Back to Florida

We drove from Florida to New York. Then From NY to Michigan to visit L's family. It was a lot of fun visiting family. Managed to spin out 180 on the interstate while driving. Always fun. Then on the way to his grandparent's house, I insisted on driving in the snow just in case the roads are bad if he deploys or I am unable to have him chauffeur me in England. Managed to get 2 miles away from the final destination before I hit the brakes ( I KNOW you're not supposed to do that, but muscle memory is so hard to conquer) and we went into the ditch. Thankfully, my CC was able to push us out of the ditch. The snow was beautiful.

We backtracked and went to Maryland to visit my bf and stayed at her sister's house. Jiji's nephew is SO sweet. They also have one rocking american bulldog.

On our first venture into the city, we went to the Spy Museum with Jiji and he fiance, D, and ate at chipotle before he had to leave and return to school.

A random God thought came to me and gave me the idea to call my cousin, who works for a senator from Georgia. He gave us a tour of the capital. It was a wonderful experience going underground through the tunnels and getting an insider's scoop on the capital.

The museums in DC were amazing. We did not nearly cover HALF of the two museums we visited, which were the Natural History and American History.




The gem room was my favorite at the Natural History Museum.


The museum of American history had a cute display on most of the first ladies' inaugural ball dresses.


Sadly, Michelle Obama's ingural dress was not on display. Was looking forward to it.

Overall, it was a wonderful trip and was glad we got to see my bf. Wish we would have had more time to explore museums and see more of the city-including more of the monuments. Fortunately, we were able to see the big ones, like the Lincoln and the Washington. The Washington's surroundings make it spectacular, unlike the cornfield that entraps the Jefferson Davis Monument in Kentucky. It's a city I would return to and tour again. Great place to take kis to learn history and become inspired to better themselves. Almost everything is free, except the Spy Museum.

On the drive down, we spent the night in Charlotte, North Carolina. We stopped at the museum there and toured a stone house built in 1774. An interesting story, Lord Cornwallis created the mascot for Charlotte when he said that it was: "a hornet's nest of rebellion."

We read up on Stonewall Jackson and the Civil War and it inspired us to stop at Stone Mountain
in Georgia. It's east of Atlanta. They even have a little snow mountain set up to toboggan down, but we did not go since it was expensive. Ironic that we saw it only a few days after reading an article on it while in DC on a train.

The carving was started by Gutson Borglum around 1923. Who left the job to start Mount Rushmore. The carving was passed along to several people before it's completion in 1972.

It depicts three figures of the Confederate States of America: Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson on their horses Blackjack, Traveller, and Old Sorrel-respectively.


After all that we went to Dothan to see my parents and grandma who is visiting. What fun. Now we checked out of Hurlburt and are off to Dothan, again, in the morning.