Day 15 - D.C. 2nd day

I got up early and it was a nice day, sunny outside and temperature was about 58F degree. I did not have to cook breakfast caused we bought a dozen donut day before. Then I also packed us some lunch.




We went to Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, we were so lucky that day we parked our car very close to the Museum. We had a good time there, (inside have Dinosaurs, Animals, Ocean creature look like a lobster, Jewels, Earth planets ). Then I felt very hungry so we went outside and sat in the car to eat our lunch.

After that we went to a Smithsonian Castle. We took some pictures from the outside of building. When we walked back out we took more pictures of Congress and Washington Monument.



We went to Air and Space Museum and only able to stay for an hour only, caused we got there at 4:15 pm and Museum is close at 5:30 pm. We saw a lot of airplanes and space ships inside, but we did not have time to see the whole museum.


We left there and walked back to our car and I told Tom that I wanted to go to Chinatown to eat Chinese Food.


We went to park our car next to the DC Martin Luther King Library. We went to one of chinese restaurant. We sat down and ordered seafood handmade noodle, Wonton noodle, and chinese fried rice (very oily rice). It cost us $10 for the rice and about $6.00 for the noodle and totals we paid $25.00


In the 604 H street was where they planned to kill President Lincoln.

We went back to Cherry Hill Park and I took our clothes to the laundry and I paid $1.75 for small load and $3.00 for big load and .25 cents for dryer (each .25 cent is for 5 min). They also had shower place so I took a long hot shower too. Tom went to the hot tub for 30 minutes, then took a shower there too.

Day 14 - D.C.

We got up and it was still raining outside. I cooked us some breakfast (eggs and ham) then I told Tom we needed some AA (Duracell) for my camera. First we went to the food store and we bought a dozen donut for $4.89 and plate was on sale for $1.00 for qty of 40. But they didn't have the AA long lasting (Duracell), so we went to the Home Depot next door, but they didn't have it either. I only bought the regular AA. We went to the White House and saw the National Christmas Tree.


We took some pictures, but we could not get very closed to the White House, caused they had two road blocks in front of the gate.




Lawrence said he was hungry, so we went back to our car and eat donut, after that I saw my gloves laid on the floor, I was lucky to get it back, no one took it. Then we parked our car in the next to the Thomas Jefferson building.

We passed by the supreme court and walked to the Congress. We have to go a long way caused the police will not let us pass the direct street, they had a lot of road blocks around the Congress.

We saw a long line going into the Congress, but we thought they want to go to see inside the Congress, we forgot Ford funeral was inside the building. We took some pictures from the outside only.



Next we went to the Natural Garden, they had small size model (like Congress, White House, Washington Monument). We drove back and cook dinner after that.

Day 13 - Cherry Hill Park, closed to D.C.

After we woke up at the Gettisburg campground, it took us a lot of time to pack up and hooked up to the car. We used up all the water so we drove over to get some water, I told Tom we should get 30 gal, but Tom said we would be in Washington DC very soon, didn't want to carry too much weight. So we only filled may be 10 gal of water. We wanted to find a way not through downtown, we could not follow the GPS direction, we kept getting lost. We finally able to get to the freeway North I-15 . When we parked our trailer at the Cherry Hill Park, I told Tom we needed to buy some food for tonight. Tom drove to the food store, and I checked the time and it was closed at 9 o'clock, so he wanted to check out the road around D.C. first before coming back for the food. First we went to see Washington Monument. It was raining and cold outside then we walked to the Lincoln Monument, then we passed by the Vietman War Momorial it was too dark to see the name. We just passed by and went back to our car and went back to the park. We turned on the TV and saw the count down for the new year of 2007.

Day 12 - Still Gettysburg

We woke up to cook some breakfast and went to see the Gettysburg visitor center, inside is like small museum. It showed us soldiers who were fighting in the war and their guns. Also there was a short movie to show us how they fired the gun in the old day. We spent about 2 to 3 hours in the visitor center, then we went to Peach Orchard we drove around the road and took a lot of pictures of the monuments & canons. After that we went to the downtown store and bought some old money and drum pen for myself. Then we went to the same food store and bought some meat, salad, BBQ sauce, beef broth. We went back to the trailer and cook dinner.





