traffic going up and down the river it was a little crazy….and wavy.

There was a magnificent 371′ boat anchored in the harbor. Le Grand Bleu.  She is a stunning boat.  It is the one of the biggest privately owned yachts in the world. I found it on Wikipedia.  An american business owner had it and sold it to a Russian businessman Roman Abramovich. He had the interior all refit and had a 16′ swim platform onto the yacht. Four years later he GAVE it to his friend and business partner Eugene Shvidler.  Can you imaging what that thing is worth. He must be a really good friend!

From the NYC harbor we headed north on the Hudson River.  We were amazed at the size of the city.  It went on  and on up river until the landscape made a sudden change.  Rocky cliff and rolling hills.  Absolutely beautiful.

Along with the wilderness there were still significant buildings such as West Point and Sing Sing Prison.

As we got farther up the river we started to see some unique lighthouses.  All looked like someone lived there.  That is secretly one of Scott’s dreams… to live in and maintain a lighthouse.  At least back when they were kerosene lit and hand cranked.  Not sure about now though.

We traveled with Aqua-fennatic for a while and landed together at Shady Harbor Marina together.  Just in time for the pig roast put on by the marina and the Yacht Club.  Lots of Loopers were there.  Food Music, Friends….what more could one ask for. We had about 24 Loopers go to dinner together the next night.  That’s a lot of Loopy people. We had a great time and met new people along with those we already knew.  Tonight will be our third night and we move on tomorrow.  The staff was amazing at this marina.  They and the owner really cared that everyone had their needs met.  The owner, Brian, gave us his car keys so Maria and I could go grocery shopping.  Great place.

We will be at the entrance of the Erie Canal tomorrow.  New adventures with all those lock and neat towns await us. Keep posted.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

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We started our day getting on the X1 bus to Central Park.  Our bus driver Frank was hilarious.  He talked about the “little Geniuses” that are preparing for  jail instead of of college and called a group of iffy people on the sidewalk “Mutts.” He joked with us the whole way about our trip costing us $100 and that he was drinking or drunk driving.   We had a great 1.5 hour bus.

We had reserved a horse and carriage to take us through the park. You hear all this terrible stuff about central park on TV. Don’t buy into it.  We saw police and park rangers all over the place. We felt very safe there.  When our carriage arrive we were blessed with another funny guy “Joe” as our driver. He actually was the owner of the company and was the typical italian schmoozer, but lots of fun. He told us Pope jokes and stories about a Danish man.  He was quite the entertainer.He really know his park history. our ride was 55 minutes and it could have easily been twice as long.  The park was beautiful, extremely well kept and we never saw a homeless or questionable person.  We saw families and young people all over the place. If you go to Central Park consider a ride with “NY Carriage Rides” they are the best!

 

From Central Park we walked to Time square, Rockefeller Center, Radio Music Hall, Rockefeller Center etc.  Lots to see in just a few blocks. Our highlight of all of NYC was St. Patrick’s’ Cathedral.  It was magnificent.  It is the largest Cathedral in the United States. The corner stone was laid in 1858 and finished 21 years later in 1879.  It looked like it was built yesterday.  So much of it was carved stone no wonder it is still as magnificent today as it was back in the 1800s. It seat 2400 people, it takes up a whole city block and it’s spires rise 330 feet, 7855 pipes for the organ. It has 21 altars and 19 bells each named after a different saint. 28100 stained glass panels there are between 15 and 18 masses said everyday in the Cathedral.  Over a million candles are lit every year in the church. They asked for a $2 donation for candles.  That $2,000,000 in income for tiny little candles that I am sure only cost 10 cents each. It must take an incredible amount of money to keep up this church.  We were all in awe and couldn’t help but fall to our knees and pray.

Just because we could, Maria and I walked into Tiffany’s and were treated very respectfully. We all went into Sak’s fifth avenue expecting a cold response because we are not their type of people.  We were shocked to have been pawed ad by the clerks, like they were desperate for business.  Lady let me try this cream on you, you will love this perfume etc.  It was way worse than any of the panhandlers or the bus salespeople on the streets. So when I win the lottery big time I may shop at Tiffany’s but will never set foot in Saks. I guess I don’t have to worry about that.

