As we made our way down the northeast coast from Maine to DC, we had to be very diligent about our route. Many of the bridges & tunnels have weight, height, width, and haz-mat restrictions – never thought of propane as a hazardous material before, but ok 😋

Since we just went to NY & Manhattan in Feb, we opted to go around the GW bridge. We took the Tappan Zee bridge then followed the New Jersey turnpike, down over the Francis Scott Key bridge in Delaware, and made it into Maryland.

We had the wonderful privilege of staying with our good friends Mark & Margaret who live in the area. They hosted a cookout the day we arrived so we could catch up with friends & meet new ones – good times!

The next day we ventured into the city with Mark to take a Capitol tour. Our congressman Steve Womack was very generous with his staff’s time who setup the tour for us. We had a very wet trek through the rain to get there but it was well worth it.

Along the tour we got a BIG surprise! We were making our way from one of the main atriums to go up a set of stairs, when a security guard asked us to step aside. We waited a few mins, then Vice President Pence came down. Before he came down, Mark whispered to Jamon to say “Hello Mr Vice President” and he did so – loud & clear :). Pence stopped and pointed at Jamon & smiled. Another woman in the crowd yelled out at him, he acknowledged her politely, took some pics, then we assumed he’d be on his way. But he made it a point to come back & shake the kids hands first, then ours, and offered to take a pic with us! We were quite surprised – he didn’t have to do that & we were not expecting it.

The Capitol building itself is really amazing – I highly recommend! There is so much of our country’s history here. I caught myself several times listening to the very informative details from our staffer tour guide, Elliot, that I forgot to take pics.

I think my favorite part was the mural around the main dome, that lays out significant events in our country’s history – starting with the landing of Christopher Columbus & stops at the Wright flyer’s first flight. Mark & Drew both loved the tribute to aviation 🙂The next day, we ventured back into the city where we took in many of the other sites of DC.We got to see the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights at the Archives. It was a great opportunity to talk to the kids about the values of our country, and why they are so important to all people. However, we didn’t try to see “everything” on this visit – we saw this as a first introduction. Once the kids are a bit older, and understand more of our country’s history, we plan to bring them back for a more in-depth visit.

We celebrated our last night at Mark & Mag’s with some fire & s’mores!

The next day we started our drive to Shenandoah. On our way out of town, we made a fun stop to visit our good friend Doug, his sons, and their whole crew. They were putting in a new subdivision and offered to let the kids “play” with the big tractors! We all had SO much fun!