Vacation: Day 10 Dayton

We've finally come to the last day of our summer vacation. (I know you probably thought I'd never get to it.) We could have driven straight home from Pittsburgh, like my parents did, but we decided to take one extra day and make it two easy days of driving. We pricelined a hotel in Dayton, OH and stopped early in the afternoon. We spent the evening in the pool and eating ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. It was a nice relaxing way to wrap up our trip.

The next morning Brian and the boys headed out to the Airforce Museum on Wright-Patterson Airforce Base. We've been there several times before and the boys always love it. It is a terrific free museum full of full sized planes from every era of the history of flight....including the space program. (As a matter of fact some of the things we saw in the Smithsonian we had already seen before when they had been on exhibit at Wright-Patterson.)

One area of the museum is in a separate hangar, however, and we had never taken the boys over to that section before. So Brian decided to only tour that and the space section. The special section houses all of the previous Air Force One planes. You can walk through them and see exactly what kind of accommodations each president has had. You can stand in the spot where Johnson was sworn in and see the cargo hold that transported JFK's body. Of course the boys loved it. They were full of stories when they got back to the hotel around noon. It was a fun end to our great vacation. We packed up and headed home....arriving in Greenville around 7 pm. Home at last!

Looking back on this year's vacation I can see that it was a lot of fun and VERY educational, but VERY different from our normal vacations. Most of our vacations are all about nature and exploring God's awesome creation. We spend a lot of time hiking and climbing and swimming and observing wildlife. We enjoy experiencing scenery and climate much different from our own.

This time we were in urban settings almost 100% of the time. The scenery and climate were almost exactly like ours at home (except for the beach). And while we did "hike" for miles and miles around DC we only spent a few brief hours in nature (aside from sleeping at the campground each night) when we went to the state park near Pittsburgh. However, we really saw a lot of interesting and unique structures.....they just happened to be built by man instead of by God. We learned so much about colonial and Civil War history and modern day engineering. We were able to expose our kids (and my parents) to some of our nation's greatest man made monuments and show them the center of our government.

With that said, I think we are all ready to get back to our more typical vacation next year. Somewhere sparsely populated with miles of wilderness to explore. The kids are already talking about Michigan, or Colorado, or Yellowstone. After all, half the fun of vacationing is the planning.


To read about Day One traveling and Day Two in Gettysburg go here.
To read about Day Three in Baltimore go here and here.
To read about Day Four in Washington D.C. go here.
To read about Day Five in Washington D.C. go here. and here.
To read about Day Six on Assateague Island go here.
To read about Day Seven on Chincoteague Island go here.
To read about Day Eight at Antietam go here.
To read about Day Nine in Pittsburgh go here. and here.

Vacation: Day 9 Pittsburgh continued

Just as the drizzle stopped we arrived in downtown Pittsburgh at....
to watch the Cardinals take on the.....Eric got us tickets through his job. We had 4 tickets in 3 different sections of the ballpark. One of which was on field level.....on the VERY FRONT ROW!! Which of course means we were just a few feet from.... And we got to be eye witnesses to an argument between Tony LaRussa and the first base umpire.
In between innings Ryker stood up in all of his Cardinal red and tried to catch Albert or McKay's eye, but it didn't work. We didn't get any balls thrown our way.We were right there to watch the celebration after a Redbird victory. After the game there was a huge fireworks show timed to recorded music.

Interspersed with the fireworks there was a concert by O.A.R. (a band that none of us had heard of but all enjoyed). They sing "How many times can I break til I shatter?" if you aren't familiar with the name.

It was a great night and a fun end to our "official" vacation. But never the ones to rush home, we had a couple of more things on the agenda.

To be continued......

To read about Day One traveling and Day Two in Gettysburg go here.
To read about Day Three in Baltimore go here and here.
To read about Day Four in Washington D.C. go here.
To read about Day Five in Washington D.C. go here. and here.

To read about Day Six on Assateague Island go here.
To read about Day Seven on Chincoteague Island go here.

To read about Day Eight at Antietam go here.

To read about Day Nine in Pittsburgh go here.

Vacation: Day 9 Pittsburgh, Part One

Well, better 3 months late than never, right?

Our time in Pittsburgh was one of my favorite parts of our vacation this summer, so I don't know why it has taken me so long to post about it. At long last here it is.......

