Sweet Home Alabama

We are in northeastern Alabama, at Mountain Lakes Resort, with a view of Lake Guntersville. Fortunately we are away from the Gulf Coast that had a whole bunch of rain dumped on it. It could have been worse, but a storm is a storm.

We are just getting a lot of rain (it rained all night), which is expected to move on to the east tonight. The wind has picked up too, but it isn't really bad.

This area is just plain beautiful, still full of autumn's colors. Thickly wooded small mountains running along the lake and the Tennessee River. We'll be here a week, enjoying the scenery once the rain moves on.

Our Nation's Capitol, my 100th post

We had a couple of days to tour D.C., and here are some of the more memorable photos. I like this one of the Washington Monument in the late afternoon.

The inside of the monument is pretty amazing, especially seeing some of the dedications (by states, groups, etc.) of slabs visible from the elevator.

Perhaps one of the most interesting war memorials was that dedicated for the Korean War. Several realistic sculptures of soldiers moving across a level area presumably to resemble a rice paddy. Along one side of this area is a marble wall with hundreds of images (GIs, aircraft, jeeps, etc) etched in the wall---some a couple of inches high, some up to 7 or 8 inches.

The Capitol Building sits on the east end of the mall. It is astounding how many government buildings there are. I doubt our founding fathers ever imagined something like this would happen. It used to be legislators were only 'part time', needing to return to their home states to take care of their farm or business.

That's me in front of the White House. It is amazing how many people are being tourists just like us.

Arlington Cemetery is a very sobering experience.

We saw so many interesting things and buildings. A week was not enough. (of course it was really only a couple of days, as we were both recovering from the flu.) We hope to return sometime soon for an extended visit!

Rainy Mount Vernon

Trying to catch up here...I haven't posted for over 2 weeks, and we have done a lot of stuff. After we left Gettysburg, the we and the Sarvers traveled down to the Washington D.C. area, staying actually in Dumfries VA. This park is next to the Prince George National Forest--a beautiful park, with very short sites. We had to park at a diagonal to fit, then had to park our F-450 a block away in overflow parking. Not a big thing, just inconvenient.

The weather was iffy, but we decided to at least go to Mount Vernon on a Friday. It rained ALL day. Chilly and wet, we still thoroughly enjoyed this historic site. Check out the photo of Ellen and you will note that we had the audio tour, which was nice. Even through the rain, you could tell George and Martha had a wonderful view of the Potomac.

The buildings were really in great shape, and we learned a lot, as there is a nice museum on the grounds.

Probably the worst thing is the following day I got really sick with the intestinal flu, chills and fever....a lot of other nasty business that I will not go into here. Suffice to say Ellen had to take me to the emergency room, where I got shots, abdominal xrays, and bags of saline as I was dehydrated as well. It took over 3 days to get my bearings.

I will try to continue our travelogue in the D.C. area as soon as possible.

Ellen enjoying the steady rain