Two days after my college graduation, we left Greenville and headed up to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Harpers Ferry is a small historic town best known for battles during the Civil War.
You can see the old buildings and walkways in the two pictures on the left! There's also a train that goes out of Harpers Ferry across this amazing trestle bridge into Washington, DC. Apparently there's a lot of people that do the daily commute, because the parking lot was still completely packed in early evening. Harpers Ferry is also a huge tourist town. The Main Street of the town is a row of shops and reenactments catered to visitors looking to get their history fix. We were there in early May in the evening, so nothing was open—but we still took the opportunity to look in some of the windows and pose in front of a General Store.
From there we headed to Gettysburg, where we spent the morning. Somehow I don't have any pictures of this! I do remember that the museum was incredible—it was huge, and all new. We headed out around lunch time and arrived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania before two.
This is the house I lived in until I was three years old! My parents bought this tiny, tiny house (less than 500 square feet?) before I was born and fixed it up, including adding more space. Our next door neighbors Bill and Sandy took care of Emily and I and were close friends with our parents. Obviously I don't remember them, but it was good to see them again! They were still living in the same house next door—and thrilled to see us. Just the sweetest couple!
Next step on the whirlwind tour was Baltimore, Maryland. We made it to the Inner Harbor by around 5:00—we wanted to visit Fort McHenry, but by the time we got there they were closed. So instead we walked around the Inner Harbor and ate dinner at a Noodles & Co. right on the water. We checked out a HUGE Barnes & Noble and some other neat buildings in the area and then got cheesecake to split from The Cheesecake Factory—you can't go wrong with that.
From there it was on to Washington, DC.
So many museums! This is the Air & Space Museum—we walked through several museums, but our time schedule (if you can't tell already, we pretty much tried to see everything in three and a half days) didn't really allow much more than that.
We headed out through the downtown area and took a tour of the Capitol—by then the air conditioning was very welcome. It was hot for early May!
Later in the evening we also walked past the White House, and my mom struck up a conversation with one of the security guards which included her asking him how many snipers were on the White House roof and the officer replying that he couldn't divulge that information, but that if she pulled out a gun there would be dozens of Secret Service agents on her within minutes. Well done!
My parents decided that we had to wait in line for an hour to go inside the National Archives—not a popular decision. Especially since once we got inside and stood in line for another half hour, we found out that the Declaration of Independence is so yellow it's barely readable. It was cool, but I didn't feel like it was worth the time when we were short on time already!
The last few stops of the day were the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the Washington Monument. This was a really neat area. It was getting dark and parts were quite crowded—so unfortunately we didn't get to spend the kind of time there I would have liked to. But seeing the memorials reminded me of the incredible dedication and sacrifice of so many men and women—something we should never forget.
Likewise, the next morning spent at Arlington Cemetery was sobering and reflective.
We stayed for the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider—it sent chills up my spine—and visited the Marine Corps Memorial before my dad had to make it to Dulles International Airport for a flight to Africa.
All in all, a crazy whirlwind trip, but SO many good memories! And the longest Flashback Friday ever—sorry I'm not sorry!
All personal pictures.
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