Rocks, Wood, and More Scrub

Alright so the reason that I didn't blog for Tuesday of this week was because we did absolutely nothing, saw absolutely nothing, and heard absolutely nothing worth telling you. Except.......... SCRUB! -.- That's right, since we're back in New Mexico/ Arizona, it scrub again, as far as the eye can see.

WEDNESDAY of this week was a little more interesting. We went to the Petrified Forest National Park and saw some dead trees! It was actually much cooler than that sounds. Supposedly, 200 million years ago, Arizona was a jungle. O.o Crazy, I know. Anyways, all of the trees fell into a river and were buried deep beneath the river bed for millions of years. The minerals (quartz and semi-precious stones) seeped into the logs and displaced all the wood. Basically, the trees got buried and turned into colorful stone. It was really cool! The trees are huge in some places and they are just lying on the ground everywhere. Let me take this chance to mention that we did NOT pick up any petrified wood. The minimum fine was $325. I don't really think a peice of rock/wood is worth $325+, do you? Thursday we will be going to the Grand Canyon. Ironic really. We boat near it constantly, have driven over it several times, and are in the vicinity often but have never actually gone TO the Grand Canyon for the purpose of going THERE. Better now than never I suppose...

p.s. I'll see you all soon! We will be back this Sunday! Technically, we could get back Saturday if we drove 500 miles but we're 99.9% sure that we'll just get back Sunday evening. Yay!!!

Texas x2

Sunday of this week we headed over to Plano, Texas to the Scheuermann home. Soowan, Nancy, and their kids Micah and Amanda were incredibly hospitable and made us dinner. (Mrs. Scheuermann, your dessert was delicious and tell Mr. Scheuermann that his steaks were too!) We spent the night in their driveway and left too soon at about 10 o'clock. All of Monday we drove until we reached Amarillo, Texas. For dinner we went to this place with 72ounce steaks. If you can finish one in an hour, your dinner is free. Needless to say, none of us tried it! Tuesday we will be heading over to New Mexico!

Memphis Minus the Rock n' Roll

This Saturday we drove to Graceland, that is, Memphis. On our way, however, we stopped at a Tennessee pearl farm. Who new that they produce pearls in Tennessee? Anyways, it was actually really interesting! To 'grow' pearls, they insert a peice of shell into a mollusk (not just a clam!) and wait up to five years for it to build up a coating around it. This somethimes works, sometimes it dosen't. Jess and I each got a string of pearls and Mum got a lovely necklace and earring set. Zach, quite uninterested in jewelry, bought beef jerky.

When we arrived in Memphis we looked into going to Graceland. (Graceland is the home that Elvis built for his parents and where he is buried.) We quickly realized that none of us had liked Elvis much anyways when we saw ticket prices! We decided instead to go on a tour of the Gibson guitar factory. We got there only to  find they were sold out! Of course, that didn't phase dad TOO much by the time he realized that there were guitars lining the walls. He, also of course, found one that he really liked. (I liked it too but I know nothing of guitars so my opinion does not count.) The price tag however, was not pretty so it was swiftly decided that he did NOT need a guitar #5. In the evening, we went to go see "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D". Some 3D movies are really lame but this one was actually executed nicely. It was pretty well done. When we got back to the car, we noticed that someone had inscribed a lovely message on the window of our utterly filthy vehicle. (It is insanely, unbelievably, horrifically, dirty!) We decided that now would be a good time to get ourselves over to a carwash. We have the bike rack and bike stuck to the end of the car and it seems as though those don't agree very well with car washes. The long water/soap arm thing is going around the car and then it stops. We all did the "Uh oh". Dad went out to look at it and it seemed as though it had jammed itself against the rack! We tried to fix it to no avail. We had to drive back to the motorhome with a half wet car! (It did NOT clean that side, by the way.) Mum said they'd put the cops after us for breaking their carwash but, we don't have license plates on the car yet anyways! However, we did pay with a credit card... :P I'd tell you what we're doing tomorrow but... I don't know yet.

