Downtown D.C.

Here is my downtown D.C. experience. We spent two days down town. I didn't take any picutres of Monday. We spent that day inside the Smithsonians and the Holocaust museum. They were all amazing. My grandma does geneology and told me that my third great-grandpa's, John T. Slayden, confederate uniform was in the Smithsonians. I was able to find it! (well I am pretty sure it was the one. Some of the uniforms weren't labeled, but it was from his infantry) The Holocaust was really depressingly interesting. I have always had an interest in Holocaust survivors stories (don't judge) and really enjoyed hearing stories, seeing timelines, watching the videos and seeing artifacts.

My sister gave us of a tour of the monuments at night. I saw them during the day when I went on HT. They are so much prettier at night! I loved them!

Jefferson

We had a bit of a struggle getting to this one. I am glad we found the road to it. The building was awesome (I am in a roman class and this one was roman style. I was really excited about it. Roman symbols are all over D.C) and full of inspiring quotes from Jefferson.

Washington's reflection in the reflection pool.

Lincoln's reflection. I love how they face each other across the pool.

Lincoln's monument was my favorite. We started talking to the Park Ranger at the site and he was amazingly helpful. He filled us in on the symbolism behind the sculpture and building. He also talked about some myths. The main one is on the back of Lincoln's head, there is the profile of Robert E. Lee. We were able to see it. Also the statue is made out of equal amounts of material from both the North and South. The whole monument symbolizes unity and compassion. Most of you probably didn't care for an explanation of all of that, but I love the Lincoln Monument!

Tuesday daytime was spent touring more things. We did the National Archives, Supreme Court and Capitol. We walked a lot that day, but the weather was finally in our favor. (it rained monday too)

Supreme Court Building. It had really large pillars!
An important room inside the Supreme Court.

The Capitol Building. It was really big and really pretty. Lady Freedom it on the top.

We did a tour. They really don't let you see much.... I think that it for security reasons. They were a lot of men with very large guns every where. I wanted to snap one of them, but opted not to for very good reasons. What we did see was really cool. Big bucks went into this building.

Random ceiling. If you look closely enough you can spot George Washington. All of the important buildings have really extravagent ceilings.

All of this has left me feeling really Patriotic.

Philadelphia

I have to first explain our adventure to Philly. My sister is the one who drove and she has a GPS (we call her carol) Carol gets lost every once in a while. It turns out she got lost in Cherry Hill, New Jersey (one of the most dangerous cities in the US) It was a bit concerning, but we made it out alive :) Me in Cherry Hill (don't mind the travel hair action I have going on)
Philadelphia from the bridge.

The Liberty Bell!

Katie's and Brookes first taxi ride.

Independence Hall!

It was a bit cold and we were still in our church clothes...

Inside the hall. This was the room that the Declaration was signed (it was actually finished July 2nd not fourth. A random fun fact) and the Constitution was written. I was giddy with excitement being in the room. There was such a powerful feeling there. A sacred spot.

Our founding fathers had great taste in decore. Oh how I love colorful wood!

Another shot from inside the Hall.

Us and George Washington. There are statues all over the place in these parts.

I ran the Rocky stairs! It is on my bucketlist and something that was a must do while I was in Philly (who knows if I will ever make it back). We all ran up all the flights of the stairs (suprisingly). Don't mind my cheerleader looking pose at the top slash my pj bottoms. I did the circle run at the top. We all gave a shout out to Adriane while we were up there.

The statue itself.

The current city hall. I loved this building. Ridiculously pretty. It had statues of some of the Founding Fathers on top. Delightful!

Another main event was Pat's (one of the best philly cheese steak joints around). It was in a random part of town and was super crowded (a sign that it must be good)

Here is the sandwhich in all of its GLORY. The cheese is called cheesewiz and the locales have a special way of ordering (we were given the inside scoop of how to order which was nice) It was one of the most delicious sandwhiches I have ever tasted! Totally worth going out of our way for. Just thinking about it makes me a bit hungry!

Yay for philly! It was so amazing to go there. I have definitely have picked the right major. I love U.S. History!

I am officially back in Virginia. Ready to take on the D.C. area!

Boston

It was quite the trip to get to Boston. We passed through so many states, but sadly it was dark so we didn't get to witness much. I however did get to see the NYC skyline. Oh how I love that city!
We didn't get into Boston until late. We got a decent start on the day. My favorite part of traveling is the food. We ate so much yummy stuff! We started off in a local bagel shop by our hotel.

Boston's historical district begins in Boston Commons on the Freedom Trail. This was the location of the Boston Massacre. Boston Commons was so pretty.

The freedom Trail was marked with bricks and these little markers.

Old Cemetary. A lot of the founding fathers were barried here.

John Hancocks Grave. The original and the new one.

Democratic donkey. The gold thing on the ground has foot prints and says stand in opposition. Really random...

City Hall. Boston Tea party was planned here. The Declaration of Independence was read from the balcany of this church on July 18th 1776. A lot the Revolutionary meeting happened here.

Boston clam chowder from Quincy market. So delicious and fresh!

Boston skyline.

Mike's bakery in Little Italy. That was my pick. Definitely a good choice. I have come to the conclusion Utah does not have enough good bakeries. Though it is probably a good thing.......

Our trip ended at Harvard (perfect place to end). It poured (more like monsooned) the whole day. ( I think some places flooded this weekend back east) It rain like I have never seen or experience before. We were troopers though and saw all we could get to. We didn't get to see the whole trail or walk around much towards the end of the day. I was so glad I got to see what I did! Boston is amazing. I fell in LOVE and will be returning (perhaps I want live in cambrige someday) when the weather is better.

Amish Eatings

For Spring break Brookelyn and I headed back East. Our trip began bright and early.... Our flight took off at 6:10 a.m. (so perhaps we had to be up by 4 and went to bed after 1). It was not our prettiest hours (as you can see from the picture above). My sister and Katie were the ones who picked us up in Maryland (after a sixish hour flight) and we began our road trip. First stop was amish country to eat at an Amish buffet.

The Amish Buffet was out of the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. The city was called Intercourse (don't worry Virginville is the city next to it.... and yes I did buy a souvenior). The restaurant was all you can eat, family style dinning. Family style was interesting and not what I expected. They sat us at a large table, started feeding us the relishes and when a another group showed up, they sat them next to us, and then we started shared our dishes with them. It was a bit weird to ask strangers to pass the butter. Luckily for us, our table buddies were colorful locals and fun to talk to.
The food was delicious (perhaps we spent two hours eating there...I wish I was exaggerating. We got there at 4 and didn't leave until after 6). They had really delicious homemade food. We started with bread, apple sauce, pickled vegetable (they call it chow chow) and pickled cabbage. After that we were promptly brought the main meal. It consisted of three meats (fried chicken, fish, and ham) , corn, potatoes, tomatoes and browned egg noodles (my favorite).
The best part of the meal was the chocolate milk. About half way through the meal we were offered chocolate milk by the waitress. It was the best chocolate milk I have ever tasted in my life!!! Not sure what they feed their cows to make the milk so divine. They chocolate was total worth the $20 cost of the buffet.
To top it all off the meal ended with home made ice cream, pies, pudding and jello. The Amish sure know how to eat delicious food.

My favorite part of the drive was the farm houses ( I bought a book about the amish farm houses for future house building needs). There are so many beautiful houses... I wanted to own all of them. So pretty!

Next will be Boston!

Turquoise Love

Some day I will have a kitchen that looks similar to these....I love turquiose cabinets!