This morning the kids and I walked over to the arcade/cafe then over to the office to see if they had any decent looking Washington DC or Maryland stickers. No stickers that we liked, but I bought a couple postcards. When we got back, Jonathan was chatting with our new "neighbours" in a similar rig... a lovely couple from Arizona. Jonathan was changing our headlight (a very interesting character stopped us last night on our way back and advised us the passenger side headlight was out). We got some great intel on places were were planning to visit and got their business card for when we are in Arizona. They are doing a similar trip across the country and down the coast, but they came across the middle of America. Super lovely! hope to meet up with them again in the coming weeks!
Packed up and had a quick grilled cheese lunch, and I realized that I didn't remember unpacking our pink Hello Kitty towels from the laundry Jay brought back last night. I was pretty sure I had put all the wet towels in the laundry for Jonathan to take. I puzzled and decided to walk back to the laundry facility to peek in the dryers and lost and found basket. No luck. Then as I walked by the hot tub room I saw our tote bag hanging from the hook above the bench! ta da!! When I left him and the kids last night at the hot tub, I had only taken a towel and shampoo with me and left him with the two bags and snorkel kits. He didn't realize that the white tote was part of the ensemble and had left it behind. mystery solved and towels returned! Yay!
Jonathan had looked up the Smithsonian air and space museum in Virginia. The DC location was closed since covid started, and this one was supposed to be great. So we decided to head there on our way to our Harvest Host he'd found in Virginia, just in the foothills of Shenandoah National Park.
I hooked with kids up with a couple of awesome Usbourne books that I had purchased before we left for our trip and had been saving. They were the "rub" books... Jonathan and I used to love these as kids and our kiddos were equally interested in these books with the rub transfer images. This kept them quite entertained on the drive today.
Left the campground at 1:30pm (very late check out, oops) (sani dumped and fresh water filled) and shortly into the drive we stopped at the BP station for diesel with 115411km on the odometer.
We hit the I-495 west for 16miles and by 2pm we passed a "Welcome to Virginia" sign! Exciting! Took the exit 49 to Route 66 West. Interestingly, we passed a massive office complex of the National Rifle Association (NRA)... eek.
Steven F Udvar-Hazy Centre for Air and Space, Virginia
2:30pm - 5:00pm
This museum is a Smithsonian and is free entry. It was in a HUGE airplane hangar just near the Washington Dulles International Airport where you could see big planes come in for landings right over the parking lot. This place was AMAZING. It was jam-crammed with all kinds of planes, helicopters, space shuttles and all flying things. Planes on the ground, planes hung from the ceiling. Like, full-on, real planes. Mind-boggling. They had a huge space section too with the Discovery Shuttle in it. Crazy. Below are a sampling of the photos... you can't even get an idea of how massive this place was. super cool.
Amelia with Amelia Earhardt's flight suit and photo. Super cool.
The restoration hangar. Kinda mind-blowing what people are capable of. Pretty awesome.
We went up the look out tower (176ft?) and we could listen to the air control tower at the Dulles Airport and watch the planes come in across the parking lot. Can you spy our little Navion in the parking lot from up here? :)
After we hit the gift shop and bought a few postcards, then went to the Shake Shack for a treat (frozen custard milkshakes, yummmmmmm!)
We continued along Hwy 211 west towards Shenandoah National Park. You could very slightly see the leaves starting to change colour. We're about a week or two early for the full meal deal on the fall display, which is disappointing and also fortunate. I really wished we'd be here for the full fall foliage, but at the same time apparently the park is absolutely chock-a-block full of tourists at that time.
The byway was interesting, and we passed through the tiny town of Sperryville before turning off to drive to the harvest host. Lots of Civil War plaques, also interesting election signs... in particular the Hung Cao for Congress signs that appeared to have a gun-sight as part of their logo. eek. We also passed a "Glocks and Guns" store right beside a daycare. 😳
We drove along the Virginia Byway to our Harvest Host for the evening, Blue Quartz Winery. They closed at 6pm but we had let them know we'd be there by 6:30pm. Our host, Carrie, was there waiting for us in the tasting room with some friends and they were all very friendly. The two shetland sheepdogs, Maggie and Merlin, were welcoming little furry ambassadors too. The kids loved them instantly, and Maggie the black and white one was certainly enamoured with the kids, too. Carrie hustled us inside so we could "choose what we wanted to purchase"... Harvest Hosting suggests that in lieu of a free camp spot for the night, you purchase something in the $20 range from the host. We tasted a couple of wines she had open, and jonathan tasted an octoberfest beer. We went with a $30USD bottle of Chardonnay (they were all in that price range or more) and had a nice little chat with Carrie before hopping in the rig and moving it to the gravel area for the night. Within half an hour the tasting room was empty and Carrie and her friends were gone and the grounds were getting dim. Beautiful spot up on the hill with rolling fields and vineyards around and the Shenandoahs up the hill. It was a windy night and we were happy for a safe place to park and a new place to explore the next day.
Merlin
Maggie
Meems giving Maggie snuggles in the tasting room.
our "cost" of camping for the night... a delicious chardonnay!
Made a quick dinner of tortellini and listened to the "Corn" Song for the millionth time (Oliver has been hooked on this ridiculous song about corn -- It's got the juice! and now it seems to come on everytime Jonathan hooks up his phone to the rv speakers.
After Ollie and Amelia's interest in the giant machines this morning (Big Boring Bertha - the tunnel digger), Jonathan thought we could watch Ocean's 13 on my phone tonight so they could see the tunnel being made in the movie. It was a tough gig on the little phone in the back bed with tired kids who didn't understand much of what was happening in the movie, but it was screen time and they ate it up anyhow! We watched a bit and then went to bed.
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