History Lesson: Highs and Lows

Tuesday, after our luxurious night at Day's Inn, we headed into Richmond, Virginia to visit the most beautiful amusement park in the world, Busch Gardens.

A cheeseburger stop proved to be profitable, because we found a coupon on the McDonald's bag for $12 off a child's admission. Well, the young guy at the gate applied this coupon to all of us, saving us the exact amount of money we'd spent on the motel the previous night. We knew immediately that this was going to be a good day! This was confirmed when we were passing through the "no food allowed" bag check with our pack stuffed full of a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, and apples, and somehow the girl checking didn't even notice that all we had in our backpack was food.

And a good day it was! We traversed through Ireland, Italy, France, England, Scotland and Germany riding monster roller coasters. Throughout the day, we managed to ride all 5--The Griffen (a straight down drop off) and Apollo's Chariot (took our breath away...also broke Fabio's nose a few years ago) were the unanimous favorites.

We had our picture taken dressed like Southern Belles. It was good old-fashioned dress up and we loved it, although we all felt like we didn't get sufficient primping time, and the actual photo was met by a few harsh reviews by it's models.

In the evening, we wandered into an aerobatic show and although we'd gotten there late, somehow there were 5 empty seats in the front row. We were smitten by the talent and exuberance, and were so excited afterwards that we all wanted to dance. Busch Gardens set off a fireworks show, and Steff had a fit of patriotism.

We stayed until the park closed at 11, and were in such high spirits that we were utterly unfazed at having to spend the night in the van. We happened into a convenience store with a big, clean bathroom complete with pictures, flowers and a table (at a Texaco?) and all got ready for the night. Then we headed off to pick out a perfect parking lot to sleep for the night.

Without much debate, we settled on a nice little cove in the back parking lot of an Italian restaurant. Still giddy and in high spirits we each found our 3x3 foot spot to sleep in and settled down for the night. As expected, it wasn't the best sleep not only due to the cramped quarters but by the train we had unknowingly parked by that roared and clanked on the tracks every few hours. We knew that this was the beginning of a serious low..

We all woke up with cramped necks and sore bones. Well, everyone except for Katie who upon waking exclaimed, "Wow! I had a woonderful sleep!" We slowly roused our beaten bodies, discussing our unrest when suddenly a car piled full of lawn care men pulled into our back parking lot. They had a good laugh at us, and we took off to get ready for the day in our beloved Texaco bathroom.

We got looking so cute that the old souvenir shop man told us we looked really nice. We told him "thanks! we just spent the night in a parking lot," to which he replied "you're all soundin' like a bunch of little tramps, get on out of here." We think he was joking.

After a nourishing pancake and omelet breakfast at Mama Steve's (a high), we drove to the Virginia Holocaust Museum (a low). We were in there for two hours, and were all down, down, down by the time we left, overloaded with the horrors of humanity. We cheered up with ice cream from McDonalds, and then drove to Washington D.C.

We arrived in early evening. David Germroth had generously offered up his office/townhouse for us to stay in while in Washington. We were so excited to have the comfort of a real, four-walled, roofed home to stay in!

Albert, from Hawaii, lived on the 3rd floor, and greeted us with much aloha. He fed us gourmet pizza and showed us the magnificent Lincoln Memorial and drove us around town. Albert had to leave at 6 a.m. the next morning, so we said our goodbyes and headed off to bed.

July 3rd, we spent ALL DAY walking. We made stops at the Supreme Court, Library of Congress, the Treasury department, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, and ended at the White House. Our high was stopping to play in a park fountain, and sitting for an hour at Starbucks. Our low was so many mean cars honking, the hot sun blazing down on us, and the sea tourists (of which we did not consider ourselves a part of). We discovered this day that we are not history buffs, but get our kicks from dressing in coordinated outfits. Today, we looked like a rainbow. (we didn't do it on purpose, and were slightly embarrassed)

Beyond weary, we rode the subway home (first time for some), and watched Bridezilla and Baby Borrowers late into the night.

Fourth of July was quickly upon us. Once again, we spent the morning coordinating our red, white, and blue outfits, and hit the town armed with serious patriotism. We visited a garden, the Smithsonian of American Indians, and the Smithsonian of Air and Space. It started to rain, so we headed home for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Steff proceeded to first break the television (deprogrammed it so we had no channels), then put our computer privileges in jeopardy when it mysteriously stopped working in her care. This prompted us to take some much needed quiet time, reading, sulking (Molly was devestated to not have t.v.), and napping.

As darkness fell, we headed out into our nation's capitol to catch the firework show. Then came home and had ice cream and grilled cheese sandwiches.

This morning (ok, we lied. it's afternoon. early afternoon.) we are about to go through Amish country, with our sights set on New York! SEE NEW PHOTOS. XXXXXOOOOO