We left the mosquito ridden shores of Assateague Island just as thousands of poor saps were rushing in there for the weekend. We took a detour through the Antietam Battlefield and then rolled in to my brother Eric's house in Pittsburgh about 10 pm on Friday night. Everyone there was already in bed so we just threw some blankets on the floor and passed out. (Our first night not in a tent for 8 days.)

On Saturday morning we just vegged out, eating pancakes and watching the kids play. Eli and Kinley particularly enjoyed the princess shoes. Then on Saturday afternoon we packed up and went to a beautiful State Park near Pittsburgh. We hike through boulders along the river, watched the kayakers negotiate the rapids, explored an old grist mill and saw a covered bridge. It was our first real "nature" experience of the trip, which is really strange for us. Usually we are out traipsing around in the woods all the time when we are camping. Ironically, I apparently did not take my camera on this outing....or I forgot to use it. I'm not sure which.

Saturday evening it was time for the big event.....the reason we were there....well, not the reason we were in Pittsburgh, but the reason we were there on that particular weekend.....The Cardinal Game!!!! Eric got tickets for all of us to go together. We packed all of our red just for the occasion. On the way to the game we would have to drive right past the bridge that Eric's company was building. So we stopped for Eric to give us a tour.

It was drizzling a little bit but luckily Kira had an extra umbrella for Kinley to use.
At first we explored the job site from the ground. You can see how huge the support pillars are. Before they could be built the Allegeheny River had to be dammed around the job site and a base of rock many, many feet deep had to be built up.In this picture you can see the existing highway bridge (steel structure) on the right, and then the two new two lane bridges they are building on the middle and the left. As you can see they first build the vertical support columns and then they start pouring concrete horizontally in each direction for the actual road. They have to keep it balanced by pouring evenly on each side.
Pouring concrete horizontally in mid-air requires this contraption. I don't remember the technical term but I think we referred to it as a creeper. It is a form for the concrete that stays in place while the concrete is poured and while it cures for a couple of days, then it slides (or creeps) out a little further so that the next section can be poured.

These two sections of the bridge are just about to meet.Eric decided we could get a better view of the bridges from up on top but none of us wanted to climb the switchback scaffolding all the way to the top like the workers do. (If you look closely in the picture of the three bridges you can see it going up the side of the middle bridge. Scary.) So he took us around, through a toll plaza and up on top.

From there we could see the view that the workers have everyday of the river far, far below.

This is the creeper contraption. It is hard to make heads or tails of what all of the parts are but you get the idea.

This is the finished product before the next section is poured. The workers eat lunch inside these tunnels inside the bridge on cold or rainy days instead of going down to the ground. The bridge is actually open all the way from one end to the other.And here are the two new bridges, one mostly complete and the other still under construction. We were kind of shocked at how close together they were. (And you can see the existing bridge with traffic going by in the background too.) You can also tell that the guardrails have not been poured yet. That made it a little scary watching 5 kids run around up top.

The boys loved seeing the construction site and learning all about what Uncle Eric does. Truth be told so did I. "Engineer" is such a broad term. It was fun to see exactly what he has been engineering. I'm so proud of him.

Cainan and Eli were excited to see a real Gator up on the bridge.

I'm not sure what the people driving by on a Saturday evening thought when they saw 12 people, dressed all in red, roaming around an unfinished bridge, but who cares? We had a great time and we learned a lot. We had to tear the kids away, but the promise of a Cardinal game did the trick.

It was time to get on the road and go to the game. First we had to get back through the toll booth just outside the construction site. Eric went up to a State Trooper on duty at the "pass-through-for-free-gate" that the construction workers are allowed to use. He said the magic words and we all got through without paying a toll. Whew!

On to the game.......to be continued.......

To read about Day One traveling and Day Two in Gettysburg go here.

To read about Day Three in Baltimore go here and here.

To read about Day Four in Washington D.C. go here.

To read about Day Five in Washington D.C. go here. and here.
To read about Day Six on Assateague Island go here.

To read about Day Seven on Chincoteague Island go here.
To read about Day Eight at Antietam go here.

Vacation: Day 8 Antietam

Our original plan for Day 8 was to pack up camp and go back across the Chesapeake Bay, through Maryland, up to Antietam and then on North to my brother, Eric's, house in Pittsburgh. BUT....since we didn't get to spend much time at the beach on Day 7 we decided to stay and swim until noon. Mom and Dad went ahead without us and we hit the beach.

