On The Road Again

Posted by Alexander

Today I’m writing on a train to New York. It has Wi-Fi so everyone is on their devices.

(Dad's comment) This is pretty much how the kids are seeing the USA

Yesterday we went on a bicycle tour to a whole bunch of monuments to presidents and saw the White  House. There were people outside the White House protesting because Obama thinks the U.S. should go to war with the Syrian government.

(Dad's comment) Christopher asked me whether these guys would change Obama's mind.  Not sure, I said.  What do you think?

Kelvin (our guide), and the Washington Monument, which is currently undergoing earthquake repairs.

The Jefferson Memorial (apparently he invented ice cream!)

The Lincoln Memorial was the busiest by far.  Easy to see why - it is pretty impressive.

Christopher trying to help repair the earthquake damage.

On the steps of the Lincoln memorial.  Not monumented-out yet, but close.

The FDR memorial - one of four rooms commemorating his record four terms in office.

The Korean War Memorial, with soldiers walking through a symbolic rice paddy minefield. 

The Lincoln Memorial from the outside.  There are four score and seven steps down to the reflecting pool below.

The World War II Memorial.

Our tour guide, Kelvin, taught us that the British and Canadians once attacked and set fire to the White House. This was very interesting to me. Especially the part where the British and Canadians got taken out by a tornado. Seems a little far fetched.

More Canadians storming the White House.

Note the security out front, and the snipers on the roof.  We think they were either watching us to make sure we didn't burn it down again, or keeping an eye on the Syrian protesters out front.  One or the other.

One other thing I learned on the tour was that the U.S. has a national Christmas tree which just so happens to come from the Colville National Forest.  I just thought that was nice. There’s more that we saw but it’s too much to blog, but you can see most of it in the pictures.



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Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, D.C.

Posted by Christopher

The Lunar Landing Module from the first manned mission to the moon

If you can remember my remark about Yellowstone being one of the best places to go on a school field trip, I can now tell you that Yellowstone just got out-scienced.

You see, in school, two of the topics that I enjoy most are Space and Aeronautics.  So, I really loved this section of the museum.

Definitely the best section for me was either the space suits (I really like suits and gear) or the Wright brothers because of all the cool history involved.  I thought it was interesting that people didn't believe the Wright brothers at first, but once they saw a live demonstration, they were convinced, and the Wright brothers became famous.

The Apollo-Soyuz capsules from the first joint American/Russion space mission in 1975.

Skylab - an American space station.  You could go inside and get an idea of what life was like for the astronauts.

The Spirit of St. Louis - the first plane to be flown solo across the Atlantic by Charles Lindbergh.

Another thing I was a fan of was the transportation on the way to the museum. The last time I’ve ridden a subway was in Vancouver, Canada at least a year ago. When we first tried to buy our tickets we had a little bit of technical difficulty but we soon had it figured out and were on the way.  Riding the quick subway was fun and fast so I’m happy that’s how we got to the Smithsonian finally.

D.C. A-O.K.

We pulled in to Washington D.C. yesterday a.m., after spending the night about an hour outside the city, so as to save a few bucks, and avoid the evening traffic.

Yesterday was spent at the National Zoo.  It was a pretty big hit with the kids.  I had the usual mixed feelings I get in zoos - the biologist in me loved to see all the animals up close, and the information placards were well done and interesting.  Still, it's hard not to get the impression that the animals don't really want to be there, and really don't want to be looked at.  All the great apes sat with their backs to the crowds, and even the orangutans, which were remarkably free to move about the zoo on cables strung 45 feet in the air seemed to make an effort to turn their backs on anyone taking pictures of them.  One even stopped to pee on the crowd below - hard not to interpret that as a meaningful act.

Last night after checking into our hotel, Sara and I walked up the street to see the White House, which is only about 10 blocks from here.  It looks pretty much like every picture you have ever seen of the White House.  We were more impressed with the neigbourhood of Georgetown, which is a clean, pleasant University area, full of young people out and about for their Friday night.  D.C. seems like a pretty liveable place, at least based on our first 48 hours here.  The people we have talked to have all seemed smart, helpful and extremely friendly.  The service in the hotel has been great, and even the guy who checked our groceries last night engaged us in an active conversation while he was swiping our items through - we ended up discussing Tim Horton's, which was a favourite of his.  Then, the guy in the line next to us chimed in when I mentioned the Timmy's in Afghanistan - he had had a double double and some Timbits there during his tour.

Today was spent at the National Air and Space museum this a.m., then the Natural History museum in the afternoon.  Again, really well laid out, with tons of interesting exhibits.  We really just scratched the surface of both.  But eventually our feet gave out from all the walking, and we have retreated to our hotel to rest up for more sight seeing over the next few days.

The Zooamals

Posted by Katie

Yesterday we drove into Washington DC the capital of the USA.  Our first stop was Smithsonian national zoo.  

The first animals were the great cats which included 2 female lions, 1 male lion, and a mystery gender tiger. 

Then we went to see the monkeys. The first one was little and cute the second one was an orangutan that was climbing on ropes that were hung from the towers they went all the way to another building.

 Next was the panda, Tian Tian.  He put on a great show for everybody.  He walked all around and then climbed up some rocks.  It was pretty cool.

