Washington DC

The spring house and stunning autumn sunset colour

The escape from New York was quick and without any significant traffic. The destination was Frederick, Maryland (pronunciation: say it really quick blurring the syllables) where we had been invited to stay on a small farm. This was owned by Tod and his wife Barry who we walked with on the Iceberg Lake Trail in Glacier National Park. They had very kindly offered us a place to stay near Washington.

Reading the Gettysburg address

To break up the driving we stopped in Gettysburg to improve our knowledge of the civil war, not hard. Stopping in town first we visited the house where Lincoln stayed the night before he gave his famous Gettysburg address and we read his famous words. To understand what happened in the days proceeding this address we went for the short drive to the National Military Park. At this point the day could have deteriorated badly. Rob had left the camera on the roof of the car for the drive, it was still there somehow! However, compared to the massive casualties experienced by both sides in the three day battle in July 1863 that changed American history it would have been a modern first world

Battlefield talk with ranger

problem. In our very limited time we managed to fit in a ranger talk titled "the third day", luckily for us she quickly summarised day one and two. The politics around the war is very interesting, however the vast detail that can be found out about the battle is just plain gruesome. It goes likes this, men have weapons that fire maximum 70-100 metres, they walk in lines towards each other and shoot. When one falls, replace with one from behind. Add multiple cannons into the mix and at times the casualty rate hit one per second for hours at a time. Luckily they tended to stop for lunch for two hours. That men were willing to sacrifice their lives so readily for what they believed in is very sobering, however this battle did change the course of American history.

The farm house

Chilled by the talk and freezing wind, we drove the short distance to Frederick and had a quick tour of Barry and Tod's farm. We certainly picked the right people to walk beside on the trails. Their farm is small at 190 acres and is more of a hobby farm. Tod has just retired this year so is spending more time with the cows which he enjoys. The setting is stunning with a lovely old farm house and lots of other buildings. There is an old spring house (1750). These were evidently built over water supplies to protect them. The barn (an old milking shed) is huge with an amazing wood working area below (with an even more amazing amount of wood) and a huge area upstairs which Barry and Tod's 5 children and thier friends used for "outside play" when the weather was bad. There were cows and horses, chickens and cats. Symi was in heaven.

Bloody Lane, Antietam. There were thousands of
casualties here in hours.

The next day we decided to delay our visit to Washington and continue the Civil War theme visiting nearby Antietam. A battle occurred here on September 4, 1862 and is the bloodiest day in America’s history. There were a staggering 22,000 casualties in one day. Our knowledge was brought up to speed quickly by visiting the museum, watching a film and listening to another ranger talk. When the ranger was young he was inspired to learn about the war when he discovered that his great, great, grandfather fought in the battle. Again the history around the battle is very interesting, the gruesome details of the battle almost too much to think about. There were no real winners here, amazingly the two Generals here (Robert Lee and George McCellan) shook hands the next day to allow a cease fire to care for injured and deal with the dead. That afternoon with Barry and Tod we walked a short section of the Appalachian Trail that passes a short distance from the farm.

On Saturday we drove the hour to Washington and without too much effort managed to park for free just north of the White House. With a coffee in hand we stood outside the White House wondering if the two men on the roof ever moved - they eventually did. Symi and Fiona wondered if they should knock on the door and see if the daughter Sasha wanted to come for a play but decided this may be taking our "find a friend stalking" to new highs (or is this lows). We then wandered down to the

Washington Monument on the Mall. Our next aim was the Air and Space Museum but we were side tracked into the Natural History Museum when we noticed there was a wildlife and wilderness photography display. The photos were amazing. Symi remains totally intrigued by nature and proceeded to take  photo of almost all the photos. Luckily we are in the digital era. After some pursuation from Symi we then visited a live butterfly display. We now have an additional collection of photos taken by our budding David Attenborough.

How many animal shots do you want to see?
Butterfly unwinding it's proboscis.

Artwork by Syrian children in refugee camps.
Symi sending a message via drawing to them.

After a quick break for lunch, with views down the Mall to the Capitol Building, we crossed the Mall to the Air and Space Museum. Wow, the history and displays in there are simply stunning. Some of what we saw: the first spaceship to orbit the earth and land on the moon, the first plane to circumnavigate the world, the first plane that flew non-stop across the USA, Amelia Earhart's plane, the Wright Brother's original plane and so it went on. Eventually Fiona and Symi dragged Rob out and we wandered up to Chinatown to get some diner before heading back to the farm for bed.

Touching a rock from the moon.

Next day we headed back to Washington to visit the free zoo. We were keen to see the Giant Panda. It was a nice day and we had a lovely time wandering around in the autumn sunshine looking at all the animals. We headed back to the farm in the afternoon and Symi had a lovely time helping Barry do some brick paving, chatting with the horses, playing soccer on the tennis court and getting a ride in the tractor. Almost as good as Crabbe Place! What a great place this farm would have been to grow up.

Our favourite animal, burrowing owl at the zoo.

Next morning, after a huge thanks to Barry and Tod we were in the car for the 640km drive back to Connecticut. Good progress can be made at times as traffic on the interstate rarely sits at the speed limit, it is common to be sitting 10-20mph over and not attract attention of the mobile tax office, think of the fine you would get in Australia! We wondered what sort of  traffic we might hit driving up the busy east coast but apart from one busy merge point due to road works it was all plain sailing (strange term considering we were driving).

There's a huge smile inside that cabin.