The Great DC Adventure: Webcam to Webcam

I know it seems like I've been talking about this trip forever, but it was amazing - one I love reliving. We're home now, with a family member dealing with some medical issues, so I haven't been to the keyboard as much as I like. I must admit, though, writing this post that these pictures bring back a smile to my face. Because leave it to TaGeez and I to just go off the tourist rails!

First stop on Sunday morning? Webcam! Oh, the parking was horrendous, but we pulled up to a (mostly legit spot) marked "Sunday parking only". We hopped out long enough to clown for the camera.

We grabbed the webcam on the way to the National Zoo. Oh, we almost gave up! It took us almost an hour to get ushered into a zoo lot. And then $22 to park for the 'free' zoo - ouch! All was worth it when we emailed front-row pictures of the pandas back to my Dad in the hospital. 

And nearby is the National Cathedral, another Virtual. What a difference since my last visit! The entire back half is under scaffolding for earthquake damage!

The sign among the wreckage reads, "The limestone pinnacles were damaged in the August 23, 2011 earthquake here. The ground shook for less than a minute but caused the 301-foot central tower of Washington National Cathedral to whip back and forth. Some of the 50-ton pinnacles spun like tops and others fell onto the roof." I look forward to returning when it's repaired. The larger stones will take carvers 32 weeks (costing $60K) to recarve.

Taking this on the road

Ok, traffic congestion and pedestrians are everywhere. Time to head out of the city!

The wonderful thing about going to small states is that you can 'collect' state souvenirs a little easier. With a special ride up the coast on Sunday, we acquired Maryland, Washington DC, Delaware, and New Jersey.

It was a fascinating study on traffic, tolls, and parking toils. As a military wife, I thought I'd experienced these to the max, but it was so bad Sunday night we decided to skip our detour to Philadelphia on Monday to avoid that experience again. 

Even with all of this, the drive was lovely - sky so blue. In Delaware, we met another cacher, nshoopie, at our first Delaware cache. She was celebrating her 100th find and had hoped to find some trackables in the cache to take back to Philadelphia. No luck in the cache, but, luckily, we had a few to trade.

Further up the road was New Jersey - actually, a bit middle class but quite lovely, along the river. As there were no fabulous caches near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, we grabbed our desired 6 caches and turned back around.

Delaware Memorial Bridge

Oh, how we underestimated the traffic! We had assumed, since we had set aside almost a full day, we could make it up to New Jersey and back to Maryland with plenty of time for dinner in Baltimore. We had dinner in Baltimore but around midnight.

One stop was the webcam at Towson University. Such a nice little campus, well groomed with flowers blooming. Too bad for a college town all the restaurants were closed. Onwards to Baltimore passing colleges and Universities and miles and miles of expensive houses in manicured neighborhoods.

We wrapped up the night driving around downtown Baltimore looking for food and parking. We visited Poe's grave, saw the big ships in Baltimore's harbor, and wrapped it up with a late night meal at G&M Crab Cakes.

Exhausted we headed back to the hotel to rest before our journey home...