Kinley and I built a pitiful sandcastle. I don't know much about sand, but I don't think that beach had the right kind for sandcastles. We had fun anyway. She also spent a lot of time collecting shells.

Of course the boys were swimming and body surfing like pros and once again they were dejected when we told them it was time to leave. As we were packing up I decided to try to take an "artsy" photo to chronicle our trip.

I also wanted a picture of the family on the beach with the ocean behind us. I asked an elderly lady that had been sitting near us in a beach chair reading all morning if she would take the picture. She said, "Sure hon, just tell me which button to push." I showed her the little silver button and posed with the family. This is the picture we discovered later.

Obvioulsy she had an itchy trigger finger. I should probably be thankful there isn't a close up of me in my swimsuit anyway.

It was time to leave the Atlantic Ocean and Assateague Island behind us, hopefully forever. (Not the Atlantic so much, but Assateague for sure. There are much better places to go to the beach. Places where you won't leave covered from head to toe in bites. Places where your kids won't be crying and scratching in their sleep. The really sad thing is there was a couple camping next to us that had come to Assateague Island from Florida because they had heard it was a good beach. They were not happy!) But before we left for good we had to snag a souvenir.

Next, it was on to Antietam. To tell you the truth Brian was the only one that still wanted to go. We had all had about as much history as we could fit in to one vacation. But he was driving, so what could we do? As it turned out we got there in the late afternoon and just did the driving tour. Compared to Gettysburg it was much smaller and easier to understand and invision all of the troop movements because they happened all on one day....instead of being spread over three days. Gettysburg was the blooidest battle of the war but Antietam (Sharpsburg for you Rebels) was the bloodiest one day battle of the war. And a lot of the casualties occured on this "sunken road".

The Confederates used the road as a natural fox hole. They hid inside and fought for several hours but Union forces were finally able to break through the center of their line. Meanwhile Union General Burnside was trying to take the bridge over Antietam Creek. We hiked to the bridge and stood right on the banks of the creek where Burnside's men tried to take cover from the musketballs of the Confederate soldiers that were hailing down on them from the hill on the otherside of the creek. Eventually Burnside was victorious but their were massive casulties on both sides. Wooden planks were ripped off of the bridge guardrails and used as headstones for the hundreds of graves along the banks of the creek. (I was apparently too exhausted at this point to remember to take any pictures of the bridge and the creek and surrounding hills.)

I did remember to get my camera out later as we got a good view of the sunken road and surrounding battlefield from this tower.It was a LONG climb up.

Like Gettysburg, there were monuments erected by various states all over the battlefields at Antietam. I took a picture of this one because I wanted to remember this guy and do some reasearch on him. I am telling you, somebody needs to write a screenplay about Thomas Meagher. His life was unbelievable!! It really would make a great historical action adventure movie. Meagher was born in Ireland in 1823. He became a fiery Irish revolutionary in an attempt to release Ireland from British rule. He earned the nickname Meagher of the Sword and fought countless battle in the struggle for Irish Independence. He was captured by the British and sent to a penal colony on Tasmania in 1848. He somehow managed to escape and make his way to the United States in 1852. He lived in New York City where he studied law and journalism. When the Civil War started he immediately joined up and formed his Irish Brigade. He worked his way up through the ranks of the army and eventually became a brigadier general. After the war he became the governor of Montana, but in 1867, in unexplained circumstances, he fell from a steamboat into the Columbia River and drown. His body was never recovered. You couldn't make something that outrageous up if you tried. Wouldn't that be a great movie?

Anyway, we left Antietam and headed for Pittsburgh. We didn't get to my brother's house until 10:30pm or so. Everybody was asleep, so we threw our blankets on the floor and immediately zonked out ourselves. It had been a long day....a long week, but we still had some visiting and some baseball in store for us.

Come back Wednesday to read about our AWESOME baseball experience.

Tomorrow I'll be sharing my first attempt at a Julia Child recipe. Don't miss it.

To read about Day One traveling and Day Two in Gettysburg go here.
To read about Day Three in Baltimore go here and here.
To read about Day Four in Washington D.C. go here.
To read about Day Five in Washington D.C. go here. and here.

