April 5-6, 2016 (Maryland, Washington, D.C., Home!)

Mile 690
Today we started the day at the ever-popular National Museum of Heath and Medicine. It was about a 30 minute drive into Silver Spring, Maryland (Whoot! Check off Maryland!) We must have just missed the crowd, because we were one of 4 cars in the parking lot.  I guess everyone got there early to view the skeleton with rickets and smoker's lung in a jar. The children were HORRIFIED! It was AWESOME! Besides offering lots of unusual specimens, the museum is currently exhibiting Abraham Lincoln's bone fragments, a lock of his hair, and the bullet that killed him so we HAD to go.

Parking Lot Lottery! Where is everyone??

Turn around, Sugar! Let mama get your picture with the Mega Colon and Small Pox feet!

Human stomach-shaped hairball, aka reason #67 why you shouldn't eat your hair.

   

               

                         weird obsessions are normal, right?

Mile 699
We followed up our morning of medical discoveries with a tour of the Capitol. We didn't have time for an official lunch so the children dined on a delicious meal of power bars and chips on the bottom floor of a parking garage. Making memories! We met our tour guide in Senator Issakson's office, then toured the capitol and sat in the Senate Chambers. There weren't many senators in the chambers, but we got to watch some interns check their phones and change out the water on the podium where no one stood. Spellbinding. The Capitol is currently undergoing renovations so it is covered in scaffolding and drop cloths.  It was a little disappointing that we couldn't see the rotunda in all its glory but the scope of the building is staggering. We kept running into our friends the Elsey's from Marietta! Small world!

Instead of driving straight back in one trip, we decided to hit the road and make it as far as we could. We will have to hit D.C. again because there was so much we didn't get to see!

Mile 809- 

We hit the Richmond Cracker Barrel. It's not officially a road trip until you get some fried okra.

Mae, exasperated, listens to Thomas' alternate rules to checkers.

Mile 1054- We landed ourselves at the Winston-Salem Residence Inn. The closest thing we could get to I-85 at the last minute. It was housed in a former apartment complex so our room had two floors. You would've thought we were at the Ritz! Everyone had their own sleeping space! And, they gave us cookies! Major props to random Winston-Salam Marriott!

Tomorrow we depart our sweet digs for May-retta. Gotta be home for choir practice!


Mile 1384- Home again! 23 hours in the car,  26 states to go!