Our luck ran out
... with traffic jams that is. When we were in WADC we somehow managed to always avoid the big traffic jams- they were always on the other side of the road. Not so on Thursday after we left the DC area. We drove down to the mall Thursday morning and parked in a parking garage, then spent the rest of the day exporing the National Air and Space, Native American and art museums. Mark had wanted to visit the American history museum but it was still closed due to
the flooding. I really enjoyed the Native American museum- lots of beautiful art work and exhbits there and the building design itself is so unique and beautiful. I don't know if it is all of the indian art work that I grew up seeing with my parents, but I really appreciate good native american art. I think part of it is thinking about the limited resources that the people who developed these methods of artwork had. I will have to go back one day to really spend some time looking around- it just wasn't possible with the kids in tow.
side story- when we drove down into the parking garage to park the van the garage attendant gave us the most incredulous look- like he couldn't believe that we were there asking for a place to park our van. We couldn't figure out why in the world he would be surprised at that request since, after all, he works in a parking garage. We parked the van and went on our way. After we were done seeing the museums and were walking back to the garage we started commenting on the low clearances for the entrances into the other garages that we walked by. When we got back to the one we had parked in we noticed that it was about the same as the others, and we started thinking about how we both had totally forgotten that all of the clothes bags were in the car-top carrier on the top of the van since we had checked out of the hotel that morning. We wondered if the bag was OK as walked down the ramp; we hadn't heard or felt anything that we could remember entering the garage. When we got down there we checked it out and everything seemed OK- no damage that we could see. We figured out why the attendant was so surprised to see us pull up in front of his booth though LOL! On the way out I followed the van as Mark drove it out just to see what happened- it cleared the first overhang by less than an inch and grazed the little rubber seal at the bottom of the rollup door.
OK- so back to the traffic jams. It only took us about an hour to get out of DC, which was pretty good since it was 5:30 when we started out. We figured it would probably take us a couple of hours to drive the 100 miles to Richmond, the next stop. Once we got on I95 though, things just went downhill. Traffic was awful- backing up at every exit and entrance onto the interstate. It took us another 4 hours to get to Richmond; about 7 we got off the interstate and made a dinner stop for about an hour. A massive headache hit Mark after eating, so I got elected to drive the rest of the way. Things were slow for a little while longer and then picked up to the point where I was usually only driving 5 miles under the speed limit. then, about 20 miles outside of Richmond things come to a screeching halt. It reminded us of the German 'stau' we got stuck in several times when we lived there. We crept along in that for about 5 miles- an hour of being boxed in by trucks and cars with no where else to go. It turned out to be due to construction- they reduced the 3 lanes down to 1 somewhere ahead of us. We finally got to an exit and took it. We finally pulled into the hotel parking lot about 11:10- not the way we had planned to spend the evening hours.
Today, we went to the Science Musuem of Virginia. It is a very nice museum, we spent the whole day there and still didn't see everything. There are lots of chemistry and materials science displays that are very good at this museum- most of the science centers we have been to have not had those types of exhibits.
I've got all sorts of pictures to get off the camera, but can hardly keep my eyes open. So, I am just going to sign off and save the pics for the trip to Willimsburg. Night!
the flooding. I really enjoyed the Native American museum- lots of beautiful art work and exhbits there and the building design itself is so unique and beautiful. I don't know if it is all of the indian art work that I grew up seeing with my parents, but I really appreciate good native american art. I think part of it is thinking about the limited resources that the people who developed these methods of artwork had. I will have to go back one day to really spend some time looking around- it just wasn't possible with the kids in tow.
side story- when we drove down into the parking garage to park the van the garage attendant gave us the most incredulous look- like he couldn't believe that we were there asking for a place to park our van. We couldn't figure out why in the world he would be surprised at that request since, after all, he works in a parking garage. We parked the van and went on our way. After we were done seeing the museums and were walking back to the garage we started commenting on the low clearances for the entrances into the other garages that we walked by. When we got back to the one we had parked in we noticed that it was about the same as the others, and we started thinking about how we both had totally forgotten that all of the clothes bags were in the car-top carrier on the top of the van since we had checked out of the hotel that morning. We wondered if the bag was OK as walked down the ramp; we hadn't heard or felt anything that we could remember entering the garage. When we got down there we checked it out and everything seemed OK- no damage that we could see. We figured out why the attendant was so surprised to see us pull up in front of his booth though LOL! On the way out I followed the van as Mark drove it out just to see what happened- it cleared the first overhang by less than an inch and grazed the little rubber seal at the bottom of the rollup door.
OK- so back to the traffic jams. It only took us about an hour to get out of DC, which was pretty good since it was 5:30 when we started out. We figured it would probably take us a couple of hours to drive the 100 miles to Richmond, the next stop. Once we got on I95 though, things just went downhill. Traffic was awful- backing up at every exit and entrance onto the interstate. It took us another 4 hours to get to Richmond; about 7 we got off the interstate and made a dinner stop for about an hour. A massive headache hit Mark after eating, so I got elected to drive the rest of the way. Things were slow for a little while longer and then picked up to the point where I was usually only driving 5 miles under the speed limit. then, about 20 miles outside of Richmond things come to a screeching halt. It reminded us of the German 'stau' we got stuck in several times when we lived there. We crept along in that for about 5 miles- an hour of being boxed in by trucks and cars with no where else to go. It turned out to be due to construction- they reduced the 3 lanes down to 1 somewhere ahead of us. We finally got to an exit and took it. We finally pulled into the hotel parking lot about 11:10- not the way we had planned to spend the evening hours.
Today, we went to the Science Musuem of Virginia. It is a very nice museum, we spent the whole day there and still didn't see everything. There are lots of chemistry and materials science displays that are very good at this museum- most of the science centers we have been to have not had those types of exhibits.
I've got all sorts of pictures to get off the camera, but can hardly keep my eyes open. So, I am just going to sign off and save the pics for the trip to Willimsburg. Night!
posted by Melinda at 8:43 PM
1 Comments:
Wow, that is alot of hours to drive for not very far to go! I hope the rest of your driving goes better!
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