To read about Day Six on Assateague Island go here.

To read about Day Seven on Chincoteague Island go here.

Vacation: Day 7 Chincoteague

This was our "adventure" day. In the Hayes family "adventure" is the polite term we use for things that go horribly wrong while on vacation. We just chalk it all up to an "adventure". It wouldn't be summer vacation without an adventure....but hopefully only one. Chincoteague Island was our adventure this year.

Not being the type of vacationers to just sit around or stay in one place for too long we decided to explore the southern portion of the island on Thursday. You see, half of Assateague Island is in Maryland and the other half is in Virginia. The Virginia end is called Chincoteague Island. The problem is there is no road from one end of the island to the other. We had to cross the bridge back to the mainland and drive on little two lane roads for an hour until we could cross another bridge and get back on to the island at the town of Chincoteague.
There were a few things we wanted to check out while we were down at Chincoteague. Dad was interested in getting an ORV (off road vehicle) permit. This would allow us to drive along the beaches and find our own secluded swimming hole and picnic spot. I wanted to see the lighthouse on the southern tip of the island and we all wanted to try out the surf at a new beach.

Chincoteague is a tiny little tourist town right on the bay. It is so stuffed with restaurants and shops and tourists that we could barely drive around. It took us so much longer to get down there than we expected that we hadn't packed a lunch. We decided to stop at McDonald's before heading out to explore. This is when we should have known that things were not going to go our way.

As we all piled out of the truck a worker from McDonalds came out to meet us in the parking lot to tell us that we were not allowed inside....and not because we had been camping for 7 days and weren't looking too hot. No, we couldn't eat our chicken McNuggets because there was no power in McDonalds. As a matter of fact there was no power on a large portion of the island. OK. No problem. We snacked on our endless supply of granola bars and went to go do a few things before lunch and give them some time to get the power back on.

Our first stop was the visitor's center to get our ORV permit and a map of the area. Guess what? No power there either! Dad went inside (where it was stifling with no air conditioning) only to discover that no ORV permits were being issued because some kind of shore bird was nesting on the island during that time. Scratch that idea. We did get a map though.

Next stop....the lighthouse. The lighthouse was just a short .2 mile walk through the woods off of the main road. Problem? Mosquitoes. Oh yes. The mosquitoes are just as thick on Chincoteague as they are on Assateague. I was sick of sitting in the truck doing nothing all morning so I decided to "deet up" and make a run for it. Brian, Dad, Ryker and Cainan were brave enough to go with me. Mom and Kinley opted to stay in the truck. So we danced our way out to the lighthouse. I say 'danced' because if you have ever seen a group of people try to walk while killing 5 mosquitoes a second at the same time it is more like dancing than walking. The nice thing is every person you pass on the trail is doing the mosquito dance too, so nobody is self-conscious. It's a fight for survival.

So....we get to the lighthouse only to discover that there is no power there either and what's more we are not allowed to go up in the lighthouse to see the view if there isn't any power. Why? I don't know. All I know is that the elderly lighthouse managers were standing up on the railing at the very top of the lighthouse shouting down to all of the tourists that they would open up again as soon as power was restored. They also made sure to let us know that they were not coming down....because there aren't any mosquitoes 4 stories up.

We did manage to learn an interesting fact about the lighthouse from a sign at it's base. As a Coast Guard Lifesaving Station the sailors that were stationed at the lighthouse rescued many civilians whose vessels that were lost in storms or stranded on the rocks. They made one very important rescue. President Franklin Pierce and his staff had to be rescued off of his yacht during a storm. All lives were saved and the Chincoteague Island Lighthouse had it's 15 minutes of fame.


After losing another pint of blood we decided to head out to the beach...after all, we had all been wearing our swimsuits all day anyway. Bad decision number 352. Our beach back near our campground is huge and roomy and great. This one was packed with people. We couldn't even find a place to park. We decided not to fight the crowds and instead head back (1 hour north) to our own little beach, where we should have stayed in the first place. Of course we still hadn't had lunch yet so we needed to find a place to eat.

