Bill’s Blog

Annette and Jim insisted that we try Krumpe’s Do-nuts.  The shop itself is in a small house in a dark alley.  They’re only open 7 PM – 2 AM.  And they are delicious.  We had them one night and had to go back the next night for more!

That was certainly entertaining, but not the strangest thing we saw on our trip.  The town of Williamsport takes the cake. It was a lovely little town that we visited to see the civil war era bridge they have there.  While driving through the town, we noticed that many of the houses had downspouts that drained into the street (like the one below).

And speaking of bridges

We saw many civil war era bridges on our trip.  They’re interesting to look at.  It’s also interesting to see them still standing and still being used.

9200 Square feet!  That’s the size of our first President’s house.  Very cool.  It was fascinating to see what he’d done with the place.  The site is beautiful.  The house is beautiful.  The river is beautiful.  I enjoyed our little trip into history very much.  See all the pics here.

The 12-hour battle began at dawn, Sapetmber 17.  The battle ended about 6 pm.  Of nearly 100,000 soldiers engaged in battle, about 23,000 were killed, wounded, or missing.  It was the bloodiest one-day battle of the American Civil War.

Visiting Antietam was different than I expected.  The fields was empty, quiet.  While the battle came alive at Gettysburg, Antietam felt subdued.  Someone else described their visit to Antietam as emotional.  It was amazing to see the place where so many people fought and died.

The pictures don’t do the place justice, but they are here anyway.

This trip was our first visit to Gettysburg.  It was less than two hours away from where we were staying so we loaded everyone up and headed out.  One of the best recommendations we got was to hire a tour guide.  He literally drove the car around for us as he talked.  In the two hours he was with us, he gave us a brief history (more of a play by play) of the battle at Gettysburg.  What made it so interesting was that he drove us around in a way where he could stop and say here – this is where such and such happened.

After the tour we also took a little trek to Cemetery Hill where Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address.  It was sobering.  There was a monument, and also many headstones from the Civil War and other later wars.

After learning all of the history I was excited to find a bookstore in the museum.  They must have every book ever written about the Civil War.  The whole experience gave me a renewed respect for the people that fought for what they believed in.

See all of the pics here.

Of all the places we went on vacation, I was most excited to see the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.  It did not disappoint.  The image above was what we were greeted with as soon as we walked in the front door.

Besides that we got to look at an F-14, a Joint Strike Fighter, the Space Shuttle Enterprise, several MIGs, an A-6E, a concord, and a hanger full of other very cool planes.  If you’re in the DC area, you won’t want to miss this.  See all of the pics I published here.  There are more, of course.  If you’re really interested just ask.

Finally!  We’ve been meaning to get to Sequim for ages.  We finally made it.  I’m so glad we did.  I’ve mentioned it before but Sequim is one of my favorite places to relax.  This weekend we didn’t do much of anything, except relax.  We did manage to get out of the house one afternoon.  We drove around and counted deer.  We saw 24 of them during our short drive.

Another cool thing about our trip was that we got to try some new recipes.  Helen cooked some delicious food during our visit (she always does).  We now have new recipes for French Toast and Chicken Burritos (using Soup).  We’re planning on having some friends over to try them on.

So what about you?  Where do you relax?

Taken at Lincoln City.  We found an awesome hotel on the beach.  The water was somewhat colder than I’m used to.

While in Seattle, we went on the underground tour.  I had heard that Seattle had a large underground, but I didn’t have many expectations beyond that.  It turns out that the city was rebuild after a fire.  The city decided to regrade at the same time as the shops were rebuilding their buildings.  The result is that the first floor of many buildings is at a lower elevation than the street.  This was “fixed” by putting sidewalks at street level, effectively burying the ground floor of the buildings.  This created the underground.  There are all kinds of funny stories about the underground.  The tour is worth every penny (and they only take cash).

Here are some of my favorite pics.  You can see all of them here.

We took a road trip to Seattle early this week.  It was unusual in that we didn’t drive.  We rode with Theresa and Andy in their very large truck.

On the way there, we took the long way.  The first stop was Multnomah Falls.

Next we headed over the Bridge of the Gods to Stevensen, Washington. In case you’re wondering, yes that’s a man walking over the bridge.

We ended up heading east and going through Yakima.  The good news was that there was lots to see along the way.

It took us most of the day to get to Seattle, so we saved our city activities for the next day.  Our first stop of the day was the Pike Place Market.

Want to guess where we went next?  We had to visit the first Starbucks ever.  I’ve been to Pike Street many times in the past, but never realized that this was where it all began.

Our final outing of the day was the Seattle Underground.  This was fascinating.  I took so many photos that it will get it’s own blog post. Let’s just say it was worth every penny.

Finally, we picked up our luggage and headed home via the direct route.

We took a trip through Old Town San Diego today.  There’s a famous haunted house here called The Whaley House.  The house has an interesting history.  Aparrantly there have been many ghost sightings there.  Regis Philben was even one of those quoted in their literature.

Besides The Whaley House, we also went to El Fandango, another haunted establishment.

We decided to skip the food and headed downtown instead.  Lunch was at the Rock Bottom Restaurant.

I had Mac n Chicken, which was delicious.

You can see all of the pics here.