Robert finally graduated from AIT. I flew out to Maryland a few days after that. His mom and sister JoAnn were there for the graduation and I got to visit with them just a little bit before he headed out with me. My friend Kristal and her daughter joined us for the beginning of this road trip. Robert had driven my CR-V from Texas at Christmastime so we could drive it back.
We enjoyed the snow that first day. It was REALLY cold in the DC area when Kristal, Kamryn, and I got there. We decided to have a little fun for a few minutes.
Here's my mostly effective evasive maneuver.
Our first stop was a mall for Kristal to take Kam to the American Girl Doll Store. Robert and I shopped around and got him some new clothes. After lunch and a trip to the Museum of Natural History, Kristal's sister Tamee took us on a tour of some of the monuments. She let us out here and we visited a couple while she drove around.
Here we are at the WWII Memorial.
It's Kristal's halo . . .
It was a pretty cool part of that monument.
As we were walking to the Lincoln Memorial we saw this fox running on the frozen reflecting pool. I don't think I've seen a wild fox before.
On the route to Lincoln.
Here are us girls in front of the monument.
Kristal brought her nice camera to take some pics of us.
Awwwww
The lighting wasn't quite as good on my camera!
We had to use the flash.
I thought this one turned out cool on my camera, though.
Cool view and I love Kristal's hat.
Our lovely photographer and her favorite photo subject on the trip.
After we froze our tails off, Robert and I headed to my old roommate Louisa's house for dinner and a great visit. I hadn't seen her for a long time.
After that, we re-joined Kristal and Kamryn at Tamee's place. Tamee was kind enough to let us stay with her. We went to church the next day then headed out on our trip again.
Our only other stop that day was to Mt. Vernon - George Washington's home.
Kristal got a few more shots of us before her camera died.
This was the walkway between George Washington's house and the kitchen. That's the Potomac River in the background.
I really liked the lighting in this shot even though it's not the best of either of us.
This is where George and Martha are buried.
This is his casket/tomb.
Strike a pose, Kristal!
I loved his back porch!
We drove that night to Charlottesville, VA and went to Thomas Jefferson's home the next morning. This is actually the back of the house. They're doing a little construction.
It was kind of a nasty day - cold and rainy/misty. His house was on BEAUTIFUL land, though!
Cute girls!
This is the front of the house. His entrance is pretty cool. The whole house is cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside.
Kristal was just the right height to show our former President some love.
She was even kind enough to wipe the water off of his face.
I was not quite tall enough to have a good shot at him.
Here's our very cold group.
Robert played tetris with our stuff every time we had to stay somewhere else or get anything out of the back. he did a good job.
After Monticello, we headed to TN. The next morning we went through Tullahoma, my last area in my mission and then went to Lynchburg to visit the Jack Daniels Distillery. We used to visit it on my mission which is funny because we don't drink. It's a fun tour.
This is inside the visitor's center.
We had to pose by Jack's statue. He was more my height.
Kristal had me take this one to buy time while the other folks on our tour went on . . .
so she could do this! After taking them through two other areas from my mission, we dropped Kristal and Kamryn off at the airport in Nashville and Robert and I headed on to Mississippi. We camped late that night and got rained on.
We then headed to Natchez to tour some of the antebellum mansions there. This is Longview and was super impressive!
On the inside, we could only take pictures of the unfinished floors.
It's an impressive structure.
We saw these cool flowers outside of another mansion.
We just drove by this one.
We went on a tour of this amazing house as well. It's name is Stanton Hall.
This riverboat is a casino right on the river. We walked around inside it.
The Mississippi River
This is a view from the upstairs porch of the last house we visited - Rosalie. It was beautiful. I got to play the grand piano inside. We were the only ones on the tour.
We saw a postcard for this bakery so we went by. Sadly, it was closed. What a fun trip!