The portion of the island that had power had no fast food so we had to eat in a real seafood restaurant. We weren't disappointed to have to eat crab legs and crab cakes again but......Kinley had an "accident" in her shorts earlier and had no pants to wear. She was wearing a swimsuit. Period. Not really appropriate for a sit down seafood restaurant. So I had to stop in a shop and get her some shorts. Apparently they aren't big on shorts in Chincoteague. I had to settle for a t-shirt that was WAY to big for her. So she went to the restaurant dressed in a nightgown and a swimsuit basically.

After lunch we headed home....to our own beach. But before we were even halfway back the beautiful sunny skies that had shone on us all day as we DID NOTHING on Chincoteague began to cloud up and pour down rain. It rained the entire rest of the day. So while we could have been swimming at our beach all morning in the sunshine we were instead having "adventures" down south. We had to spend the afternoon and evening sitting in the camper, with the windows closed and no air conditioning playing Phase 10, Puerto Rico and Dora Matching Game.

The kids were totally bummed! (And I wasn't to happy myself.) They were devastated to be so close to the ocean and not be able to play at the beach. In order to keep the peace we promised them that we would head to the beach as soon as the rain stopped. It finally stopped just a little bit before dark and as promised we hit the beach. The waves were scary big after the storm but Ryker headed right back out to them. We jumped and played and had a great time on the COMPLETELY DESERTED beach until it was so dark we couldn't see anymore.

And so ended the only yucky day of our vacation. The kids begged us not to make them sleep in the Mosquito Murder Tent again, so they spent the night in Grandad and Granny's camper and Brian and I braved the bugs by ourselves. It wasn't horrible as "adventures" go. We've had worse (flat tires, lost propane tanks, hours lost in the middle of nowhere), but it still wasn't fun. Thank goodness it was our only adventure.

Come back tomorrow to see how we redeemed ourselves on Friday and read about our next destination.

To read about Day One travelling and Day Two in Gettysburg go here.
To read about Day Three in Baltimore go here and here.
To read about Day Four in Washington D.C. go here.
To read about Day Five in Washington D.C. go here and here.
To read about Day Six on Assateague Island go here.

Vacation: Day 6 Assateague Island

So on Wednesday morning we packed up our camp in northern Virginia and headed off to far southeastern Maryland, the Atlantic Ocean and Assateague Island. But first some background.......

The kids' only request of this year's vacation was that they get to go to the ocean. Four years ago they fell in love with the sand and the waves on the shores of Lake Michigan, but since then they've been clamoring for the real thing. Of course, Brian and I certainly don't mind a trip to the beach ourselves, and we were only going to be 150 miles from the coast, so why not?

We got online and searched for the "best beach near Washington D.C.". The result we got was Assateague Island. We looked it up on the map and discovered that it was indeed one of the closest Atlantic beaches to D.C. , but the deciding factor was when we told my mom about it. She immediately exclaimed, "Oh, Assateague Island! That's the home of the wild ponies. I read a whole series of books about them when I was little. I've ALWAYS wanted to go there!" So we went.

One of the neatest things about driving from Washington D.C. to Assateague Island is that you get to cross the amazing Chesapeake Bay Bridge. There are two massive bridges side by side across the bay. You can see ocean going cargo ships sailing in and out of the bay as you drive overhead. It really is an awesome sight. Of course it comes with a price. We paid $6 for the privilege of crossing it. Mom and Dad with their camper had to pay $16.

We arrived on the island (via another slightly less impressive bridge) around 3 o'clock or so. We confirmed our reservations and located our campsite. As Brian and I started to untie and unload everything the kids started exploring our new home. Kinley was intrigued by a pile of seashells that she found that had been left by the previous inhabitants. Within 30 seconds we heard screaming. Kinley was panicking. She was crying and jumping around. I had no idea what was wrong with her. I ran over to her and just as I bent to scoop her up I saw the problem. Her legs were covered in mosquitoes. And when I say covered I mean at least 20 on each leg. I grabbed her and swatted mosquitoes as I ran to the car. We shut the kids back in the car and started digging out the bug spray.

We didn't realize it at the time, but we had just discovered the terror that is Assateague Island. You see, it's an island, (obviously) which is surrounded by water. The Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Chesapeake Bay on the other side. There are two campgrounds on the island, Seaside and Bayside. The seaside campground has lots of gusty sea breezes to keep the mosquitoes at bay (no pun intended). The bay side campground has grass and bushes and trees and no breeze to speak of. Guess which campground we were in?

