Washington, D.C. - Museum of Natural History

  We arrived in the D.C. area to a warm welcome from longtime family friends who were kind enough to allow us to stay for the week.  With the focus on running our Spartan Race over the previous week, we hadn't planned out every detail of what we wanted to do in D.C., but we wanted to hit the high points and allow the kids to see as much as possible of things they would enjoy.

  Both Michael and I have been to Washington, D.C. as tourists.  I lived in the area in middle school and high school, and Michael traveled there with his family at around the same age.  We also explored the area on our first vacation together over 15 years ago.  We compared notes to list the museums and monuments that we most enjoyed, and after checking in with the kids to see what sounded appealing to them we decided to wander around the mall for our first day in town and see as many Smithsonian museums as we had time for.

  We drove a short distance to a metro line and rode the metro into town.  The prices of metro tickets have gone up considerably since I last purchased them - I was actually a little surprised by how much.  I remember prices ranging from $1.50 to $3 per ride, and they are now more in the realm of over $3 to nearly $7 per ride at peak travel times.   We really enjoyed the public transportation options when we visited Spain a few years ago - in Barcelona we took advantage of the T10 tickets, which allow you to purchase one ticket for 10 rides at a reasonable price - under $15.  Those rides can be used by one person or ten people, all at once or one at a time.  We were hoping for something comparable, but no such luck.  The best deal we could come up with was to purchase a $14 one day pass for each rider, so $56 a day for metro passes.  We knew we were only going to be riding the metro for 2 days, so the week passes would have cost even more.  So much for a good deal.  At least the kids enjoyed it - their favorite part was getting to stand up when the trains were crowded.

  It just so happened that our first day in D.C. was August 28th - the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of Lincoln Memorial.  We were not able to make it over to the events at the site in the morning, but it was a neat opportunity to discuss it with the kids.  

  We rode in to Federal Station and walked down to the mall to take in the sights and check out a few monuments.

 After taking a quick look around on the mall, the kids decided that the Museum of Natural History was the first thing on the agenda.  It has been updated enormously since Michael and I visited 15 years ago - I remembered a bunch of musty old exhibits that had been the same for decades.  With a few small exceptions, just about every exhibit has been redone to be more interesting and interactive to the kids.  

 One of the first sights in the entrance is a statue from Easter Island.  The kids recognized it from the second Night at the Museum movie.  After making it through the area of shops and cafes, we reached some of the main rooms, which looked a little more familiar to me.  The first exhibits we explored show many different animals in their habitats.  The many variety of animals on display were a huge hit with the kids.   

  This week also marked the start of school for the kids.  Their video classes through Adobe Connect were set for regularly scheduled times, so after downloading the app for Adobe Connect to my phone, we could just grab a set of headphones and plug them in for class whenever it was time.  Sissy was the first one to have a class, so she just grabbed a bench closest to the exhibit and sat down to listen.  After her class was over, we made our way through a few more exhibits, and then it was time for Bubba's class.

  One of the exhibits both of the kids really enjoyed in the Hall of Human Origins was a newer exhibit about the human population on the planet, and the impacts of people on the earth through the use of resources, the spread of diseases and more.  It featured an interactive touch screen game where 3 different players could make decisions as the ruler of Xlandia, Ylandia or Zlandia.  The decisions would impact the other players and their countries, and the goal was to keep the health, happiness, wealth and social stability for your land all in the green zone.  While some of the questions and answers were based on some suspect "science", the big picture that the kids took away was that every choice you make affects others, and sometimes there is no great answer - all of them may affect something in a negative way, so you have to balance all of those things out when you make a decision.  I think it helped them to see that not everything is black and white - solutions to difficult problems are not always obvious and easy.

  While the kids were finishing up classes, we bought tickets to the live butterfly exhibit.  Tickets were $6 for adults and $5 for kids.  Tickets were sold for a specific time, and a new group was allowed into the exhibit every 15 minutes.  We headed in and discovered you could walk through at your own pace.  I think we stayed in there for about an hour - it was a beautiful flower garden filled with butterflies of all shapes and sizes.  Most of the guests seemed to spend only a few minutes walking through, which seemed like a waste of the cost of admission.  If you sat still for a while, you saw so many different details that weren't obvious at first.  A couple of volunteers were available to answer questions, and of course the kids had plenty.

   Bubba, ever the scientist, asked several questions about whether there were any caterpillars, and the docent told him emphatically that there were no caterpillars, because the butterflies come from all over the world and the laws pertaining to the import of the butterflies are very strict since the caterpillars can decimate certain kinds of plants or crops.  After looking very closely at a plant with holes in the leaves, he turned back to the docent and asked, "Then what is this?"  Of course with his eagle eye, after being told there were no caterpillars he managed to spot a tiny one.  The docent rushed over to take a look, and after telling him that it probably had come in with the plants rather than the butterflies, she proceeded to grab it between her thumb and pointer finger, and squish it to bits!  I was startled, to say the least!

  After we finally exited the Butterfly Pavilion, we headed through the bug exhibit just in time to hold a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach before he was put up for the day.  I held him, and we managed to talk Michael into holding him, but the kids weren't too keen on it.  I think that's the first bug I've ever seen that Bubba didn't want to touch.

  We passed by a room, I believe it was called the Discovery Room, and learned that it was full of hands-on activities for kids.  I enjoyed a long chat with a scientist who was working with the kids while they explored bones, fossils, eggs, rocks and all sorts of other items they could touch and handle.  The room was only open until 5pm, so we stayed until it closed.

