More American History from the DC area!

May 31 - Jun 2....the last 2 days have been quite busy. We arrived on Tue. afternoon & set up camp at Lake Fairfax Country Park in Reston, VA. Wed. we took the bus & metro train into DC & toured the International Spy Museum, the National Archives, & the World War II Memorial. It was a very full day. The Spy Museum was quite interesting showing undercover spy techniques & gadgets from the past. At the Archives we saw many orginal documents but most importantly the Declaration of Independence, The Bill or Rights & The Constitution. Another area that was very interesting - the Public Vault where we listened in on Presidents phone converstations, viewed transcripts of investigations of the Challenger, Warren Commission, etc. and many other interesting facts. From there we decided to go to the Research side where we went to the Geneology section. We looked at original census documents in the computer for more information on our grandparents. Mike was surprised to find out he had an uncle/step uncle that he never knew about & Dixie found out that her hometown of Hogeland was called Prairie Rose in 1930 (maybe it was suburb!!!!). Thursday we toured Mount Vernon - a very interesting site where we learned about life in the 1700's! Then we drove to Annapolis & toured the Maryland State House - this is sthe oldest state capital in continuous legislative use. Did you know that it served as capital of the US from 11/26 1783 to 8/13 1784 until a permenant location was found? We also went to the US Navel Academy. We weren't done yet - on to Baltimore where we walked around the Inner Harbor & viewed Ft McHenry where Francis Scott Key viewed a battle from the War of 1812 that inspired the writing of the Stars Spangled Banner. Then we attended the Baltimore Orioles baseball game at Camden Yards! We finally made it home around midnight. Today we will take a day of rest!!!!