Read earlier entries from October.
November, 1998
7th: Milford, PA
I think my dog is going to explode because we tossed about three
pounds of bread into the garden and the dog ate about three quarters
of it. That is why I think my dog is going to Boom! explode.
After that he looked like he had improperly digested a basketball.
We started out today. We got as far as Pennsylvania.
(This song is sung to the tune of "The wheels on the bus.")
The kid in the car says "Mom I'm bored."
"Mom I'm bored." "Mom I'm bored."
The kid in the car says "Mom I'm bored."
All through the continent...
8th: Catoctin Mountains, MD
Well, we're on the move again to Maryland. We're staying at a
campground called Crows' Nest and we're near Camp David which is a
presidential summer camp. We stopped at Roundtop (Gettysburg) which is
a historical site where the Union and the Confederate troops did much
of their fighting in the Civil War. We hope to be at Washington D.C.
by tomorrow.
9th: Lake Fairfax, VA
We saw nine deer today, not counting the one smeared on the road.
There were six in a field and three running.
Today we just kicked back and relaxed and I even fit in a little
exercising.
10th
Well we're here for the week.
We saw eight deer today. All we've ever seen on this trip are does.
I went on a bike ride with my dog, and my parents lost me.
I went to dinner at friends of my Mom's and Dad's. I played with
their kids, Danny and Rachel, who are five and six. We flew paper
airplanes.
11th
On to D.C. we go! We took the Metro subway. We saw the Washington
Monument, the Capitol building and the Air and Space Museum. We went
in the Air and Space Museum. We saw the Wright Bros. airplane, a V2
rocket, a Saturn 5 engine, a Voyager reproduction (one or two, we don't
know), a Star Wars® exhibit, a paper airplane contest (which I lost),
the Spirit of St. Louis, the Gossamer Condor, the Spirit of Texas, a
Skyline® Cessna that they would let you steer on the ground, and a
whole lot more.
12th
We went over to more friends of my parents' for dinner and they had
three dogs: Murphy (about three feet at the shoulder), Emma, and
Mousse (who I joke about being Mouse). They also had frogs, turtles,
snakes, and chameleons.
We only saw one doe today.
13th
We went to the house of more friends tonight. I played pool in their
basement. We saw no deer today. We went to the NRA range and I got about
fifteen in the bulls eye.
14th
The Rices were here at 10:00 and we played. We went over someone's
house just to find out that we were supposed to be there on Sunday. We
finally saw a buck today along with five other deer.
15th
Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to D.C. we go for a driving tour.
We saw the Pentagon, Gravelly Park, a metal sculpture called The
Awakening at Haines Point, the Jefferson Memorial, the
Washington Monument, the White House, the Supreme Court building and
the Lincoln Memorial.
At the Pentagon we parked at the south entrance and went in but could
only go in five hundred feet. A security guard that worked for the
Department of Defense wouldn't let us in because we didn't have
security clearance.
One end of Gravelly Park is about 200' from the end of the National
Airport runway. Fergus wanted to get one of those birds! About 200'
off the ground they were!
The Awakening (1980) spells f-u-n! It's an aluminum
sculpture that looks like a giant coming out of the ground. Kids were
sliding down the knee, climbing the feet, sitting on the head and
hand.
The Jefferson Memorial had a path deliberately cut between the trees
to have Jefferson looking at the White House.
The White House: big and roomy with a lot of S.W.A.T. officers to chat
with. Yet no one can go near it because of this new terrorism
protection thing.
The Lincoln Memorial: we saw it from the road but we didn't go there
so I've got nothing to say.
The Washington Monument: I didn't go up it because it was closed for
repairs. "Our goverment at work," I say.
The Supreme Court building had nine people on an arch over the
doorway.
16th
Today we went with the Rices to the Department of Engraving and
Printing and the Museum of Natural History. At Engraving &
Printing we got a tour. I asked what that owl was on the upper right
hand corner of a $1 bill and the tour guide said it's a joke spider
because of the web printers they use. I'm scanning it in just in case
you don't know what I'm talking about.
The gift shop was either totally overpriced junk or good stuff over
$20.
At Natural History we saw a tiger exhibit and a bird exhibit. The
tiger exhibit was only one room but the bird exhibit was huge. There
was a "Rocks, Minerals and Gems" exhibit. They had every kind of rock
you can think of and more. We saw
- rare minerals (gold, silver, platinum, the Hope diamond);
- money (silver, copper);
- fake gems (pyrite, clear quartz);
- real gems (malachite, amethyst, jasper, topaz, sapphire, hematite,
rhodonite);
- useful minerals (rhodochrosite, magnetite);
- and just plain interesting rocks (wulfunite, manganite, aragonite,
fluorite, apatite, labradorite, augite, epidote).