We stumbled across the NYFD education center.  They have on average 150 kids go through their program everyday.  They teach them fire safety and have a fake burning house.  They can change to color of smoke for the kids. There was also a firetruck for them to crawl on and lot of fire gear on the wall.  They also have patches from other fire depts all over the walls.  Had we known we would have brought a GRFD patch. I am sure there is already one up there.  We looked but could find them amongst the 1000s or more patches all over the walls and halls etc. We talked to a retired firefighter who was at 911.  He said the men who were at the tragedy are really having some health issue. All the kids who lost a parent have had their college education paid for.  He said they are almost all through school.  They take care of their own.  We would have liked to talked to him more but he was volunteering and had other people to talk to you.

When we were done uptown we took a subway to downtown.  It was Scott and My first subway ride.  It was slick. We were there so fast.

We found the Wall Street Bull.  We learned by eaves dropping in on a tour that the guy designed and built the bull with this own money and dropped it off at the NY Stock Exchange.   It wasn’t appreciated and was moved around the corner.  It is  now one of the most visited sites in NYC and the guy never got a dime after spending $350,000 of his own money to make it.  There is a rumor that if you rub the bull’s balls it will bring you good financial luck.  So of course Maria and I had to give it a whirl. So many people have done this that they are shiny and perfectly smooth. Who thinks of this stuff and who follows through…..well we did.  Why not.  Maybe I can shop at Tiffany’s someday.

We then walked to the 911 Memorial.  It is so moving. Everyone seemed somber and respectful.  What a horrible tragedy, but NY sure did a nice job with the Memorial.

We were originally going to try to get 50% off broadway play tickets, but the wait was going to take hours and we had a lot of NYC to see yet.  Because we weren’t doing a play we decided to walk to both China Town and Little Italy.  We had dinner on the street at an authentic Italian restaurant. Happy hours seemed to last all night for us.  They kept saying this will still be on our happy hour half off prices. Once again, we never felt in danger and thoroughly enjoyed every step of the 10 miles we walked that day. We hopped a bus back to the boat.  The NYC public transportations is amazing and not terribly complicated.

We amazed ourselves with how many things we saw in one day by foot and one subway ride. We walked 10 miles according to Maria’s fitbit.  We slept very good that night and were satisfied with what we got to see.

Thanks for reading,

Karen and Scott

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6-7-17  NYC Ellis Island and The Statue of Liberty

We got into our marina in the Great Kills area on Staten Island. It was a gloomy cool rainy day. John our Harbor host was a dream.  He took Scott and I to the grocery store and laundromat.  We had been at anchor or on a mooring ball for 14 days.  We needed to re-provision.   We met with a gang of 16 Loopers for Dinner.  Fun night

John brought us some bad news. We had purchased tickets online to go to the Statue of Liberty leaving from New Jersey.  It made sense, to us, to book it out of that station because it was on the same side of the river. Why go all the way to NYC? We found out why…because there is no public transportation from Staten Island to New Jersey.  Ugg We scrambled to make arrangements for a car, that was supposed to be cheaper than Uber, to drive us. However, in the end, we got stiffed and paid about $20 more than was quoted, because they misunderstood which dock to go to.  We are happy to say that was our only calamity in NYC.  We made out pretty good I’d say.

We got ticket to go to the top of the Pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.  We wanted to go all the way to the crown, but those tickets sell out 3 months in advance. After climbing the 215 steps to the pedestal and saw the narrow winding staircase to the crown, we decided God was watching out for us. The whole thing is quite amazing.  The pure size and structure etc. left us in awe.

 

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Click the IMG button above to see and hear the choir singing outside the Statue of Liberty.  We were blessed to hear them.

From the Statue, the Ferry took us to Ellis Island. This is where immigrants went to get checked into the US. I was particularly interested in Ellis Island because my Grandfather, came to the US through Ellis Island. He came on the ship Mount Clinton from Bottrop Germany in 1923 as Bruno Arthur Bloch. After arriving he changed his name to Arthur Bruno Bloch because of the stigma attached to Bruno being a common German name.

