Road Trip 2024!!

On the road Sunday morning at 7:30am, everyone got a slushee or a coffee to start the road trip. 

11.5 hours later we were in Harrisonburg, VA outside of Shenandoah National Park.

Monday we took the day to drive Skyline Dr within the national park.

We took a few different side hikes, some of them part of the Appalachian Trail.

AT marker

End of bearface mountain hike

Henry put a flower behind my ear and a few minutes later I was putting my hands through my hair and I thought it was a bug! 

Top of Stony Man hike - very windy!

Farther down Skyline Dr, Jer is pointing to Stony Man, where we climbed

There were rock walls all throughout the park, most to keep you from driving off the side of a cliff

After hiking all day, we went to Olive Garden for supper

Once we realized the hotel pool was outside, the kids had a great time swimming

DC hotel room was really nice and spacious, we could pull out the sofa bed for Stella at night and pack it up into a couch during the day.

The roof of the hotel in DC had nice views

The first night in DC we walked around a lot locating the nearest metro station, then trying to find an ice cream shop that had something Henry could eat.  We were all hot and thirsty by the time we were done.

Waiting for the Air & Space museum to open

We figured out where the line was and there was a cool fountain

Henry raced a car with a head start and only lost by a second

Lunch at McD's after the first museum

walking around the national mall before hitting the National Gallery of Art

Cool fountain there too

The kids really enjoyed this interactive art display 

Between the East and West buildings there was a really cool moving light art piece

This is the bottom of the fountain from earlier

Jer's favorite painting, it was massive and there was a lady painting a smaller replica

The kids were excited to go to the Natural History Museum because it was in the movie Night at the Museum.  It was the third museum of the day though, so we didn't stay super long.

More pics on the National mall before finding the metro station

Day 3 in DC started at the Arlington Cemetery and tomb of the unknown soldier.

Then we walked around looking at the monuments

Cooled our feet in the WWII fountain and made friends with a duck

Walked to the Lincoln Memorial

Stood where MLK gave his I have a dream speech.

This was the statue of George Washington that we passed multiple times a day because it was between the metro station and our hotel.

Day 4 in DC started with a tour of the Library of Congress. We were amazed with how ornate this building is.

Next we had a tour of the Capitol building - this is the form for the statue on the top of the dome.

It was very busy and lots of people were also taking tours of the building.

This statue was carved in 1921 and it is waiting for the first female president to have the fourth face carved.

The Rosa Parks statue (center) kicked out the statue of Jefferson Davis (President of the Confederacy) in 2013 and put it into storage according to our tour guide.

We didn't get to do the tour of the white house - it didn't work with our schedule, but we did see it from the outside.

One of many escalator rides down into the subway

A fountain in the Botanic Garden

We also went to the Native American History Museum, then decided we had had enough walking in the heat.

So we took the subway back to our hotel

And walked to a burger place around the corner from our hotel. The kids wanted to eat inside in the A/C. 

Then we hung out at the pool and the kids let a little boy push them into the pool.

Leila and I played cards.

The next day we drove to Annapolis to the Naval Academy

We took a 2-hour tour and went over our parking meter time. We were nervous that we would get a ticket because it would not allow us to renew our time in the app, but we did not get caught.

A model of a Wright Brothers plane that the navy purchased.

It was the plebe's 3rd day and we got to see them marching around the grounds.

This is their dorm, the largest in the world - all of the students are in the same building.

Jer and the navy mascot

Our hotel, which we thought was in Annapolis, ended up being closer to Baltimore and it wasn't very nice. Henry's roll away bed was all springs. We decided to go to a movie and saw Inside Out 2.

The next morning we hit the road right after breakfast and were able to get into our room in our Virginia Beach hotel early.  It was a beautiful view and a much better room than the night before - it even had the same room number!

We had to check out the King Neptune statue on the boardwalk.

It started to get stormy as the night went on and we walked to a diner in the rain.

After supper we grabbed ice cream at Ben & Jerry's.

Our first morning in Virginia Beach we swam in the pool until lunch.

After lunch we went to the beach, but unfortunately it was super windy and the sand was blowing onto everything.  There was a red flag and we couldn't do much swimming, we only let the kids go in the water up to their knees.

View of our hotel from the beach

You can see the sand blowing across the beach.

The water was cold!

Views from the balcony

More swimming in the pool

We had searched and thought we found the perfect restaurant on the water, but it was a little bit disappointing - Henry couldn't have the fries (so he went to the restaurant from the night before afterward to get some). I was feeling sick after a few bites so Jer finished my meal. 

Then we walked around looking for souvenirs.  

The last morning, Jer caught the sunrise.

He took this photo and later commented that he knows not to cut of the statue's head and that we don't need all of the sidewalk in the picture. :)

Another family took our picture and we took theirs.

We walked to a restaurant for breakfast

It was delicious - we all got pancakes and Henry had fries for breakfast. He ate a lot of fries on this trip.

Jer loved all of the jets that kept flying over the ocean from the naval base nearby.

Family selfie from the hotel balcony

Our last stop on the trip was Beckley, WV near New River Gorge National Park.

The gorge is in the background - we went on a bunch of ziplines, it was so fun!

Henry weighed exactly the minimum - we all had to step on a scale. He had to hold the cannonball position on every zip or he might not have made it to the other side.  There were even a few that the guides gave him a push to make it across.

The girls held hands on one zip

What an adventure!  And a great way to end the trip.  It was great to get away as a family and enjoy time together.