Vacation time...

Well, it is that time of year again, vacation time.  Time when thousands of Americans head out from home in search of fun times and experiences.  This year we packed up the family and headed to Delaware.

We loaded the kids up and headed to visit our friends, The Millers.  Actually, we landed in Baltimore, and spent the night in Leonardtown, MD.    Leonardtown is straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting.  I mean, check out their community bulletin board...

I kept walking around telling Ian I am amazed at how quiet it was there.  We had dinner at nice restaurant, then walked to go get ice cream.  Yes, I said walked.  In Texas, in June, you don't walk anywhere that isn't air conditioned.  It was sunny and 72 in Leonardtown.  I was with with family and friends, I was happy.

  

Next up, we headed to Washington DC to say hi to Barry and some friends.  We took the subway into town, as Luke and Kate had never ridden on a subway before.  That sucka moved pretty fast.  We hit the National Air and Space Museum and saw the Kitty Hawk plane, the Red Baron plane, replicas of aircraft carriers, and got lessons in flight.  The kids ran through each exhibit, not even bothering to read the plaques.  It drove me up the wall until we got to the Flight Lessons lounge.  There the kids got to touch and feel and play and run and make things move up and down.  They still didn't read the instructions, but rather grabbed the joystick and started experimenting until they got it right.  I stood back and was amazed at how the kids were not afraid to try anything as there were no consequences for failing.  The video game culture hard at work.  And not the arcade video game culture, where you had to keep adding money to the machine if you died, but the at home console game culture, where if you die, you just start over. But it was neat to see how fast they picked up the different aspects of what the machines/experiments were trying to teach them.  Experience is the best teacher.

From there we headed out to see the traditional Washington sights.

We even stopped off to see if Barry was home...

After a quick bite to eat, and a lovely Manhattan from The Old Ebbit Grill, the oldest saloon in Washington, we headed to Delaware..

Stay tuned folks....