Washington Post

(Warning – photo overload, please be patient as the page may take a while to load!)

Not the newspaper but my version! Well, we’re back after a fantastic week in the capital city of Washington DC. Boy was it cold! For the most part we had lovely sunny days and blue skies but they were accompanied by a biting cold north wind, the weather stats said an average of 16 degrees c (61 f) but it didn’t get above 6 c the whole time we were there – we even had snow on Sunday morning!

After a flight punctuated by a screaming 2 year old (nothing to do with the flight she just kept shrieking from the minute she got on the plane!) we arrived at Dulles International airport to grey skies and sleet, a shuttle bus took us to the hotel which took about an hour. Let me say right now that we booked this holiday as part of a package, there is no way on earth we could have afforded to stay at The Fairmont Hotel otherwise – the card in the room gave the room rate at $900 dollars per night!! It was a gorgeous hotel though, well placed for everything and luxury I would normally only dream of – right down to the white fluffy bath robes they provided.

So what did we do? Well, John obviously had some geo caching planned – I think we he managed 23 in the end, all of which were ‘virtual’ apart from one. The virtual meaning that you had to answer questions or upload a photo to prove you’d been there. I don’t think I have ever walked so much in my life! Despite taking the Metro to get us nearer to the attractions we trekked from cache to cache whilst taking the sites in at the same time.

It was good to see places for real rather than just on the TV and here are some of the places we saw – I won’t give you a day by day account but the photos tell the story themselves! It’s Cherry Blossom time in DC at the moment which is something of a festival for them so a lot of the photos include the blossoms, there were also some beautiful magnolia trees in bloom.

The first cache! (don’t worry – I’m not going to show you all of them!)

Taken through the railings at the back of the White House!

Through railings at the front of The White House

The Capitol

Looking along The Mall from The Capitol

Not very clear but John F Kennedy grave – Jackie Kennedy-Onassis is next to him (Arlington Cemetery)

Grave stones as far as the eye can see at Arlington Cemetery – a very tranquil place

Abraham Lincoln statue at The Lincoln Memorial

I took loads of Cherry Blossom photos but this is my favourite!

The Washington Memorial – you can see just how windy it was!

Einstein – no idea who the children are!! Another of John’s cache answers!

I’ll leave there I think – I took over a hundred photos, a lot of them very similar but I think I’ve picked out the best ones to share.

If any of you get the chance to go to Washington DC I strongly recommend it. It’s a very clean place, everybody is very friendly and, as John so eloquently put it, there’s a lot of history for such a ‘young’ country!

Pre–Washington Post

Excuse my feeble attempt at humour with the title of this post – I’m tired and borderline really crabby!

Not much to tell this week, nothing overly creative – a quarter of the last quilt is now bound and I just need to finish the hand stitching on the back but the big news is that we’re off on holiday tomorrow! Yes – I know it’s only been a few months since the last one but that’s the reason I go to work, so that I have holidays to look forward to! This time we’re going to Washington DC, for no reason other than I just fancied going somewhere different. John has a pile of geo-caching lined up, most of which are virtual meaning I will have to go with him to take a photo to prove he was there and found it! On a serious note though I am looking forward to seeing the sights that I’ve only seen before on TV.

So tonight we were supposed to be having a family meal, just us and the boys ‘cos FDIL is away during the week at the moment. The best laid plans though mean that Son 2 can’t join us because he has picked up a stomach bug, I sent Son 1 round with Imodium and he reported back that he looks really rough, poor boy . Anyway moving on, my mobile went a short while ago – it was FDIL, she often phones just for a chat which is always nice but tonight she phoned to say that she was coming home unexpectedly and could she come round as well – but don’t tell Son 1  ‘cos she wants to surprise him! Ain’t love grand!!

Meanwhile I’m starving and need to wait until later for dinner – we’re going to get a Chinese – otherwise Son 1 will wonder why I’m leaving food…….

I’m off now then, need to start thinking about what I’m going to pack – yeah, yeah I know last minute and all that but that’s how I roll. I may post while I’m away as John has agreed( ) that I can take lappy with me – only so that he can log his caches of course!