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August 4th-Day 5

Monday morning we packed our bags and headed for home…which we weren’t quite ready for. 😛

 

Eating breakfast with Margret and Grandpa Jerry.

 

 

After breakfast we asked Grandpa Jerry if we could have our picture taken with him… 🙂 He and his grandson sat right in front of us on the bus so like Margret  and Barbra, we got to know them better…and we adopted him as our Grandpa. 🙂

A selfie 🙂

 

Instead of going straight home, we  made a 4 hr. stop in Baltimore, I was so excited!!!  🙂 We were left to ourselves to create our own adventure with endless possibilities of things to do, and an adventure it was!

 

Susannah and I saw a hill and decided to go check it out. It had to be historical or something the way it was surrounded with city, it obviously had some significance  other wise it to would be filled with buildings, not a hill.

 

After getting to the hill we had to climb it! 🙂 We counted and there were 100 steps…this is only half of them.

 

Yay, we made it to the top! 🙂

 

There was this neat really big flag up there and well, we got really confused. 🙂

We knew that Ft. McHenry was in Baltimore so when we saw the flag (because remember in the war of 1814 how Francis Scott Key was taken captive on ship, and how the next morning he saw “that the flag was still there” and then he wrote “The Star Spangled Banner”? 🙂 ) So when we saw the flag we for some crazy reason thought that this hill was where Ft. McHenry use to be.

We walked around the little park that was up there just taking it all in, yet quite puzzled that such a big thing in American history was now merely a hill with next to NO information about it.

We later discovered that, that was Federal Hill, not Ft. McHenry!! And Federal Hill had something to do with the Civil War…oh well, the moment was nice while it lasted thinking we had just been to Ft. McHenry…silly us!

 

While up there we decided what to do next…like I said eariler the possibilities were endless: Go explore a Civil War ship…WW2 Submarine…an Aquarium…observation tower…food…ice cream! :)We decided on the Aquarium, but in order to do that we had a lot of walking to do…the picture shows how much, too bad we can’t fly. 🙂

The Civil War ship we passed on our way to the Aquarium.

 

But once we got there we found out that you had to pay a lot of money to get in…we quickly changed our minds and settled for the Submarine that was way more affordable, and it was right next to the Aquarium, so didn’t have to walk far. 🙂

 

On the USS TORSK, It sank the last enemy ships in WW2.

 

 

This place was unbelievably tight. The amount of stuff that they crammed in this thing was crazy! 🙂

Here’s a video of us going down into it, might give you a small taste of what it was like. 🙂 Sorry it’s sideways.

 

These were the “doorways”.

 

 

This cracked me up, it’s a shower and had this note on it saying “do not use”…like anyone would…or could! It was so so tiny!

 

 

You know how everyone does a seflie in the bathroom mirror? I am not big on those but I couldn’t pass this one up, a submarine, shower room mirror selfie! 😉

 

 

Cozy and tight…maybe a bit claustrophobic? 🙂

 

The kitchen…

 

And dining area.

 

Don’t know what this was but it looked cool with the word “Danger” on it. 🙂

 

Some interesting information about the engine room. Man, not a place that I would want to live in its day!

Really enjoyed this stop!

Next we went to the observation tower…it’s actually Baltimore’s World Trade Center and the worlds tallest pentagonal buliding, but you could pay $5 to go to the 27th floor (next to highest). The elevator ride was fast! So fast you hang on to the side during your ride and feel a little woozy when you step out. 🙂 But it was fun!

 

Being the World Trade Center, it had a 9/11 memorial on the observation floor.

 

 

 

 

Names of the nearly 3,000 people who died lined the windows…it was really sobering, yet  neat how these people were being honored.

 

The view was worth every bit of the $5 we paid!!! 🙂  So so so neat! Oh and I saw the real Ft. McHenry from up here. Kinda cool since I’d seen the actual flag, bomb shelled holes and all back in D.C.  that inspired Francis Scott Key to write the Star Spangled Banner.

 

See the big brown building? It’s John’s Hopkins Hospital! I was pretty excited since I’ve read Ben Carson’s book “Gifted Hands”. 🙂

 

By this time we were getting pretty hungry. All the restaurants on the water looked expensive and we weren’t in the mood for expensive. 🙂 So we asked the lady at the information desk about a McDonalds. There was one several blocks away so we got directions, put on our walking shoes (well, figuratively 🙂 ) and set out to go get us some lunch. Following her directions and trying to make sense out of all the craziness along the way, we crossed over several intersections that had tons of people and tons of traffic, they even had 2 policeman at each corner to help keep things running smoothly. It struck me  funny because we definitely  do not have policemen helping us cross the road here in the cornfields. 🙂

Coming up on our destination we were a bit puzzled because we did not see it anywhere, not even the big yellow “M”. Instead of driving ourselves nuts on trying to make sense of maps  and such I just went over and asked the policeman that was on our corner. He was very helpful and told us that we don’t want that one because it’s under construction, and told us of another one that was close by. Guess where it was, about a block away that we back tracked to, it was in a Mall. Once we reached the mall we realized that we had walked right past it on our way to the other McDonalds. 😛 Oh well, we were having fun! 🙂