Lawrence here,

This is just a summary of what happened at this place in early July of 1863. There were two sides in the battle of Gettysburg. One side was the Confederates who were in the town of Gettysburg looking for shoes to wear and their commanding general was Robert E. Lee. The other side was the Union who were stationed there with their commanding general being Gordon Meade. The battle also took three days long. It started of as a skirmish when the Confederates were discovered there by Union sentries. The Confederates were able to push the Union sentries out of Gettysburg. The next day, the Union army arrived and were able to hold their position, fighting off any Confederates that got close. The third and last day of the battle, was a bad one for the Confederates. They tried to charge the Union army's lines (Pickett's Charge) and they lost 10,000 men with no land gained from it. The Confederate army soon retreated afterwards. They have lost 28,000 men when the Union army only lost 23,000. The Confederates had many opportunities to crush the Union army but did not follow through most of them. One of them was that they could have gotten Cemetery Hill and fired artillery shell on Union forces in that place. Another was Pickett's Charge. If General Pickett had more men like say, 20,000 men at his command, he would have suceeded.Also if the Confederate General J.E.B. (Stuart) had arrived a day earlier, the Confederates would have broken the Union lines. So, this was what you should at least know about the Battle of Gettysburg. Thanks for reading this long transcript.

Day 11 - End in Gettysburg

We sleptp in the Chambersburg's WalMart last night. In the morning, we walked to the Wendy nearby our trailer. We ate lunch at the Wendy and drove to Gettysburg. Right before we arrived at the campground, we drove in a small road cause the GPS did not show us the big road. The owner told us the campground was closed for the winter, but he would open it for us to stay for $20.00 a night , but we needed to fill up our water in front of his house, caused he already shut down the water in the campground. We still got the electricity and able to use sewer hole in the ground. Then we set up the trailer and let Bo Bo got out of the car and put her inside the trailer.

We all went to the Gettysburg visitor center but they were already closed at 5 p.m. we went to the military cemetary across the street, we took some pictures using the night time flash. There was a lot of canons and Lincoln speech memorial .


So we drove around the downtown to look around the city. We drove to a food store and bought the coleslaw and Tom bought some sweet breakfast. Tom drove back to the Gettysburg Campground and ate dinner. Then we all took a nice hot shower and went to sleep.

Day 10 - End in Chambersberg, PA

We drove on highway 70 for a while then we saw a toll pay sign and passed the gate, we got the paper telling us how much for each location. We got off Breezewood exit. And paid $7.75 for toll including the truck and trailer. Then we kept on driving till I saw a lighted city that look busy, I told Tom could we stay there for the night, WalMart may be in this small town. But Tom missed the exit, so we had to keep on driving until we will reached the next town. Our computer GPS gave us a short cut to Gettysburg, it was a scary road, it was a steep and narrow road and speed was 20 mph and in low gear. Took us a long long time to get there. We were driving at night and totally dark outside. We reached the beginning of the Chambersberg. We wanted to find WalMart and stayed for the night. I saw Lowe was closed by so we stopped and got the washer for repairing the leak and a door mat. We walked across the street and had Arby's for dinner. In the Arby's, Tom checked on the computer and found out the WalMart was nearby, we drove over there and stayed for the night. Next morning we walked to Wendy for lunch then we walked back to the truck and continued on Lincoln highway 30. Finally we were at the Gettysburg campground.

Day 9 - End in Kirkerville - Flying J

West Virginia was a very short drive through, I took cover pictures on the bridge and a farm house outside of the highway East 70.



We spent the night in the parking lot of Flying-J in Kirkerville. After we woke up, Tom drove the trailer to the dump station and released the black tank and gray tank while we were still sleeping inside the trailer. Tom discover the outside shower was leaking and try to fix it and he told me he need a washer. I cook breakfast and we all ate inside, then we cleaned up. We were many miles away from Columbus in Kirkerville. We drove back to highway 70.

Stopping by the Pennsylvania Visitor Center and took a lot of brochures. I took pictures of Tom and Lawrence in front of the office.


There was a "Welcome to Pennsylvania" sign. Then we went back to our trailer and I cut some apples and we all sat down and ate.