Yesterday we were up and out early, riding the Metro train back into Washington D.C. for more sightseeing. We had a great time, but playing tourist is darned hard work! After two days in a row, we are worn out!

We started the day by visiting the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where the nation’s money is printed. We saw displays on the history of currency, and a took a free tour that was very interesting.

Being an old newspaper man, I’ve spent a lot of time in print shops over the years. It’s one thing to watch newspapers rolling off a press, and something else entirely to watch money being churned out. But the pressmen seemed like pressmen in every shop I’ve been in, and not at all impressed that they were printing huge sums of money every day.

No photographs are allowed during the tour, but we could take pictures in the lobby and in the gift shop after the tour. Here is a stack of $1millon in $10 bills! That’s a lot of money!

You can even buy some shredded money to take home with you. I wonder how long it would take to paste this all back together again?

They also have a tall tube of shredded $100 bills and you can see how much money it would take to match your height. According to this, Miss Terry is about $1,491,000 tall, but I wouldn’t take a thousand times that for her!

Since I couldn’t convince the folks at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to give me any samples, we left and stopped in at the U.S. Forest Service headquarters, where we met this furry fellow.

We toured the Museum of American History during our last visit to Washington, but we couldn’t resist popping back in for a while, since we’re big history nuts. But I’ll save that for another day.

It started to rain, but we didn’t let that stop us as we walked several blocks to the National Museum of the American Indian. This was another very impressive place!

There were four floors of galleries devoted to Native American history, culture and folklore. Displays included everything from sculptures and artwork, to this beautifully beaded cradleboard.

There were exhibits on every major American Indian tribe, on Indian mythology, and on how today’s Indians live in the modern world but hold onto their traditional values and culture.

We left the museum about 4 p.m. and caught the Metro back to the College Park station, then took the bus to Cherry Hill Park. We timed it just right, because we only had about a two minute wait for the train, and the bus was waiting for us when we got off the train, so we were back at the campground by 5 p.m.

The weather reports are for heavy rains today, with as much as four inches predicted within the next 24 hours. The rain is supposed to be accompanied by strong winds; the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole. If it’s going to be that nasty, we’ll probably batten down the hatches and just sit tight today. Besides, after two hard days of playing tourist, we need a break!

Thought For The Day – I’m not a complete idiot, some parts are missing.

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Yesterday, we toured two great museums in Washington D.C., the Newseum and the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Both were excellent, and I highly recommend both to anybody who has not visited them yet.

The bus picked us up at Cherry Hill Park and took us to the Metro station, where we rode the Green Line train into Washington. It was less than an hour from the time we got on the bus until we were walking on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Metro is fast and easy to use, the trains are very clean, and every line is color coded and keyed to free maps available everywhere to help you get around.

The Newseum is devoted to the history of news gathering and reporting, from the earliest town criers to the first printed handbills, the evolution of newspapers, television and radio, and new technology such as online news sources and blogging.

From the Newseum’s observation deck, we had a great view of the U.S. Capitol Building, and the Federal Trade Commission Building, as well as other Washington landmarks.

The museum’s seven floors of galleries include permanent and changing exhibits of major news stories, including several graffiti covered sections of the Berlin Wall, extensive video and print coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, and studios where visitors can try their hand at broadcasting the news.

There is even a Bell news helicopter hanging from the ceiling!

The G-Men and Journalists exhibit includes such rare items as John Dillinger’s death mask, the Unabomber’s cabin, and the electric chair Lindberg baby kidnapper Bruno Hauptmann was executed in.

We spent several hours at the Newseum, and could have easily spent all day, but we still had more to see and do.

Our next stop was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and it was one of the most moving experiences we have ever had. The Newseum was a bright and overall uplifting place, but nobody is smiling when they tour the Holocaust Museum, because there is nothing to smile about there. Frankly, it’s a really sad and depressing place. But everybody should see it, if for no other reason than to honor those who perished under Nazi rule, and to be sure that it never happens again.

Photography is not allowed in the museum, but they did allow me to download this photo of the  gate museum visitors pass under, a cast taken from the original entrance to the Auschwitz death camp, inscribed with the ironic phrase Arbeit Macht Frei, German for Work Makes One Free.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Holocaust Museum, and we saw a lot of tears in the eyes of people seeing the horror that man can bring upon his own kind.

When the museum closed, we walked down to the World War II Memorial, which was still under construction during our last visit to Washington. My dad and several of my uncles served during that war, and one of my mother’s brother’s died fighting in North Africa, so I appreciate this memorial to their service and sacrifice.