Right before we crossed over the street where the Mall was, I had my camera up and ready to take a picture when we heard “you guys twins?” I turned around and it was a policeman. We talked for a bit while waiting for the light to change and then I said “hey, can I have my picture taken with you?” to which he replied “sure, why not?” 🙂  I was pretty excited, to which Susannah did not hear the end of it for a couple of days. 🙂

 

Inside the Mall, pretty interesting. We’re used to malls that are one floor and spread out, this one was just stacked on top of each other with lots of escalators to ride. 🙂

 

 

Finally found McDonalds!!!  I told Susannah that eating at McDonalds would never be the same again! Technically I/we don’t eat at McDonalds except once in a blue moon because it’s not the greatest/healthiest place to eat, but at that point we both didn’t care, we just wanted something to eat and something that wasn’t tons of money. 🙂

 

After resting and  getting a bite to eat, it was time to head back to the bus pick-up location. Once we made it back to the bay we made a quick stop at the ice cream stand. 😉

 

A picture someone got of us while we were taking our picture ^ 🙂 Like I said, we got pretty good at the selfie thing since it’s kind of inconvenient to constantly ask people to take your picture. 🙂

We then loaded up on the bus and were quite happy to sit down for awhile after the crazy amount of walking we had done.

Several hours down the road we stopped at Cracker Barrell for supper which was quite delicious! We got a strange combination of pancakes and macaroni and cheese, but hey, it’s what sounded good. And we ended up not eating very much because we were still a bit full from lunch.

 

 

Sitting out on the rockers afterwards…

 

 

With Grandpa Jerry and his grandson…we had lots of fun with them!

 

 

Everyone just relaxing and visiting.

 

 

And a game of checkers. 🙂

Back on the road we had a fun time of singing and a “variety show” 🙂 Anyone who wanted to tell a joke, sing a song or read a poem or advertise for their business could…we did that for a little over an hour. 🙂 Susannah and I joined in and sang our Fast Food Fugue for them. 🙂

 

Our last night before arriving at home. It had been quite the day and we gladly welcomed the sight of our beds, and I had to make the picture a little more exciting than just a picture of the room . 🙂

 

 

August 5th- Day 6

This day was just filled with lots of driving.

At a rest area getting a treat.

 

Getting  ready to load back up on the bus…Iris, me, Susannah and Agnus. She and her husband were the ones who put the whole trip together. 🙂 They’re some very nice people that I am glad we got to know. Her hair was so cool all cornrowed, I was admiring it through out the whole trip so I finally asked her  “can I touch your hair?” 🙂 She was nice and let me, it’s very fascinating!

 

 

Back in the bus and ready to conquer another section of the road. 🙂

 

 

This picture if fun because there is so much going on in it. We’re back at our original location where the bus picked us all up…time to unload all the luggage and for us to go our separate ways.  🙁 We said our goodbyes and lots of hugs went around… 🙂 It was really sad, I wanted to cry. All  50 of these people who were total strangers 6 days ago were now like family and we had to leave each other. 🙁 But until next time, we have the memories to remind us of the wonderful time we had together!

 

We had a 1 1/2 hr. drive home and the bus driver had a 2 hr. drive back to the bus rental place. Our route was exactly the same so she so kindly let us ride with her and dropped us off 10 min. from our house where Mommy picked us up, it was really nice for Mommy as it saved her a trip.

It was strange being on the bus without everyone else…really quiet too! 😉

 

 

 

 

A picture with our bus driver, Juilie. (And it looks like the eagle  is photo bombing us. 🙂 ) Let me tell you, she was one amazing driver! 🙂 Like, really amazing!

 

Shortly after the picture was taken Mommy picked us up, and we began the 10 min. drive home where we told a TON of stories!

And thus was the end of an incredible trip!!!!!!!

 

This was by far one of the best birthdays I’ve had! Definitely what I had hoped for, for my 21st birthday doing something crazy! I’m so thankful how God worked it all out, how we could even go, that I could go with my sister and the people we went with…it’s the people that make the memories…not the pictures you take.

And I definitely loved the aspect that they were African American. African Americans aren’t so serious like us white people and are fun to be around. 🙂 Susannah and I joke that we forgot that we were white, being and seeing them all everyday and being around other African Americans while touring, we just saw a lot of them. So when we would see a white person it was like “well you’re different and kind of stick out” then we’d be like “oh yeah, I’m white too!” 🙂 It was fun, really fun, WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY fun!!!! We enjoyed ourselves to the moon and back!!!!

So if you are one of those 50 people that we took the trip with, first we say “Hello!” 🙂 and second, we really enjoyed getting to know you!

 

Have you been to Washington D.C.? If so, what were your favorites?

 

~Cassia  🙂

 

 

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