North Carolina

 Ever since I did my 5th grade report on the state of NC, I have wanted to go see the Cape Hatteras light house. Then when I lived with Camber, it renewed my wish to go, and now many years later I finally made it. Shortly after we entered the state we drove past GRAVEDIGGER. The boys made us turn around and go back an up close and personal experience.

We continued on our way to Kitty Hawk to see the Wright Brothers National Monument. It was really interesting and I am glad we were just in time for the telling of their story.

 This is a replica of the plane they made their first flight in.

 Here I am flying out to the 4 different distances their first flights went. 

You can see the last marker way out there. Way to go guys!

 Snapped this one on the drive. We didn't have time to go see all of the cool lighthouses.

This is the Bodie Island lighthouse.

 It was really smokey from some fire on the mainland, but the view was still great!

We decided to take a ferry back to the mainland rather than trekking all the way back up the Outer Banks. I turned out to take a lot longer, but we enjoyed the experience and the break from the car.

 We had about an hour wait between the two different ferry rides. 

Luckily their gift shop was going out of business so we scored some 

cheap souvenirs including the Frisbee that kept the boys entertained.

Here we are on the ferry with a front row view. 

Sorry the only view you get to see is of some man.

Back to the trip-DC part II

We're finally getting back to blogging.  We've had several different kinds of computer issues so we'll be doing catch-up for awhile.  Now that it is fall, you can enjoy seeing our summer activities.

 Museum of Natural History

This tree is all metal, not just painted.

The line was ridiculously long to see the declaration of independence and the constitution

but we took a picture in front of the building at least.

We were mostly excited to go to the aerospace Smithsonian.  Lots of cool stuff.

Luckily we had Brandon to tell us why it was cool.

Arlington National Cemetery was cool.  We were there just in time for the changing

of the guard.  Sorry, no pictures.  It was pretty cool how reverent everyone was there.

The Iwo Jima monument was our last stop in the DC area and then we were off to North Carolina

It was way too much to see in a day, but we hit most of the big stuff.  I had been before but I think everyone who hadn't was satisfied with what we saw.  Stay tuned for more of our road trip fun.