It was a gray, cloudy day, but we managed to get a few decent photos of the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool.

It was a busy day, and by the time we rode the Metro and bus back to College Park, had dinner, and got back to our motorhome at Cherry Hill Park, there was just time to download our digital photos, write this blog post, and get ready for bed. Today we plan to do more sightseeing, gathering stories for the next issue of the Gypsy Journal.

Thought For The Day – Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone.

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Our plans to play tourist in Washington, D.C. were rained out yesterday. It started raining just after midnight and came down all day long. Not just a drizzle, but a hard, pounding rain that was not fit for man nor beast. So we spent the day in the motorhome at Cherry Hill Park, watching TV, cruising the internet, and being lazy.

I’m pleased that the Winegard Trav’ler automatic rooftop TV dish we had installed on our motorhome last December doesn’t suffer from rain fade nearly as much as the old tripod mounted dish we used to use. I don’t know if that is because the dish is bigger than the old one, but whatever the reason, it sure is an improvement.

A blog reader wrote yesterday to ask me about rooftop dishes, and if there are any major differences between DirecTV or Dish Network. We had DirecTV in our home and during our first few years on the road, before switching to Dish Network. I believe that the programming choices and prices are about the same overall, though personally the Dish support folks have been just a tiny bit more helpful, in my opinion.

I’m curious, what type of antenna do you use for TV reception, and do you subscribe to Dish or DirecTV, rely on over the air programming, campground cable TV, or?

We had a couple of orders to mail out, so about 4 p.m. we left the campground and ran to the post office, then stopped at Home Depot to look for some cabinet latches to replace a couple of broken ones on our kitchen drawers. No luck there, so I guess I’ll have to order original equipment replacements from Lichtsinn, a great Winnebago repair shop and parts supplier in Forest City, Iowa. Winnebago will sell you replacement parts if you go to their service facility in Forest City, but otherwise you have to order from a dealer. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea how or why any company makes the decisions they do.

Back at the motorhome, it was still raining, so we did the same thing we had done all day. It seemed a perfect day for a nap, so I stretched out on the couch and did just that for a while. I woke up in time for dinner, but I’d have been just as happy snoring away until morning. Rainy days make for good sleeping.

Today the weather is supposed to be a little better, and we hope to spend the day touring the Newseum and whatever else we can squeeze in. We covered most of the major monuments and a couple of the Smithsonian museums during our last visit to Washington, so this trip we want to get to some of the attractions we missed the first time around.

Thought For The Day – If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. If life gives you tomatoes, make Bloody Marys.

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Yesterday was another short driving day for us, just 77 miles! I could get used to this laid back lifestyle!

We left Round Top Campground in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania just before 10 a.m. , got on U.S. Highway 15 and followed it south to Frederick, Maryland. U.S. 15 is a nice, divided four lane highway that crosses through some very pretty country. At Frederick, we picked up Interstate 270 and followed it about 30 miles to Interstate 495, better known as the Beltway around the Washington, D.C. area.

I had hoped that on a Sunday morning, traffic wouldn’t be too bad, but I was wrong. It got noticeably busier from Frederick south, and as soon as we got onto the Beltway, it was petty much bumper to bumper all the way to College Park, a distance of about 9 miles. We got off in College Park, and then had just over a mile of surface streets to drive before we arrived at Cherry Hill Park, less than 90 minutes after we hit the road. Did I say I could get used to this laid back lifestyle?

Here is our Winnebago in our site at Cherry Hill, our home for the next week while we tour Washington.

Cherry Hill is the most expensive RV park we’ve ever stayed in, at $58 a night (less 10% discount for FMCA members), for a back-in, full hookup 50 amp RV site with cable TV. But, I think it’s the best location for visiting Washington. We can buy tickets for the Metro in the park office, and a city bus comes through every half hour and delivers us right to the station.

We know folks who stay at outlying county parks, private campgrounds, and Elks and Moose lodges, then drive to a Metro station and park there, but for us, the convenience is well worth the extra cost. I know my motorhome and van are in a secure place, and all I have to do is get on the bus and go.

Once we were hooked up and settled in, we drove to a nearby Five Guys for lunch, and then went in search of a Best Buy to get a spare battery for my Olympus digital camera. The GPS took us several miles to Wheaton, Maryland, and then when we returned to College Park, we saw a Best Buy just down the road from the campground! Terry got a chuckle out of that.

