Washington DC

From Corning, New York, we made our way to Waldorf, Maryland. Our son and his wife live nearby and Waldorf is one of the larger towns where we could make a hotel booking. When travelling we prefer to book either Marriott or Hilton properties but for whatever reason we found ourselves at a Holiday Inn Express in Waldorf.

Unless you enjoy the experience of a total dive, I’d suggest avoiding that particular property. It was, shall we say, a wee bit run down. So much so that we cancelled the booking when we arrived. And, fair enough, they did not charge us any penalty. It took a bit of hunting to find another property as Waldorf is, apparently, a highly desireable location to book hotel rooms. We eventually found a room at the Hampton Inn. It was okay for sleeping.

Some of you know our amazing golden, Tabby.

She has travelled with us pretty much everywhere. But not for the next two months we are in the southwest. For that part of the journey she will be staying with our son and daughter-in-law. I will really miss her but from all accounts she is having a wonderful time with the kids.

Tabby had cancer last year and a large growth was removed from her rear leg. Unfortunately, just before we left for the United States, we discovered that the growth had come back. Cancer takes about 60 percent of goldens and the life expectancy for the breed is between 10-12 years. Tabby will turn 11 in April.

We did not have enough time to decide on additional surgery and our son will monitor Tabby for the next two months to see how she is faring. Right now she is very much like a puppy and the growth is not impacting her quality of life. But I know that the cancer is not operable at this stage and a difficult day will be coming over the next few months.

However, on the bright side, we had a wonderful time with Matthew and Madison.

We spent the first day touring my favourite museum in Washington, the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.

If you are on the blog, you can see the shot of the White House I took as I crossed the heavy traffic. Nothing like a tourist standing in the middle of the road. If you are reading this via the email you can see the image here.

The monument was a bit of an easier shot to capture.

I’ve been to this museum several times over the years and the planes hanging from the ceiling always brings back good memories.

Although it is not a museum filled just with planes. There are other forms of transportation on display here.

The journey from first flight to landing on the moon happened quickly, 66 years. A remarkable achievement and although I did not witness the first flight, I do remember the moon landing in July of 1969. I watched the grainy images on a black and white television set.

The Apollo 11 Command Module did not offer a lot of leg room for the astronauts.

So many exhibits and I took hundreds of images from the day. Mostly of planes. No surprise there.

We took the train from the Branch Avenue station to Washington DC and we returned the same way. This allowed us to avoid most of the remarkable congestion in this part of the United States.