The Great DC Adventure: Heading Home AKA The End

Leaving DC our intent was to return home via Philadelphia. But after dealing with the coastal traffic and tolls the day before, we decided another plan was in order. And this unexpected change in our journey was some of the most fun!

First stop: National Harbor!

We were here the other night for the "Awakening" Virtual, but it was mad! It reminded me of the Vegas strip, throngs of overdressed, undersober tourists blocking the roads in front of overpriced restaurants and shops. Today? We parked at the top of the stairs leading down to the beach.

Cool beach and AWESOME Virtual!

Titanic Memorial

Located across the National Harbor, we decided to make one last stop before heading out of town. We saw its counterpart while touring the other Memorials in town a few days earlier. 

Burke Lake Park

Yes, an oldie - December 2000! We've completed our JASMERs, but how can you pass up a granddaddy cache? LOVELY park, beautiful lake, and lots and lots of logs to hide things under! We were lucky twice - free park entry and the appearance of Rsoxfan8 and 2bjPN. Tricky hide - so glad we had so many eyes looking for it!

scrapcat, 2bjPN, TaGeez and Rsoxfan8

Antietam National Battlefield and Cemetery

Day is passing and this time we're really heading to home. We pulled off the highway in Maryland for an amazing gadget cache and found ourselves passing Antietam (after driving over a very big mountain - EEK!). Admittedly, we never considered thisAntietam as a stop on our adventure, but, now that we are here... Moving. Beautiful. Again, sounds like a cliche, but geocaching takes you to some wondrous places.

After Antietam, we turned to home. We spent most of the ride signing classics (like The Man Song, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Scotsman, King of the Road) while weaving in and out of the Appalachians and Allegheny Mountains. 

Another amazing adventure in the books. I'm just so glad I have TaGeez to share in these experiences. 

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SOME NUMBER FUN

1,615 miles  and $90 in tolls from Detroit and back
4 new state souvenirs: Maryland, Washington DC, Delaware, and New Jersey
65 caches total and 19 benchmarks

• 34 Virtuals, 27 Traditionals, 2 Puzzles/Challenges, and 2 Webcams. 
• The oldest cache was hidden in December 2000!
• Combined, as of this posting, these geocaches have the sum total of 13,908 Favorite Points!
• Find counts: DC (26), Maryland (12), Virginia (8), West Virginia (6), Delaware (6), New Jersey (6), and Pennsylvania (1).

6 days of incredible memories

• Wednesday - Detroit to Maryland to Martinsburg, WV for the WVTim caches
• Thursday - WVTim caches, Arlington National Cemetery, Congressional Cemetery, Old Town Alexandria for a Civil War tunnel & dinner, and ice cream along the riverwalk
• Friday - Metro to the Smithsonian Museums, walking tour around Capital Hill, and dinner at Martin's Tavern in Georgetown
• Saturday - Metro to the White House, tour around the Memorials on the Mall, and our first trip to the National Harbor
• Sunday - Scott Circle webcam, the National Zoo, the National Cathedral, Delaware, New Jersey, Baltimore (Poe's Grave and dinner at G&M Crab Cakes)
• Monday - Mount Vernon drive-by, National Harbor, Titanic Memorial, Burke Lake Park, Antietam National Battlefield & Cemetery, and then home to Detroit

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...