Cross Country

Day 22 (May 17)

Day 22 began in York, Penn.  Little did we know we had stumbled upon a fairly large industrial center.  We drove to the Utz Factory, where we were given a tour of their potato-chip line by a perky college girl.  The plant was pretty impressive.  It was one of 5 plants in the area where they produced potato chips and a few other flavored products.  The plant had three production lines, two modern fully automatic ones and the third a little outdated and manned by 4 people.  It was pretty amazing.  We got a free bag of chips and a coupon for their factory store.  We left the plant and drove to the factory store a few blocks away.  We spent a good half hour shopping, ended up buying a huge box of sourdough pretzels and a case of 60 small bags of potato chips, pretzels and popcorn.  After somehow squeezing the two boxes into the car, we began our drive toward Lancaster County.  We stopped at the Harley Davidson factory which was still in York.  We didn’t have time for the full tour so we just walked around the factory store (of course) but Yael didn’t let me purchase a Harley.  Maybe next time.  We got to Lancaster and drove around Amish country for 3 hours.  We stopped and had homemade Amish root beer, homemade ice cream and walked around a few shops, but mostly drove around the beautiful houses and green pastures.  It was getting dark so we turned around and drove to Harrisburg.  We picked up my grandmother from central Harrisburg and drove to my aunt and uncle’s.  I haven’t seen them, my grandmother, or my cousins for a while so it was quite exciting.  We bounced around on the trampoline for a while, had steak and played Wii ‘till the wee hours of the morning. 

Day 21 (May 17)

Day 21

Ah, Washington D.C., quite a city.  We woke early for a change, packed the car (which by now looks like a complete dump) and drove to the Metro in Pentagon City.  We rode the Yellow line to the Smithsonian and walked to the Air and Space Museum.  We had 10 minutes to spare before it opened, so we watched George Washington University’s Graduation on the Mall.  There were hundreds of graduates, and thousands of parents, pretty incredible.  When the Smithsonian gates opened we rushed in with dozens of other people, bought tickets to an Imax show then began to walk through the exhibits.  We began with “How things fly”, saw the Wright brothers’ plane, Lindbergh’s plane and many other record breakers.  We saw a few unmanned aerial vehicles, some armed, and WWII allied and axis fighters.  We saw a 45 minute Imax film about a fighter pilot and a few trainings ops he flew with pilots from other countries.  As Yael had taken a nice nap during the film (she was more interested in the flight attendants than anything else), after the film we quickly walked through the other exhibits and set out for our next destination. 

We went to the Newsuem, on the opposite side of the mall (the northern side).  The Newsuem was great, we could have spent hours there.  They had short historical films, pictures from the past 100 years, all the Pullitzer award pictures, newspapers… everything.  The temporary exhibit was about the FBI and its G-men.  There were exhibits on major crimes and criminals in the 20th century, with artifacts such as the vehicle used by the Washington snipers a few years ago and equipments used by the SWAT teams at Waco.  A porch on the top floor of the Newsuem has a great view of the mall and the capitol, we took some pictures then had lunch on the bench outside.  It was around 4, but still had time for one more stop.  We walked northwest, I went to the International Spy Museum and Yael to the National Art Gallery.  The Spy Museum was interesting, with the history of some famous spies and tools of the trade used by various agencies.  The art gallery, well, an art gallery.  We met after two hours then hopped back onto the Metro and back to the car. 

We left D.C. and drove to Baltimore.  We had pizza at a pizza place that had reopened today (pretty good) then drove to York.  

We checked in to the Holiday Inn at York and enjoying the nice crisp Pennsylvania air.  Till tom.

Day 19+20

 Friday and Saturday – Washington dc

Friday morning we set off for our hotel for shabbos, the best western in Arlington.  We checked in, dropped of our bags, and drove to the nearest Metro station, at Pentagon City.  We hopped on the metro (yellow line) for a 15 minute ride to el’phant square.  We got off and went directly to the department of the treasury, the bureau of engraving and printing.  The earliest tour tickets they had were for 5, but we took them.  Next we walked to the Holocaust Museum, and got tickets for a 3 o’clock entrance.  It was only 1 so we had some time to kill.  We took the opportunity to walk west along the mall.  We walked by the Washington monument, then the World War II Memorial, continued parallel to the reflecting pool to the Lincoln Memorial.  From there we moved to the northern side of the mall, walking by the Vietnam Memorial then back to the Holocaust Museum.  We still had some time, so we walked for about 20 minutes through the Museum’s temporary exhibit: Nazi Propaganda.  It was interesting but we didn’t have enough time to really absorb it all.  We spent about 90 minutes in the permanent exhibit.  I had been there before, but it was Yael’s first time.  She made an interesting but correct comment; the museum was very factual in its documentation of the Holocaust, while the Israeli Holocaust Museum is very emotional. 

From there we ran to the Treasury Department, to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.  The tour was about 35 minutes and took us along a glass enclosed pathway where money is printed.  We watched as specially printed sheets passed through many huge machines………. bills come out the other end. 

After that we headed back to the Metro and to the Best Western.  We prepared for shabbos, and slept, a lot.  The hotel isn’t the greatest one, pretty noisy but we were pretty much locked in for the day.  We read a lot, ate, and took a walk around the neighborhood.  Saturday night we decided to drive around D.C. but it began pouring.  Instead we drove to Crystal City and had ice cream.  Now we’re on the room planning our route for the week and getting ready for another day in D.C.

Day 18 (May 14th)

Day 18

We started our day in a little town south of Richmond, VA. Our first visit was to “Olger’s general store/ museum”. This 1806 general store has been turned into a museum of random stuff. The current owner grew up in his great grandfather’s store, which was the center of the city as well as a meeting place for confederate soldiers. In 1986 the store closed down and was turned into a “museum”- or rather a few rooms covered with random things- from newspapers from as far back as the 1920’s, magazines, coke bottles, statues, flags, tin boxes and anything else that you can think of. Jimmy Olger sits outside on the porch welcoming visitors (as well as reading palms!!). The store was extremely cluttered but had many hidden treasures in it. From there we continued on to Petersburg for some civil war history. Petersburg was seiged by the Union at the end of the war and a famous battle was fought there. We saw the historic district of Petersburg with its various architecture styles from the different periods. Our next stop was to a kosher Krispy Kreme in Richmond where we stocked up on donuts and drinks for our ride to Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s home. We got to Mount Vernon not knowing what to expect and we were very pleasantly surprised. We first took a tour of the mansion which was originally built by George Washington’s step brother and later when GW inherited and moved to Mt. Vernon with his family he added on two more floors and two annexes to the house. We walked around the rooms with the original furniture- each room was nicer than the next, with decorative bedspreads, ceilings and furniture. We saw GW’s bedroom and the bed in which he passed away. The house sits on a huge piece of land that included a flower garden, a fruit and veg. garden, stables, a barn, and servants quarters. The house is situated on Potomac River, where GW would fish and send his goods. This was where GW chose to be buried and a building was built for him and his wife close to the River. After strolling around the beautiful green grounds we went to the museum. The museum was very well done and gave a background and feel for who GW was as a person and leader. We saw a movie about the Revolutionary War and GW role in the colonies success.

Starving (having only eaten donuts all day!!) we drove to Silver Spring, MD to eat some pizza at a kosher pizza parlor. From there we went to a kosher grocery store and bought food for Shabbat. We ran into some trouble with lodging for the night due to the high prices of the area, we finally found a place that was reasonably priced (and with a fridge) a little further away, where we are spending the night and getting ready for our day in DC tomorrow.