Then we went to the bird house.  They were flying all over their cages & some were just walking around the Christmas tree having a happy holiday!   Just kidding!  But they were pretty cool.   My favourite one was was the blue mouse mountain blue jay.

Then we went to our cool hotel which is on Pennsylvania Ave.  Apparently this is particularly cool because the President of the United States also lives on this street (only 10 blocks down!)  But tonight we are just going to have a lazy evening with some TV and hanging out and I can’t wait!

Stories from the road.

The last couple of days have been all about knocking off some miles.  We have set a record for the number of states in one day.  Yesterday we started in Wisconsin, then crossed into Illinois, Indiana, and finally Ohio.



Not too much to report for that trip.  Lots of toll booths – we spent about $30.00 in total yesterday.  It wouldn’t be so bad, except that to spend $30.00 in toll booths you have to go through about 15 of them.  We spent anywhere from .70 cents in one to a maximum of $8.00 in another.  It would be a lot easier if they could just figure out a way to charge you once for the day, instead of nickel and diming you over and over. 

The only other thing of interest was driving through Chicago.  We had a good view of the city, and lots of traffic.  We even got to hear WBEZ Chicago straight from the source (for those not familiar with WBEZ, I recommend you trya a listen of the podcast “This American Life”.)  Anyway, we decided not to stop Chicago, since we will be spending time in D.C. and hopefully New York, so we figured that would fill our city quota.





Anyway, that was it.  We are now heading out of Ohio, bound for Pennsylviania, then Maryland.  Tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, we’ll start our exploration of D.C.

A Day Of Labor

Posted by Alexander

We worked extremely hard yesterday at the water park resort known as Glacier Canyon Lodge in the Wisconsin Dells. There were lots of stairs we had to climb to get to the amazingly fun water slides.

Best...

Hotel pool...

Ever!

We also enjoyed a rope course suspended above an arcade. There were multiple floors full of tightrope walking and shoe-width bridges.  Luckily everyone was strapped in. On one of the more terrifying suspensions I suddenly and vividly imagined what would happen should my harness snap. That was pretty much the most terrifying moment of my life.

Our favourite water slide was the hurricane. You slid down on a big tube but a sudden drop threw us into a big cone-like structure where we went up the sides and slid threw the funnel shaped end.

Everyone at home starts school today.  We are fitting as much education into our trip as we can.  I'll sum up our schooling so far:

Yellowstone= Science
Mt. Rushmore= History
Travelling= Geography
Blogging = English
Water park= best P.E. class ever!

Rushmore. Rush less.

You may consider yourself a hardened outdoorsman, but if you have never camped in the KOA next to Mount Rushmore on the Saturday night of Labour day weekend, there is an outdoor experience missing from your  camping resume.

An example: written on the window of the pickup truck camped a few spots from us (I wish I had taken a picture of this)

If guns are responsible for violence, then women are responsible for prostitution.  And just below that:  Blaming guns for violence is like blaming a fork for Rosie O'Donnell being fat.

We felt reassured to know that if a gun nut showed up in the campground, this guy was there to shoot him for us.

Anyway, we made it to the Mt. Rushmore area after a fairly uneventful drive through Wyoming and into South Dakota.  We got to the aforementioned KOA in good time, and despite the crazy weekend crowds, the kids had a great time exploring the water slide, pools (that's right, two pools), climbing wall, and "fun zone".  This was definitely not a wilderness camp ground.

When we finally went to set up our camp, we realized that our air mattresses were not going to work without some way to inflate them, so we had to hop in the car and head to Rapid City to get what we needed at Walmart.  After a quick dinner there, we headed back to the camp ground.  As we drove past the Rushmore monument, we saw that the night time lighting ceremony was about to start, so we pulled in to watch the excitement.

Mount Rushmore was an unusual place.  We didn't expect much based on our first glimpse as we drove by on the highway, but the history and patriotism displayed in the monument and the lighting ceremony was oddly moving, even for Canadians.  The Americans certainly do a much better job glorifying their past than we do.  You could see how at least some of the pride Americans take in their country was being created right there in the South Dakota summer evening.  I'm sure American kids who see that place, and that ceremony, have an indelible pride stamped on their psyche.

After an OK night in the KOA, we packed up as early as we could, and headed back to the monument to see it in the daylight.  Still pretty impressive.  Overall, I'd recommend a visit to Rushmore, even if you are not particularly interested in American history.

After Rushmore, we hit the road, and crossed the rest of South Dakota.  Pretty much the American equivalent of Saskatchewan.  Flat, straight, and uneventful, except for Wall Drug, which is a crazy drug store sitting smack in the middle of the state.  The reason it stands out is that there are signs and billboards every minute or so for 50 miles on the interstate before you get to Wall Drug.  The store itself takes up an entire city block, and has more folk art and craziness than you can figure out what to do with.  Definitely a tourist trap, but it makes a welcome stop across a flat state, and after all those signs, we had to stop.

We spent that night in Sioux Falls, in the southeast corner of South Dakota.  Yesterday, we hit three different states; starting in South Dakota, most of the day was spent crossing southern Michigan.  Then, in the evening, we pulled into Wisconsin, and made our way to the Wisconsin Dells.  The Dells are a huge touristy area, famous for massive water parks.  The resort we are staying in is built around several of them, but I will let the kids give you the details on that in their next posts.