  By this point, we'd pretty much given up on going to any other museums later in the day - we'd already spent hours, there was a ton more to see, and the kids were having a good time and learning things.  We tried to pick up the pace so we could see everything, but I'm sure we missed quite a bit.  We spent the last couple of hours trying to see all of the gems, crystals, rocks, meteorites, minerals and more.  The kids both collect rocks, and the collection at this museum is amazingly impressive so they actually wanted to see them all.

  Sissy REALLY wanted to see the Hope Diamond.  She wasn't disappointed, but her brother managed a decent photobomb.

  This one was a giant piece of meteorite.

  We had just enough time to hit some of the gift shops before the museum closed.  The kids especially liked the gift shop with rocks and crystals, and they picked up a few new items for their collections.  We were all tired and hungry, so after taking the metro back to the car, I decided to take everybody to one of my favorite old restaurants in Springfield, Virginia - Mike's American Grill.  It's just as good as I remembered, and that was a unanimous conclusion.  The little fried bread rolls they used to call "Ozzy Rolls" are still delicious, and after telling the waitress we'd come 1500 miles for my family to try them, she kept them coming as fast as we could eat them.  It was the perfect cap on a good day!

 

Catching Up!

  Happy Thanksgiving!  We've been home from traveling for over a month, closer to two months, truth be told.  After 36 states in two months, we had quite a bit of catching up to do on the home front.  I'm finally getting to a point where I have the time and energy to sort through thousands of photos and complete the blog posts I started as we traveled.  I learned on the second portion of our trip that it's really hard to update a blog while camping in the middle of nowhere! 
  I wrote about many of our stops along the way, and have been wading through the process of finding the correct pictures to include from my camera, Michael's camera, our phones and more.  Many more posts will be uploaded in the coming days, so thanks for reading thus far, and I hope you enjoy the rest! 

 

Big Schloss, VA and WV

  One of my favorite hiking trails and camping area in Virginia is right on the border with West Virginia.  Located in the George Washington National Forest, the Big Schloss trail begins near campsite #9 of the Wolf Gap Recreation Area camping.  It's a free campground with restroom facilities, though the additional water pumps outside the restroom are currently not functioning due to vandalism.  I climbed this trail several times as a child, and the view from the top has always stood out in my memory.  One of the kids' goals as we travel is to try to see every state, so we made the 10 mile drive off of Hwy 81 near Woodstock to see this spot and the views over Virginia and West Virginia.  

  We headed up the trail slowly, not entirely sure that we would climb all the 2.2 miles to the top, since Michael and I were still quite sore from our Spartan Race.  The first part of the trail is the Mill Mountain Trail, which climbs up to the ridge of Mill Mountain.  This part of the climb is the steepest, and I never seem to remember exactly how steep it is - it always seems like it goes on forever.

  The climb is worth it, because when you emerge on the ridge, you begin hiking along the state line between Virginia and West Virginia, with glimpses of the beautiful scenery through the trees on both sides.

 In the photo below, Virginia is on the right side of the trail, and West Virginia on the left. 

  At the first large break in the trees, we stopped to get a photo with the mountains of Virginia spread out in the background.  

  The trail continues along the ridge for a mile or more, with some rocky areas along the way.  The vegetation was more overgrown on this visit than I have ever seen it, which made for a narrow trail through the wildflowers at some points, and opened up into some small meadows at others.  We saw quite a few insects, and more millipedes than I have ever seen in one place.

  After hiking along the ridge, we finally came to the turn where we depart from Mill Mountain Trail and head up to the top of Big Schloss.  Of course, this meant more uphill on tired legs, but once we were this close we weren't going to turn back without making it to the top.

  After climbing past the first few sections of rocky outcropping, we came to bridge that allows you to safely cross onto the main rock formation that is Big Schloss.  When you see the bridge, you can't help but wonder how anyone managed to carry the materials and heavy beams up the trail to reach that point - there isn't an easy way in!  The kids played troll before we crossed over.

  Once you reach Big Schloss, you are just on the Virginia side of the state line, but the views give you a panoramic look across Virginia and West Virginia.  I loved climbing around on the rocks when I when I was younger, and even though the kids were tired of hiking when we reached the top, their energy and excitement suddenly returned as they explored the rocks.  We watched them closely because it's a long way down, as you can see from this angle. 

  Here are a few pictures that show the West Virginia side behind us.

  This shot below shows the ridge along Mill Mountain, the route we hiked up to the rocks.  That ridge is the state line, so to the right of the ridge is West Virginia, and to the left is Virginia.

  This is some of the view on the Virginia side.

  Michael took this panoramic shot that shows us from the ridge all the way around the West Virginia side. 

   We all wanted to stay and enjoy the view for longer, but we had more driving to do, so we headed back down the trail to the car.  We stopped for one more troll/cave monster photo on the way back down.

  I noticed as we came down the trail that the leaves were just beginning to turn red on some of the trees.  (It was much easier to enjoy the views in the woods on the way down, since I wasn't huffing and puffing like I did on the way up!)

  The total hike was about 4.5 miles and took us about 3 hours.  If we'd been thinking more clearly, we would have packed a picnic lunch and carried it up to the rocks along with more bottled water - it's a great place for a picnic.  We were driving to the Washington, D.C. area after leaving Big Schloss, which took us up Hwy 81 to Strasburg to I-66.  At exit 13 from I-66 is one of my favorite places - The Apple House.  With a selection of local wines, apple ciders, hot sauces, unique gifts and the best apple cinnamon doughnuts I've ever tasted, this is a required stop in our family if we are anywhere near the vicinity.  I've been known to drive miles out of my way to include this stop in my route.  ;-)  The doughnuts are best fresh, but a few seconds in the microwave warms them back up nicely!

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