A Full Day

Thursday of this week seems like the busiest we have had. For starters, we went to the Louiseville Slugger's Factory and Museum. The entrance is marked by a giant, 6 story, baseball bat! The factory tour was actually very interesting but Zach's favorite part was getting a custom engraved bat. Go figure. Everyone (minus Mum and I because our hand-eye coordination= 0) went to the indoor batting cages to test their skill with the most famous baseball bats in history. On our way out of the museum, we happened to spot the Colgate factory about a mile away. We drove by but to no avail, they don't give tours. :( Next stop on our list was the Kentucky Derby. Nothing exciting was going on so we just drove by but that is still kind of cool. Then on to Fort Knox. As you can imagine, we didn't get a tour their either! Here we come driving down the road toward the gates to our nation's wealth and we get stopped by a rather heavily armed security guard. His opening line was "Sir, are you trying to invade Fort Knox?" It was pretty funny. Once we swiftly manuevered our way back onto a public highway, we saw a sign for Mammoth Caves. We had nothing better to do so we stopped by. Unlice Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth Caves are the longest set of caves in the world and were carved out by underground streams. This means that they are pretty narrow and you have to duck quite a bit. After that, we drove onward towards Nashville, Tennessee. By chance, we decided to pay a visit to the Grand Ole Opry. We were just going to go out to dinner but Dad ran in and they had unsold tickets. If you don't know what the Grand Ole Opry is, don't worry, I didn't either. It is infact, one of the world's most famous country music venues. The perfect place to go while you're in Nashville! I didn't know anyone but one performer (I'm not all that into country music) but, supposedly there were some very famous country legends. We saw: Jeannie Seely (who looks like she wears a bad wig), Connie Smith, Mark Wills (who sang my favorite country song, 19 Something), Jimmy C. Newman (the Alligator Man), Mountain Heart (the main banjo player/lead singer only has a thumb on his left hand!), David Ball, Jean Shepard, Jesse McReynolds & the Virginia Boys, Raul Malo (who I did not like), Jim Ed Brown, Buddy Jewell (who played his fantastic new song, This Ain't Mexico), and Mandy Barnett. It was a lot of fun!

Mount Vernon and the Rode

Wednesday of this week, we went to Mount Vernon. It was the home of our nation's first president, George Washington. His house is preserved amazingly (they put fence posts in their historically accurate places!) and I must say, he had taste! There are a couple gardens, houses, stables, ect. that you can tour, as well as the main house. After you are done with the tour, there is a fantastic "Education Center" (aka interactive museum) just outside. In one of the films, they have snow fall down on you when it talks about the bitter Revoultionary winters. Besides the museum and grounds, Mount Vernon also houses his two tombs. In his last will and testament, he stated that a new tomb be constructed because the old family grave was becoming as decrepit as the bodies it housed. Several years after his death, he and his wife, Martha, were moved to the new mausoleum. After Mount Vernon we just drove some more. -.-

The People's House

Monday and Tuesday of this week were spent inside Washington, DC. 

On day one, we rode atop one of those incredibly touristy, obnoxiously red, double-decker tour buses. (Which we later found out have decapitated several people by way of low lying branches.) Fortunately for us, we had the foresight to duck beneath any of these branches and prevent out noggins from being swiped off. That would not be pretty. Anyways, we saw the incredibly tall Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, as well as Arlington National Cemetery. In complete explanation of the first- it was enormously tall. For the next- he was ginormous. (Which should be a word) And of the latter- wow. We were unable to attain tickets to get to the top of the Washington Monument but, I did get some lovely shots of it from the ground. (check out the pics page, it’s actually updated!) The Lincoln Memorial was spectacular. Dad had Zach run up the steps to the top but hopefully, this won’t mean he’s becoming the next Rocky! As for Arlington, it is exceedingly large and incredibly easy to get lost in. We tromped around for about an hour searching for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. If you have never been to the Cemetery, let me tell you a little secret, BEWARE OF THE HILLS. It was, fittingly, not originally meant as a tourist attraction but, in time, more and more people have come to pay their respects. Considering that the original plans were not drawn to accommodate the masses, it is full of hills. Mum and I conjectured that half of the grave sites must have been tourists who had keeled over from heat-stroke. Nevertheless, it was amazing. The changing of the guard was a rather interesting ceremony. A little too much gun clapping, order yelling, metered marching, high saluting, ceremonious pomp for my taste but, if that is all to show the proper respect, so be it.

Day two in DC was even better. (Ivette, if you are reading this, thank you so much! We all had a fantastic time and would like to thank you sincerely for spending the day with us. We felt truly privileged.) Before meeting up with Ivette, we saw a band shooting a music video in front of the White House. We later learned that it was Locksley. I’d never heard of them but who knows, maybe they are really good? (If any of you have heard of them let me know!) Anyways, when we met up with Ivette, she took us on a tour of the White House’s East Wing. It was incredible to think that we were in the home and work place of the leader of the greatest nation in the world. Later in the day, we went back to the White House in order to watch Mr. President take off in Marine One. (his huge helicopter) That evening, Ivette had reserved the White House bowling alley. So we got to go bowling (horridly I might add) in our own private, 2-lane alley. Pretty cool experience if you ask me. Overall, I actually prefer Washington, DC to New York City. *gasp* I love New York and its high rise buildings and street vendors but, DC has so much more history and surprisingly, a much better sky-line. Wednesday, we’re going to Mount Vernon (home of George Washington) and then driving… a long way. :) This was a very long post.

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I Give Up!

I realize that I am very, very, behind in my blogging. I have tried to catch up but I have just fallen farther and farther back and my writing has suffered for it. Therefore, I am going to stop trying and just move on. My next post will be about our time in Wahington, DC. To quickly let you all know where we visited between Philadelphia and DC, here is a list. (In Order) 1.  Mystic Harbor (fudge!) 2. Plymouth 3. Salem 4. Boston 5. Canada (Niagra Falls) 6. Hershey (yum!) 7. National Civil War Museum 8. Gettysburg