The bad news was we couldn't go outside...which is a little tough when you are CAMPING. We ran full speed from our cars to the camper or tent. If we had to be outside for some reason we wore jeans and jackets and hats and lots and lots of deet. We couldn't have a campfire or sit out and enjoy the sunshine. The kids couldn't ride their scooters or bikes without being covered head to toe in clothing....and it was slightly hot......definitely not jacket weather.

The bad, bad news was that there is no electricity on Assateague Island, which means that when we did have to sit around in the camper or the tent for fear of our lives we couldn't turn on a fan or the air conditioning etc.

The good news is that there were no mosquitoes on the beach. As soon as we walked over the big sand dune that separates the parking lot from the beach we noticed the difference. We weren't slapping and twitching and swatting constantly. People were wearing swimsuits, not parkas. It was such a relief. We stayed at the beach all evening until it got dark and we reluctantly had to go back to our infested campsite.

Now, let me address the ponies. First of all, they aren't ponies, they are horses. Pony is just a colloquial term of endearment. Legend has it that their ancestors were the lone survivors of a shipwreck near the island. The "ponies" then turned wild and populated the island with their offspring. There is no historical proof that there ever was such a shipwreck, but it is well documented that farmers in the area used to pasture their horses on the island. No need for fences. So, it is much more likely that they are descended from a few strays that missed the farmer's round-up. Regardless of their pedigrees we were anxious to spot these wild ponies.
As we pulled on to the island we began a contest as to who could spot the most wild ponies. I pulled out to an early lead by spotting one through the trees, deep in the forest. Then Ryker saw one near the shore of the bay. Then we set up camp and had the whole mosquito panic and climbed over the dune to the beach and saw.......

Apparently "wild" is a relative term. These ponies are less wild than my house dog. They were stomping over beach towels, ripping in to bags of potato chips, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. They were everywhere. They tried to break in to dumpsters and coolers and any other food container they could find. It was kind of neat to be able to go right up to them and pet them but it was a little disheartening to find that they were more of a public nuisance than some type of exotic wildlife. We were picturing them more like the wild mustangs in Nevada that we drove for hours trying to spot in the high dessert outside of Reno.
Anyway....the kids LOVED the beach...ponies and all. The waves totally frightened her, but Kinley was content to play in the sand for hours.

The boys, on the other hand were in heaven. They thoroughly enjoyed the surf. Cainan played it safe and stayed close to shore but Ryker was out over his head jumping and riding waves all evening. We had a great time trying to body surf and getting knocked senseless by the 6 and 7 foot waves. The boys definitely did not want to head in for supper.

But there was even more fun to come!

Since we couldn't face a muggy evening in the camper playing SkipBo, we decided to don our headlamps and head back to the beach for some crabbing. We had so much fun!

The weather was PERFECT! Seventy degrees with a salty breeze and an almost full moon...and NO mosquitoes. There were a few small groups of people sitting around campfires on the beach, but for the most part we were completely alone. We walked up and down the beach straining our eyes to see the little shore crabs scurrying in and out of their homes.
We managed to be quick enough (or should I say, Brian and Dad were quick, and brave, enough) to catch a few of them to get a closer look.And then we came across some of the ponies dozing just above the high tide mark. We saw the cutest little colt standing there sleeping.

It was getting late and we needed to head back to camp. We jumped in the back of Dad's truck, drove to the campsite, and dove through the small slit in the tent door for bed. I am not kidding when I tell you that the inside of our tent looked like something from CSI. There was blood smeared all over the walls. The hundred or so mosquitoes that came in with us when the 5 of us dove in every night had to be killed before we went to sleep. The kids would hide (heads and all) inside their sleeping bags while Brian killed the mosquitoes (simultaneously trying not to punch a hole through our nylon tent). I was the spotter. I would lay in bed with just my eyes and forehead exposed yelling out the location of the next victim. If we weren't so busy scratching I'm sure we could have laughed at ourselves.

Anyway...it had been a great day at the beach. The kids had a wonderful first trip to the ocean. Too bad it was all about to go downhill.

Come back tomorrow to read about our further "adventures" on Assateague Island.

To read about Day One travelling and Day Two in Gettysburg go here.

To read about Day Three in Baltimore go here and here.

To read about Day Four in Washington D.C. go here.

To read about Day Five in Washington D.C. go here.