What a day!

We started off yesterday with an interview with Deputy Joint Staff Chaplain Matt Woodberry of the Pentagon.  Yea that’s right the Pentagon!  It was a very interesting interview, however there is some background noise, cause we were not supposed to record inside the Pentagon so we had to go to the inner courtyard.

Then we went to Arlington Cemetery to watch the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, if you haven’t seen this, you probably should.

Then we went to the Washington Monument, but they were out of tickets to go to the top.

I guess its not as tall as everyone thinks.

Then we went to the World War II Monument, which is just across the reflection pool of the Abraham Lincoln Monument

Then we made our way through the Vietnam Wall.

Then we saw the White House and I took a nap at The Ellipse Park which is the grass you see in the bottom half of the picture.

After my nap I met up with Ryan outside the Smithsonian Museum of American History where they have THE Star Spangled Banner.  From there we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.  We both wish we could have spent more time at all these museums because there was so much to see everywhere.

And this is one of the only fossils of the very infamous Snipes, but keep hunting kids.

Then we went to the Smithsonian Museum of Air and Space.  We both REALLY wanted to be there longer, but at that point we had been on our feet for around 10 hours, and walked around 5 miles, so we were ready to be done.

Then we walked from the Museum of Air and Space all the way to Union station because the Red line was down due to the Metro accident, which you may have heard about, on the Red Line.  Here is a picture in case you haven’t heard about it yet.

The Crazy thing is that we were on the Red Line earlier in the day on our way to the Pentagon.  Kind of freaky how close we were to that accident, but thankfully we were far from it when it happened.

It was a great day, we did a lot, saw a lot, but were really tired at the end of it all.  Riding motorcycles doesn’t exactly get you in great shape.

 

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Well we left Richmond and headed up towards the Baltimore area, more specifically Ellicott City.  The ride got real bad 3o miles outside of DC, that is when the traffic started, and it ended 30 miles past DC.  It was pretty cool driving up and seeing the Washington Monument on my left, and all these Capitol buildings, but it wasn’t long after that, that both Ryan and my GPS just stopped working.  We both got a little mixed up, and we were separated at the time, so while he managed to find the right freeway to get to, I did not.  I was stuck in the middle of downtown DC for quite a while, and it was pretty frustrating.  We are going back there soon, but I will definitely not be in a vehicle.

Saturday night we went down to the Inner Harbor of Baltimore.  There is a lot to see there, again a lot of history, but a lot of neat stuff too.  Here are some of the pictures.

This is the Constellation, which is one of if not the first ship of the US navy.  It is now a museum, but it still sits in the Harbor.

This is from Federal Hill which overlooks downtown Baltimore.

The poster Ryan is looking at shows the whole area in front of him underwater during Hurricane Isabel.  That whole street and brick sidewalk was all underwater, pretty crazy to think about.

After walking around Baltimore, we went back to the Buller’s house and relaxed with some beers in the spa.  The Bullers were pretty good to us, and Jerome always had a good beer for us to try.

Lastly here is a picture of the family we stayed with, they are related to our friend Andre who has helped us out a bunch on this trip.  Jerome, Jenny, and their two daughters.

We were fortunate to talk to Father Matt from St Paul’s Catholic Church.  This was our first interview with a Catholic Priest, and it went very well.  Father Matt is a very fun, young guy, who loves Jesus and Baseball.  Near the pictures of Jesus and Mary in his office is a miniature shrine to Cal Ripken Jr, you have to love that.  There is also some really cool history to this church, they acted as a hospital in the civil war and Babe Ruth was married there.

Father Matt was a pleasure to meet with, and I think you will enjoy this podcast.  Also we forgot to get a picture with him, but here is one that I stole off their website.

 

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Yesterday we got to meet with Rev. Kirk Nave from River Road UMC.  He is a very intelligent guy, and we were privileged to meet with him.  That church has been around for 150 years, and has some serious history to it.  It actually is the church that Jefferson Davis went to at times, because his wife was a Methodist.  But as Kirk says, they are more interested in what Jesus is doing now, than 150 years ago.

 

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We got to Richmond Wednesday evening.  It rained or misted pretty much the whole way here from Cave, WV.  We are staying with some family friends of my grandparents, Ken and Pat Atherholt.  They are both very nice, and have a big house with lots of property.  There is a stream that runs through their backyard, as well plenty of trees.  There are also fireflies which are a quite interesting bug, they literally look like little sparks shooting out of a fire, cause they light up only for a second, and then seeminly disappear.

Then today we headed to the downtown area of Richmond, and explored some very historical sites.  My favorite was St. John’s Episcopal Church.

This is the church where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech that ended with “Give me liberty or give me death.”  He gave this speech in front of many men that would become our US forefathers.  This speech is most likely what inspired already upset colonials to actually revolt, and thus the revolution began 2 weeks later.  So in a way, we were sitting in the room where the US started.

From there we went to the capitol building, which was at one time the capital of the Confedaracy.  Kind of ironic that the city where the revolution was instigated is also the city that led the revolt against that first revolution, I guess Virginians are just rebellious.

This is the monument of Robert E Lee returning from war.

This is a statue of George Washington, which was carved while he posed live for it.

This is Edgar Allen Poe’s house.

And this is the Atherton’s house, the people we are staying with, from their backyard.  It is very beautiful out here.

And here is us with Ken and Pat Atherholt, quite a fun couple with a lot of knowledge about the history of the area.  Pat actually wrote the booklet on the history of St John’s Episcopal Church.

And

Miles Yesterday: 165

Total Miles: ~ 1250

We headed out of Clarksburg yesterday afternoon, and went through the Monogahela National Forrest.  It was a gorgeous ride, and actually pretty fun.  We stopped at a campground up in the mountains and pitched our tents for only $11.  It was a pretty peaceful place, with not much going on.  We both did quite a bit of relaxing.

It ended up raining through most of the night, but it wasn’t bad enough to keep us from sleeping.  The tents got real soaked, but they kept us dry.  Today we are going to Richmond VA, to visit some family friends.  We are excited because this begins the part of the trip where we spend a lot of time checking out really cool stuff like the Confederate Capitol, DC, Philly, and of course NYC.  The next couple weeks will be pretty exciting.

Miles Yesterday: 131

Total Miles: 11,900

We had a great time with the people of Clarksburg Baptist Church.  They have a really cool building, one part built in 1897, then another in the 1950s, and still another just a few years back, and yet it is all still one building.  They also have some very cool kids and youth rooms.  The HS and JH rooms are amazing, and very unique.  Apparently their sunday services for the students are more like a talk show and less like a sermon or church.  A very interesting idea that I would like to see it in action.

This picture is with Senior Pastor David Hulme, and Children’s Director Andy Loud.

 

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