The immigrants walked up the first set of steps, under the watchful eye of several doctors who were looking for potential health issues. It they were limping or breathing hard, the doctor would put chalk mark on their coat. This meant they needed a medical exam.  If they seemed mentally off they got an X put on their coat. Some people were in awe of the size of the room they were in; they were staring at the ceiling with their mouths open.  That got them an X and a mental exam. We saw where they checked in, the benches they waited on and the various rooms, used for medical or mental exams, court room hearings of potential illegal immigrants. There was a hospital to treat people that were ill or injured.  If they had something communicable like TB they would be sent back. They also had to have enough money to support themselves or they were sent back.  Once they were clear medically, mentally, legally and financially, they were directed to get their money exchanged to US dollars and on to a public transportation area. Many did not speak English. We could only imagine how difficult it was to figure out where to go. We learned so much and it meant a lot to me because of my Grandfather.

 

On our way home, we took the ferry to NYC walked around a bit like lost puppies. We got bus passes, found a bus and headed home before rush hour which starts around 3:30. We left at three and our bus was already full!

We had heard that people in NYC are rude, but we found them to be very helpful and nice people.  It was a great first day in NYC.

Thanks for reading. Stay tuned for part two of NYC.

Karen and Scott

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6-1-17 Washington DC

Mike and Maria from Aquafennatic, Karen and Mark from Captain’s Choice, Scott and I took a bus from Annapolis right to the Library of Congress. It is the largest Library in the world with 23,892,068 book catalogued. Along with music, newspaper pamphlets technical reports and non-classified items totaling an impressive 160,775,260 items. The items are in 450 different languages. The general public cannot take out items from this library.  That is understandable.

We then went to the Capital visitors center.  We got there early but Holy Moley there a lot of people there. We learned to get a tour you have to get it through your State Representative or Senate office to get tickets.  That seems odd. But that is how it is.  Without a ticket you were allowed to wait in line for No-Shows.  It could be right away or hours.  No thanks.  We are trying to do all of DC in one day on foot. No time for waiting around.

From the Capital we went to the Old Post Office Building, which is now the Trump Hotel.  Of course, we walked in expecting to get stopped.  We used the restrooms and gawked at the glass covered atrium. I was told I cannot take photos with my camera, but may take them with my phone. Couldn’t figure that one out. We heard from other loopers that on certain days of the week we could go into the clock tower. We asked an attendant where to go and we were directed to the back side of the hotel, (where the likes of us belong.  Ha Ha.) We had a beautiful view of DC.

 

On to the White House.  We were a little farther away than we expected but we got a glimpse of it.

Right behind us was the Washington Monument.  By this time we were in awe of everything we had seen, but started to run out of words. It is so huge.  Did you know that you used to be able to go to the top, but after an earthquake that is no longer possible.

 

 

From there we walked along the reflective pool. Funny thing was, we all reflected on the Scene from Forrest Gump.

 

My cousin, Steve Satran, lives in DC and met us at the Lincoln Memorial for a brief visit. It was so good to see him.  I love how this trip has brought us together to friends and relatives we have seen in a long time due to the distance.

Vietnam War Monument was moving with the huge walls with all names of the soldiers that died. I have seen it on TV 100 times but seeing it in person, and realizing how many people died was very thought provoking.

The Lincoln Memorial surprised me the most.  Because I have seen it in so many pictures, movies etc, I thought I knew what it was like.  When I walked in and saw the massive size of this magnificent piece of art, I was in awe.

We had never really seen the Korean War Monument before.  There was a wall like at the Vietnam Monument, but instead of names they engraved faces into the stone.  There was also silver statues of them men dressed as they would be going through the jungle. It was very well done. Steve told us the way they have it lit at night makes it more impressive.it is really impressive.

 

We were tired after walking the entire thing, but glad we did. We never got into the Smithsonian, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day. We are thankful for what we do get to see and don’t regret the things we missed.

We were thankful to have a bus driver driving us in the crazy snarl of traffic at the end of the day. We sat back and relaxed. Word of advice…Don’t drive there.

Thank you for reading,

Karen and Scott

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