Day 73 - Washington DC to Harrisburg

Iwo Jima 

JFK proclaimed that this memorial, dedicated to all US Marine Corps who have died defending their country since 1775, should be one of the few official sites where a US flag should fly 24h a day. It was the only flag I saw in Washington that was not at half mast for the shootings at Sandy Hook.

Georgetown

This morning I drove to another of my father's old universities, Georgetown. After the confusion of looking around Caltech trying to find the building he might have studied in I thought I'd ask him about it in advance. I got a text from him saying he'd been in the Inl or Languages building, on the river, with a big pendulum. 

Well, after two hours wandering around campus I can confirm that none of those things exist - the only building on the river is an old car barn that has been converted into classes and the closest thing anyone could think of to a pendulum was a sundial.

Fortunately none of the many people I spoke to laughed at me which was impressive. It was a nice morning spent walking around a nice part of town and hey, I might have seen his building!

Not many universities have cemeteries do they?

Rock Creek

Ah, the wilderness! Ok, so it's only five miles out of DC so it's not that wild (for a start there's a huge road going through it) but I had a nice time going for a short hike in the woods.

I didn't see any bears though but it doesn't matter because I already saw one. Oh, wait! I don't think I mentioned that on here (I forgot for about a week) I saw a bear!! I was driving up to St Augustine in Florida when up ahead me I saw what I thought was a dog running across the road. Then I noticed that it was incredibly ungraceful and was not running on two paws at a time, instead it was doing a weird four legged jiggle that looked fairly unstable. I worked out it was a baby bear! I don't know where his mummy was, maybe he was running away from home to join the circus.

Hampton

I crossed into Maryland and went to the Hampton National Historical Site, an old Georgian house which belonged to one of the old rich slave owning families here, the Ridgelys. I arrived just in time for the tour and turned out to be the only person there so I had a personal tour of the house and got to ask all the questions I wanted, it was great!

Apparently this room was meant to be red but the painter guy  put ash in the paint and it came out blue!

I was surprised to see the master bedroom was shared by the  man and woman of the house, normally they have split bedrooms. On the left, the toilet, on the right, the sink (hidden in the drawers and steps)

I think I stepped on something - the house is not crooked!

The ice house! 

Best news ever

I found my National Parks annual pass!!! It was hiding in my car in a place I had checked ten times before, the sneaky bugger. I'm happy to have it back though, even happier that I didn't buy a new one to replace it.