The Ray Adventures: Aberdeen, Md.,Falling Waters, WV, Roanoke, Va & Concord, NC

We left Salem last year Sept. 3, starting our second year as full-time RV'ers, now we're starting our third year and have no desire to settle in one locale for any length of time. Right now we are racing toward Tampa, I'm catching a plane to Oregon to go to my high school reunion. My girlfriend from grade school will be my date, Gary and Luci have to stay in Florida. We will be staying at my Mom's best friend's house on the lake. Ron, her son, owns it now, has remodeled it extensively, it is just beautiful. AND finally, football season starts tonight. We still can't watch the video of the end of last year's Super Bowl. That's okay, the Seahawks will win the SB this year! This week we stayed in four different states, we are missing so much but we only have so much time and so many places to visit.

Thursday, Sept. 3rd We dropped Luci at Petsmart PetsHotel for day camp in Arlington. The weather is going to very hot for the next few days, we hate to leave her in the coach for an extended time, besides she loves "day camp". When we visited D.C. many years ago we didn't make it out to Mt. Vernon, home of George and Martha Washington from 1759 to 1802 in Arlington, Va. overlooking the Potomac River. George inherited the 2,000 acres and small 6 room home, he grew the acreage to 8,000 and expanded the home to 21 rooms. George and Martha both died at Mt. Vernon, George's will directed he be buried alongside Martha in a tomb as well as other family members, friends and slaves on the property. The exterior of the home is currently under restoration but we took a tour of the interior and the outbuildings. Inside original furnishings owned by the Washington family, depicted the home as it was in 1799. We were able to tour all the outbuildings and tour the grounds, including vegetable gardens and the dock. A museum of Washington's life is also on the property and art galleries. Among the many things we saw, his teeth were on display, a combination of human and bovine teeth, contrary to popular belief they are not wooden. After lunch in the George Washington Inn on the property we drove into the National Mall, there are many new memorials I haven't seen, Gary was here 10 years ago, he was my tour guide. The National World War II Memorial honors the 16 million men and women who served in the armed forces and the millions who supported the war effort at home. The Freedom Wall, 9 feet high and 85 feet long is filled with 4,048 sculpted gold stars, each star represents 100 souls lost. Each end of the Memorial represents the Atlantic theater and the Pacific theater with pillars circling representing each state and territory. It's very impressive, located about half way between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. We were the only two at the Ranger Talk, we had to stay in the shade, 90+ degrees with humidity really saps you. We walked on to the Korean War veterans Memorial, close to the Lincoln Memorial, honoring the 1.5 million people who served in Korea from 1950-1953. The Field of Service, stainless steel statues depicting a squad of 19 American soldiers on guard patrol. We then crossed Independence Avenue to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial situated on 4 acres on the Tidal basin. The memorial's entryway is through the Mountain of Despair, two massive stone walls the symbolize the struggles King faced, the 30 foot statue of MLK facing the Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin. The Franklin Delano Memorial is between the MLK and the Jefferson Memorial on 7.5 acres. The five red granite Outdoor Rooms cover the 12 years Roosevelt served as president, beautiful waterfalls, bronze sculptures of FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt are beautifully done. Of all the memorials on the mall this is by far the most impressive. It is so bloody hot I kept running for the shade. Now we have to walk back to the Vietnam Memorial and our car. Greg Kessel's name is on the wall, he went to high school with Gary in Hermiston. We made it back to the car just before we melted, we were greeted by an $50.00 parking ticket, we'd read the sign wrong, we thought we had all the time we needed. Bummer. Thinking by 6:00 we would miss the bulk of the rush hour traffic, wrong again. We still had to drive out to Arlington to pick up Luci at day care. That took forever, we thought we'd stop by Fed Ex Field on the way back to Aberdeen, wrong again, they were hosting a pre-season game. Now we were in game day traffic. We didn't get back to the coach until 9:00.

Friday, September 4th, Since we weren't able to stop at Fed Ex field Thursday we drove back down early to miss the start of Labor Day traffic. No tours, we just went into the Pro Shop and wandered around a while. We stopped for lunch and a little geo cacheing before heading back. Hot again, thunder but no rain. We readied for departure Saturday morning, it's such a nice RV park we hate to leave but we must get to West Virginia.

