Soon to be off home...

Wowee, what a trip it has been! When last we left our intrepid heroes, they were staying in Massachusetts, practically in the Atlantic Ocean...

While in Massachusetts, we visited Salem and a couple of the witch museums there. If you are planning a trip, the Witch Dungeon Museum was awesome, the Witch History Museum sucked. We ate at the Lyceum Bar and Grill where Alexander Graham Bell first demonstrated his brand new invention--the telephone. That was a cool bit of history. In Salem, we got a new bumper sticker for our car, you'll just have to see it for yourself.

From Salem, we went to Hampton, New Hampshire to visit Sam's Grammy and the rest of his family. That was pretty cool. Sam's Grammy is 94 and her house is furnished with what she calls "Attic Furniture." Attic Furniture is furniture that is taken from relative's attics that they aren't using anymore. When she and her husband got married, they had no furniture, so they took their relative's cast-offs. It was liking walking into an American History Museum. We all sat in the Sitting Room on Civil War era (or older) furniture and looked around at antiques that belonged on Antique Road Show.

Andrea's dirty little secret is a passion for history and she was just giddy with joy walking through the house looking at all the pieces of Americana, especially the 8 or 9 bookcases filled with books. She found 5 or 6 Readers, which were like textbooks in the olden days. A French Reader had belonged to someone in 1868!!

Sam's family were totally good peoples. They were very happy to see us all as they had never met any of us (other than Sam of course). We were happy to meet them too. We went with them out to an area the family calls "Mummy Rock," which is a rock in the Atlantic that looks like a sarcophagus. We took some ankle deep dips in the Atlantic, but it was pretty freakin' cold for late April. We also got to read some of Sam's family history in their "Civil War Letters," written by Sam's great-great grandfather and his brother while they were in the Civil War.

That visit came to an end all too quickly as we hadn't expected to stay for more than a couple of hours and we had already pushed into the next day. From there, we headed down to see the last set of family, Andrea's Aunt Nancy, who lives in Maryland, next to D.C. It was supposed to be an 8-10 hour drive down here, but it was about 13 hours, due to traffic. Never drive through NYC!!

Here we've been since 1am on Saturday. We got to go down to D.C. today and see the Washington Monument (from a distance) as well as the Capitol Building. We went into the Smithsonian Natural History Museum where we saw the Hope Diamond and browsed the Insect, African History, Elephant, and other exhibits. We are going back down tomorrow to see the last of the Natural History Exhibits, the Washington Monument (up close), and the Lincoln Memorial, plus whatever else strikes our fancy.

We plan to set out home first thing Tuesday morning. We should be home by Wednesday night, depending on how fast we drive and for how long we can drive. It's only a 24 hour physical on-the-road drive from here, so we think we should make it home Wednesday. Karma is excited by that, she wants to try out First Thursday again.