17th
Nothing to write today. All I did was laundry.
18th
Today we saw the NRA Firearms Museum. They had over 1000 guns. We saw
semi-autos, handguns, and rifles. We saw everything from bayonets to
Tommy Guns to modern full autos. We saw a kid's room full of cap guns.
We also saw some buffalo rounds that we keep arguing about how big
they were, but I think that they were as big as an electrical outlet
top to bottom, and at least about 1/2" thick.
Afterward, we went to the Memphis BBQ place.
19th: Westmoreland, VA
After ten days we moved. We'll be here for the next ten days. We are
staying at Westmoreland State Park. We are here because we are closer
to Dahlgren. My brother, Russell, will be staying with us for the next
couple of days. We ended up parking over a BBQ grill because it was
the only site with water and the BBQ grill was bolted down.
20th
We moved site-to-site today from that over-the-BBQ-grill site to a
nice big site. We picked up Russell today for a few nights. I don't
think I mentioned why Dahlgren is so important. It's because that's
where my brother is stationed (he's in the Navy).
21st
I made our dog psycho by playing a game of "imaginary ball." My
brother and I took a bike ride around the park. Dad, my brother, and
I threw boomerangs. My left-handed brother almost took my dad's head
with the flight path of a right-handed boomerang.
22nd
We went to Colonial Beach today. Our dog did the funniest thing today,
he "did his thing" in the water.
My brother has left for a few days but he will be back for
Thanksgiving.
We went stargazing and saw about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars
and the Milky Way. We saw the constellations Orion, Auriga,
Cassiopeia, The Pleiades, and Pegasus.
23rd
For those of you that think I'm doing no work, I am. I have a
Macintosh IIci which I am writing on now. What I do is I write the
story for the day and pass it on to my father who helps me correct it
and puts it on the web site. I also do math, spelling, reading, and
all of my BSA achievements.
I shot some archery and my dad is scanning in some pictures of it to
show you.
I called in some deer with a deer call today but we heard a double
gunshot and it was time to go in. We think we heard a buck, a doe, and
a fawn.
24th
Today we put together my bike. My dad put the seat back up too high.
When we were fixing my bike we took about 99 things apart, greased
about 50%, and lost about 20 ball bearings.
We went hiking to Rock Spring Pond. You can just imagine what my dog
did! My dog was rubbing his head in the reeds and went head first into
the pond. We took Rock Spring trail to Laurel Point trail and up the
road to Campground B.
27th
Today we saw an assortment of birds. We had two sightings of a bald
eagle in one day, two wild turkeys, and three black vultures. I bet
those turkeys were hiding in every nook and cranny yesterday. We keep
seeing these huge bird nests by the water about the size of a heron's
nest. They were always in high places like on top of water towers, on
top of roofs, and pilings.
We saw all sorts of hunters today. There were a pair with two deer
carcasses with a lot of antlers.
I climbed a very steep hillside like this ____\ near the Potomac River
to get a closer look at some sandstone just to find out it was
bleached dirt.
28th
Again we went over to more friends of my family's tonight. We
played, talked ate, talked, and left. They had a Weimaraner named
Merlin because he makes the food disappear so fast. They have a house
by the waterfront.
29th
We went to a playground today and threw a hat up and down a slide
because all the slides were plastic and were too full of static
electricity. Zap!
Later my brother and I went on a bike ride in the forest on a course
we made up. On the course there are steep hills, lots of hazards,
ditches, wet leaves, trees, holly bushes, and roots. We found a Black
& Decker Snake Light on the course.
We had to fix our bikes. My bike needed brake pads, my brother's a
tire, so we went to a store out near Fredrickburg. We also picked up
a helmet and some inflator needles.
We dropped Russell off at NSWC. We won't be seeing him until
Christmas.
We have had some pet ladybugs with us since VT but we've not seen 'em
for days. One was orange and the other was red. We don't know if they
flew away or if they are hiding.
30th: Williamsburg, VA
I lost my leatherman tool somewhere. Today we moved to Fair Oaks
campground. Fair Oaks is a stone's throw from the Williamsburg Pottery
Factory. For November thirty it has been about 70° here in
Virginia. Here you can actually see the bathroom! Here we have a
playground, a pool, and a mini golf course. The playground has a
circular slide, a bumpy slide, two swingsets, and some sort of
climbing structure.
Continue on to December.