DC Trip - Getting There

Last week we took a trip out to Washington, DC to visit my brother.  A couple of months ago my brother moved out to DC (actually Silver Spring if we want to get all specific) for a job.  It's sad that he's not here anymore - but I gotta say he moved to a pretty great place.

We decided to go visit him over Lindsey's spring break for three reasons 1) the weather would be nice and not hotter than balls like it would be in summer time, 2)  there wouldn't be as many people, and 3) to see the cherry blossoms.

Spoiler alert... none of those things fully happened...

But anyway... back to the point of this post - getting there!

We left on Thursday, March 20th in the afternoon.  I worked until 2 since my sister had class until that time anyway.  I got home and we packed up the car and left lickity split (hey, my mom was ready to hit the road!)  After a brief stop at Taco Bell (Lindsey and I were hungry) we were officially on the road.

I'm not sure how much I've posted about this on the blog, but we've taken loads of road trips and like to make stops on the way for snacks, bathroom breaks and best of all road-side attractions.  It's a nice way to break up the drive a bit.  Roadside America is a great place to find these hidden treasures.

Our first roadside stop was to visit a fire breathing dragon in in Vandalia, Illinois, also known as the Kaskaskia Dragon.

First you have to buy some coins at the local hardware store

Dragon Fire brings good luck, make a wish!

Then you drop the coin in the box and watch what happens.

FIRE!

I had a video of it, but getting it to post here is challenging... the fire lasts about 10 seconds, but entertainment city y'all.

Next we drove by this 1910 Restored Gas Station.  When you drive through the station it even dings a bell inside... like it did back in the old days.

It was around this time in our trip that I got a call from my bank saying that my debit card may have a fraudulent charge on it.  After speaking with them, there indeed was a charge of $216 in California.  They ended up shutting my debit card off and I was left without it for the remainder of the trip (boo, hiss)... luckily I still had a credit card, but I felt all violated and shiznit.  A week later I realized that this was most likely related to the Schnucks breach, which effected a lot of people I know.  Made me feel better about how this happened.

We next stopped at the World's Largest Wind Chime in Casey, IL.

This is somewhat funny because last year my mom, me and my grandma went to Eureka Springs and down there they claimed to have the World's Largest Wind Chimes... but it's certified that the ones in Casey, IL are indeed the largest...

Eureka Springs

Now looking at the picture maybe the Eureka Springs ones want to get all specific with The World's Largest Tuned Musical Wind Chime... umm... semantics I'd say.

The ended our first day - we drove into almost Ohio that night got a hotel and were back on the road again the next day.

Our first stop was a national park - Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park.  Here we learned about the Wright Brothers. 

A replica of their plane.

It was a pretty great museum, and we even learned a bit, like the Wrights were printers and bicycle makers before they built their airplane.  They had a lot of good hands on exhibits - totally worth the stop.  They also had an exhibit on parachutes.

In awe

One of the few pictures of my mom - in a cut out... realized after I saw these pics that there was a place for our hands too... oh well!

This was where Lindsey and I got our first real stamp in our National Parks Passport.  It's going to be a lot of fun getting these stamps!

Then we drove and drove and drove and drove... and stopped at the Flight 93 National Memorial.  This is in very rural Pennsylvania where United 93 crashed on September 11, 2001.  This plane was headed for the US Capital Building in Washington, DC.  It is will in the process of being built, but a very sad place.  It was also really cold and windy.

33 passengers and 7 crew members... does not include the 4 terrorist on board as well.

After that little detour (hey it was in rural Pennsylvania!) we finally headed towards Keith in Silver Spring.  Hey, there is he in his low ceiling, basement apartment.

This evening we were beat from the drive and didn't want to go out.  So we ordered in from a local pizza place which has fire oven baked pizzas (Pacci's) - very tasty.

Quite a trip to get out there - but nothing compared to what we did the next day :)