Thursday: One More Museum Before We Hit the Road

Thursday it was time to go home.

But first . . . breakfast in the armchair. Mmm. Cheerios!
Before we started driving, we made time for one more trek through the city. We hopped on the metro and headed toward the Smithsonian area. The closest stop came out in the courtyard of between the Ronald Reagan Int'l Trade Center and Woodrow Wilson Bldg., where we had been the night before.

We stopped to smell the roses--the giant metal roses. Not so fragrant, really.


Our destination, however, was the National Museum of American History.


We only had a few hours to make a dent in the MANY interesting museums in D. C., so we picked this one. Janet really wanted to see the exhibits on the First Ladies and Julia Child.


The entire kitchen of the famous cook is recreated there. It was an impressive sight.

After enjoying many other artifacts with this little guy...



...we went outside and watched the fountain in front of the building. It would turn on and off every few minutes. Each time the water stopped, Nathan would hold up his hands and say, "[Where did the] water go?"


Can you see that he likes the fountain more than the museum?


And can you see why we like him even more than he likes the fountain?


It was a good way to end our time in D. C. One last subway ride took us back to our car and to the long road home.

We drove, and drove, and drove. When we stopped for supper at Cracker Barrell, we used grandaddy's GPS, a regular map, and a few crayons to pick out our hotel for the night. We chose a place in Abingdon, Virginia, the oldest English-speaking settlement west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was very late when we got there, but in the morning (on Friday) it turned out to be an interesting town.

There was a metal banjo dude...


...a couple of Carlton dude's...

...and a historic theatre--the Barter Theatre. When it opened during the Great Depression, the actors would get paid in goods like ham, produce, etc. Thus, the name...

From the pictures we saw inside, it looked like they put on quite a show.

Another landmark is the Martha Washington Inn, which you can see in the background here.

When Mark's dad was asking us about the trip before we left, he mentioned that he had stayed at the Martha Washington Inn one time for the low price of $35 . . . in the 1980's!

So, just for curiosity, we asked about their rates . . . which now start at $250 per night. Ha! Reminds me of the time when I was in high school, and he gave me a $1 bill, saying "put about 3 gallons in the car, please". At the time gas was $1/gallon. But in his mind it was (for brief moment) the same price as when he was in college--33 cents/gallon!

Anyway, after a few more pics of our boy...

...we got our motor runnin', headed out on the highway, and rolled into the 'Boro later that afternoon. What a week! What a trip!

What a good God to bring our family together!

Thanks for reading about our trip. Many of you were praying for us the whole time, so we wanted to let you hear the story. It was certainly a fun episode for us!