We stopped at a grocery store for a couple of items, then came back to the campground and spent the rest of the day at home, just relaxing before we start playing tourist again today.

We weren’t hungry when dinnertime rolled around, but about 7:30 p.m. we wanted a treat, so we walked across the road to the campground’s Conference Center, which includes a TV room, pool, hot tub, laundry, and cafe. We ordered ice cream sundaes, and were shocked at how big they were. This is a “one scoop” sundae!

Terry originally ordered a two scoop sundae, but had to cancel that after she saw how big it was! Even so, there was no way I could finish mine. It must have had a pint of ice cream in it, along with whipped cream, nuts, cherries, and sprinkles. And then we were shocked at the price – just $3.80 for two of these monster desserts!

I had several blog comments and e-mails from people wanting to see me in my new hats, so here you go. But don’t blame me if your kids get born cross eyed or something!

Just like Gettysburg, there is so much to see and do here that we know we can only scratch the surface this trip. But we’re looking forward to visiting several of the museums and monuments we missed on our last visit. It’s going to be a fun week!

Thought For The Day – I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days get together and gang up on me all at once.

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There is so much to see here in Gettysburg that it would take weeks to cover it all. We don’t have weeks, so yesterday we crammed as much time in playing tourist as we could.

We toured the battlefield during our previous visit a few years ago, so yesterday we spent several hours at the Visitor Center at Gettysburg National Military Park. Our first stop was the theater, where we watched the film “A New Birth of Freedom“, narrated by Morgan Freeman. It explained the reasons behind the Civil War and how our nation came to be divided.

During our previous visit, we did not see the Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama, and now that we have, I suggest everybody include ii in their next visit here. Created in 1883, the Cyclorama is a 360° cylindrical painting that depicts some of the fiercest fighting during the Civil War battle. Visitors stand on a platform surrounded by the painting, while lights, sounds, and special effects tell the story of what happened here. It is a fabulous experience!

Then we toured the museum at the Visitor center, where they have an impressive collection of weapons, artifacts, and stories about the battle. I’m a gun guy, so I enjoyed seeing all of the neat old firearms. But what especially intrigued me were the stories of the men on both sides, who fought and died here, as well as those of the civilians who were caught in the crossfire, and then left to clean up the terrible destruction that followed in its wake, as they tried to rebuild their shattered town and lives.

Leaving the Visitor Center, we drove out through the battlefield, where we stopped to admire several of the statues and monuments. One of the largest and best known is the Pennsylvania State Memorial, which will be 100 years old tomorrow. The monument displays the names of over 34,000 Union Army soldiers who were at Gettysburg. Stars beside the names honor those who were killed in the fighting.

This statue honors the 8th Pennsylvania Cavalry, which served with distinction during the battle.

This monument honors the 1st Minnesota Infantry. During the worst of the battle, they were ordered to stop the flood of Confederates pouring through a gap in the Union lines. Outnumbered 4 to 1, they made a desperate bayonet charge into the face of the enemy, and managed to stall their advance long enough for reinforcements to arrive and fill the hole in the Union defenses. The regiment paid a horrific price; out of the 262 men who made the charge, only 47 escaped death or injury.

Driving into town, we spent some time wandering down the sidewalks, just soaking up all of the history like a couple of sponges. This is a very special place to me, and I just feel a strong attraction to the old homes, the narrow streets, and the surrounding countryside.

Then we drove out to Sach’s Bridge, through which much of the Confederate Army retreated after the battle. Many claim that the bridge is one of the most haunted places in America. I’ll have a feature story on the bridge in the next issue of the Gypsy Journal.

For a panoramic view of the battlefield and surrounding countryside, Miss Terry climbed this observation tower, which has 111 steps to the top. She got some great pictures, but I stayed down on the ground, waiting to catch her if she decided to jump!

Back at Round Top Campground, we spent some time visiting with manager Carrie Freeman, and I never pass up an opportunity to take a picture of two pretty ladies at one time. Carrie is a fun person, and a bundle of energy, and we really have enjoyed getting to know her a little better. If you are planning a trip to Gettysburg, Round Top Campground is a great base to explore everything the area has to offer.

As much as we have enjoyed our brief visit to Gettysburg, today we have to leave. We have reservations at Cherry Hill Park in College Park, Maryland, and we’ll spend a week there exploring Washington, D.C. and seeing all that we can in our time there.

Bad Nick doesn’t play well with others, so while we were out touring, he stayed home and wrote a new Bad Nick Blog titled Just Clean Up The Mess! Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – Money can’t buy happiness but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

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