Saturday, Sept. 5th We left Aberdeen about 10:30 for our 120 mile to Falling Waters Campground, arriving about 2:00. We had to detour around Baltimore because the Chesapeake Bay tunnel does not allow haz mats, which includes propane. Traffic wasn't too bad on the outer Beltway, we've had our fill of traffic jams. Falling Waters, located on the Potomac River was the site of two Civil War battles. After getting settled we drove out to Falling Waters Falls, just a few miles away, a historic Civil War battle was fought here, plus a geo cache. We were planning to walk down to the falls just as a family got to their car, warning us to be careful a Copperhead snake was in the area. We skipped the falls.

Sunday, Sept. 6th, We loaded Luci in the car and left for the Gettysburg battlefield about an hour away. The Gettysburg battle lasted three days, July 2-4, killing more men than in any battle on American soil. The 16 stop driving tour takes you from the start of the battle to the last, also including the National Cemetery where Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg address. Everywhere you look you see Memorials and markers erected by families of the fallen. There are 1,320 Memorials, 410 cannons and 148 historic buildings in the park. Similar to seeing the Alamo for the first time, I was surprised to see the town of Gettysburg surrounding the battlefields. I was never much of a history buff, seeing the historic locations puts it into perspective for me. On the way back we stopped at Mr. Ed's Elephant museum and candy store. What a crazy place, talk about a collection gone wild, everything elephant from statues outside to tiny little ones inside. We did get a piece of homemade fudge for the road.

Monday, Sept. 7th, We drove out to the Chesapeake and Ohio towpath canal, originating in Georgetown and continuing 184 miles to Cumberland, Md., construction started in 1828, has 74 lift locks from near sea level to 605 feet. Now the towpath is a nearly level byway for hikers and bicyclists. Williamsport, another Civil War historic area is mid-way on the canal. We hopped on our bikes peddling "up" the canal. After riding a couple of miles on what I though was a downhill slope concerned me, I thought I'd have to try to ride out of there. I couldn't understand if I was going downhill why I couldn't coast. Well it is an optical illusion the slope is only 1%. It felt like I was heading downhill on the way back too. This time at least I could coast some. The tree lined path felt so refreshing, another day in the 90's. We met a couple from nearby Pennsylvania who have biked the trail the entire 184 miles but not at the same time. We did see several bikers heading out the path loaded with camping gear. Moving day tomorrow so we packed up our outside "stuff".

Tuesday, Sept. 8th Our destination today is the Roanoke, Va. Wal-Mart parking lot, a 190 mile drive in a valley between the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mts. We'd thought about taking the Blue Ridge Parkway, a twisty narrow scenic drive that stretches from the Shenandoah National park to the Great Smokey Mountains in Tennessee but we didn't feel we have the time to spare. We got to the Wal-Mart about 3:00. Let's just say it wasn't the quietest night we've ever had, the truckers keep their engines idling while they sleep for the air conditioning. We did meet a "lady" trucker, a cute blonde no bigger than a minute, she's been driving for 11 years. Not the atypical truck driver you picture in your mind. She was waiting to change trailers and then head out for Pennsylvania. She finally left about 11pm.

Wednesday, Sept.9, Happy Anniversary to us, 37 years, good grief how did that happen so fast? We left Roanoke by 9am after fueling up for our 190 mile drive to the Charlotte, NC area. We are staying at the Charlotte Speedway RV park in Concord. We are surrounded by two tracks, one dirt and the other the home of Nascar. After setting up I set out to the market for champagne, a pedicure and a flu shot while Gary and Luci rested, poor Luci got a little sick on the drive down. We had our anniversary dinner at Yama Sushi and Grill, we enjoyed sitting at the Sushi bar sharing a few different rolls. Gary ordered fried cheese cake for dessert, did you know calories you consume on special occasions do not count? Relief from the heat, thunderstorms rolled through.

Thursday, Sept. 10 Today would have been my Mom's 98th birthday. Happy birthday Mom. We spent most of the morning working on our itinerary, I'd planned to stay at several military Fam Camps along the way to Florida, nuts no vacancies that threw a wrench in our plans. After lunch we picked up 14 caches in the Concord area. When I saw the lightning that ended our searches. Shortly after we got back to the coach it started pouring.

Well that's it for the week, enjoy the pic's.

TTFN

Gary and Pam