Day of Capitals

Today, we travelled to Dover, Delaware to visit the state capital. Delaware calls their statehouse the Legislative Hall. Here is a picture of Lynn in front of the Legislative Hall.

  And here is the House of Representatives Chamber as seen from the Gallery.

This is the Senate Chamber.

While on the tour, we discovered several facts. Did you know that Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States thus becoming the first state in the American Union? That occurred on December 7, 1787.

 

Delaware had 3 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Next,we drove to Annapolis, Maryland and toured their Capital which at one time served as the U.S. capital in 1783, 1784. See the sign for details.

Here is the Maryland State House building.

This is the Senate Chamber.

and here is the House Chamber.

 It was in this building that George Washington resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army in this very room, the Old Senate Chamber on December 23, 1783.

Here is the Government House (Governer's Residence)

We were going to visit the Navel Academy at Annapolis also but ran out of time so we need to come back later in the week.

Father's Day

Today is Father's Day and Lynn suggested we go out for breakfast. We drove about 9 miles into Bethesda to The Original Pancake House, one of my favorite places for breakfast. Lynn introduced me to this chain more than 20 years ago while we were dating. They have a restaurant in Anahiem, CA in an old house and we used to go there a couple of times a month. We haven't been to one in over a year and it was a real treat. After breakfast, we drove to the University of Maryland College Park Metro station where parking is free on weekends and took the subway to the Mall and walked to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History where we spent the day. We saw the Hope Diamond, a large, 45.52 carats, deep-blue diamond, there. When we returned home, Lynn fixed a nice buffalo steak on the grill. While at the museum, I got a call from my daughter Wendy, wishing me a Happy Father's Day. All in all, a great day.

Visit Mount Vernon

This morning, we decided to drive to Mount Vernon, home of George Washington.

Lynn and I have both been there before but in my case, it was 1972 and Lynn was even further back. Neither of us remembered too much about the place other then the back porch overlooking the Potomac.
The estate is around 500 acres and includes the farm. We very much enjoyed the visit and also took a 45 minute cruise on the river. There is a museum and we had lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn, just steps from the estate. All in all, a very enjoyable day.

Return to Washington D.C.

With our Tracks to Adventure "Old South" trip over, we said goodby to our wagonmasters, Ken and Wanda Harris this morning and drove the 86 miles from Gettysburg, PA back to Cherry Hill Park in College Park, MD where we will spend the next 10 nights. There is so much to see in our nations capital that we decided to come back and try to at least hit the highlights. We did laundry this afternoon and then went to Costco for some shopping and gas, followed by dinner at a Korean place. It was expensive and we did not enjoy the food at all. Bad choice. When we returned to the park, we watched a movie they were showing on the outside screen and then turned in for the night. It has been very hot and humid so we are sleeping with the air conditioning running. We much prefer having the windows open at night, but with lows about 75 degrees and humid, it is just to hot.
More tomorrow.

Friends Visit

This morning, we woke up to another beautiful day. Clear skies and temperatures in the low 70’s were predicted. We spent the morning doing more light housework, arranging the furniture to accommodate our guests and putting out the extra entry step and welcome mat.

Lynn’s friends arrived about 11:00AM and drove right by our location. A very short time later, they were back and we got them parked. There was lots of hugging and kissing as we greeted each other and much ooh’ing and aah’ing about how beautiful they thought our coach was and they took a few pictures of the exterior. Then we went inside to visit.

(L to R) Bertie, Joan, Juliet, Ana and Lynn

 

Lynn and I worked in the back office of the Broadway Stores during the 70’s, 80’s and half way through the 90’s when they went out of business. These friends all worked there too so while they were real tight with Lynn, I knew them also. There were six of them that got together to celebrate birthdays, etc. I used to arrange a reunion once a year of all the Broadway folks. We had anywhere from about 50 to over 120 folks show up each year. It was shortly after our 10th reunion when Lynn and I sold our home; bought the motor home and moved away from California to begin our gypsy lifestyle. Since then, we haven’t seen each other very often.

The ladies got a tour of our home and we had a nice long visit. Lynn fixed a chicken and pasta salad for lunch and we drank coffee and tea and had a great time.

Here, I am added to the picture.

Re-Union Ends; We Move To A New Location

Well, we went for breakfast at 7:00 this morning and after many hugs and well wishes for safe travels, we all went our separate ways.

Lynn and I hung around until mid-morning because we only had about an hours drive. We finally left around 10:30AM and headed west on I-10 to Banning and then up the hill on CA-243 toward Idyllwild. About 9 miles up the very narrow, winding road, we turned right on Poppet Flat Road and arrived at Silent Valley Resort. This is a very nice RV resort at about 3500 Ft. elevation. It is much cooler here than the sea level valley we just left. We will be here for 9 nights and then will head to Mesa, AZ on Mother's Day.

Tomorrow, Lynn is having several of her friends from the LA/Orange County area's come up to see the coach, visit and have lunch. This evening, we ate dinner in the restaurant here at the resort. We are catching up on recorded TV shows and emails we didn't have time for during the re-union.

Last Night of Track's Re-Union

Well, last night we had wind gusts of 60MPH. They have subsided this morning but are still quite strong. Today started with breakfast from 7:30AM to 9:00AM. After breakfast, Lynn went shopping and was only gone a half hour. Then I went to Wal*Mart to pick up some medication I had just run out of and I was back in about a half hour too. It was real windy out but in the campground, it wasn't as bad.

From 11:00AM until 12:30PM we had wagon master mini-reunions where a bunch of food is served and you can talk to the different wagon masters about the different tour's offered.

From 2:00PM until 4:00PM was the trade show where most folks signed up for tours. I understand it was very successful for Track's. Lynn and I didn't sign up for anything but will get a special deal on next springs re-union. At that time we will decide which (if any) tours we will do in 2011 and/or 2012.

Tonight, dinner was served from 5:30PM to 6:30PM and then at 7:00PM we had more entertainment. It started with some soft shoe and vaudeville style routines and then we had music from the 20's, 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's with lots of dancing again. Tomorrow, from 7:00AM to 9:00AM will be the farewell breakfast and then we will get ready to move to Silent Valley, between Banning and Idyllwild. We will be there until Mother's Day when we head for Mesa, AZ.

This afternoon, between the trade show and dinner, Lynn managed to snap off the power to her laptop, where it enters the laptop so I had to make a quick run to Best Buy to get a new power supply for her. That is the second power supply in 3 months. I hope she figures out what she is doing wrong soon.