So we took another road trip to see more states while the kids were out for Spring Break. This was just before leaving our house on Monday morning. We were about to take Max to the kennel-we thought about taking him with us but when I explained that not only would we have to find a dog friendly place to stay it would also mean we could only go to dog friendly places-we all decided leaving him to play with his "dog friends" at the kennel was a better idea.
The kids thought the peach water tower in Gaffney was really neat-none of them remembered having seen it before. We drove through NC without stopping anywhere.
Our first stop was Wytheville, Virginia-there is a cool pencil at their office supply store downtown-the light had just turned green when I took the picture! Scott had been to VA once to visit a friend of mine but he was only a baby. Ryan and I went to VA to see Mount Vernon on the school DC trip last fall so now Ashley has been also! We played at the playground at this Withers Park, made a bathroom stop and kept driving!
They had a neat war memorial there
and a pretty walking path that I made all the kids run around before we kept driving. It was windy and chilly there!
but signs of spring coming!
I don't ever remember driving through tunnels under mountains like this-one of the boys took this picture for me-pretty cool and there are several of them through West VA-our next stop was this neat rock formation in Princeton, WV!
we were the only ones there visiting that day-our lone car in the parking lot
The rock was really neat looking but Ryan discovered that he had left his jacket at home and the further north we drove, the chillier it was getting so we chose not to climb up to the top!
They had a small playground too
We passed lots of train tracks driving through West VA and Ohio.
In Ohio, we stopped at a Camp Martius Museum and got to see the Rufus Putnam house inside the museum in Marietta, Ohio. Putnam was a soldier and early settler of Ohio after the Revolutionary War.
an oven from that time period
a candlestick that you could raise/lower based on how tall the candle was
bread bowls-I think it's cool that I have one of my great grandmother's similar to this
in front of a covered wagon in the museum
an Ohio riverboat model-they have a museum too but it was too early in the season for it to be open.
Our house tour guide told us about this cemetery where a huge number of Revolutionary War soldiers are buried.
below someone who died in 1874
1821
Scott cheated and climbed up the Indian mound-probably shouldn't have let him do that-Ashley and I climbed the stairs
view from the top of the mound-Ryan was still cold and in the car
and someone buried in 2011
A funny site-restaurant with a buffalo on top-we did not eat dinner there but went to Wendy's where I took the below SAD FACE picture to send Greg that we missed him! He was in North Carolina at a work facility ground breaking. So far 5 states today-SC, NC, VA, WV, and OH.
After dinner we drove on to Pennsylvania-where we spent the night at a Hampton Inn. They have a breakfast buffet and these days Scott and Ryan cause people to lose money on deals like that. We had waffles, pastries, sausage, omelets, and on and on. We were in Washington, PA and when I realized that Pittsburgh was only 30 minutes away we decided to drive there to the zoo. Above Ashley is ready to get back in the car for day 2.
a PA water tower
There was some traffic but it didn't delay us too long. Pittsburgh has a gazillion bridges in downtown and is a confusing place to drive even following the gps-kids took all these pictures out the windows as I was driving!
Where do we go first? It was really neat-a lady saw us walking toward the entrance and said she had a free adult ticket that was about to expire and gave it to us!
red panda
seals
They had a really awesome polar bear exhibit
Scott wanted this "Terminotter" shirt but they only had it in kids sizes and since he is just a pinch taller than me now he decided it wouldn't be a really good fit!
stingrays
penguins-I could have watched them ALL day!
it was a gorgeous day-I made Ryan wear a spare long sleeved shirt of mine
We ran by Hard Rock Cafe downtown to get Greg a shirt before leaving the city
and heading to our last stop Simon Pearce glass blowing in Oakland, Maryland-apparently something of a resort town-we saw what looked like ski slopes and this beautiful lake
There is a glass store-I warned the kids to be SUPER careful before we went inside but the cool part was the catwalk over the factory floor where we got to see them making glass things
This man was shaping a glass Christmas tree
absolutely beautiful and very expensive
ski slopes
About 4:30, we started the drive home and we stopped very little-I had to take Ryan's picture here since biscuits are one of his favorite foods in the world-it's a restaurant chain in West Virginia but they are only open for breakfast so we didn't get to taste. We waited to be back in the land of Chick Fil A for dinner and drove back through WV, VA, NC, and back home. We listened to books on cd from the library, kids watched and I listened to movies to stay awake, they read, we made a list of all the states we could name without looking at a list and were just short one or two, we played the alphabet game looking for letters on signs-it was a fun trip
We made it home about 12:30 on Wednesday am-this is Scott showing off the shirt he did decide to buy at the Pittsburgh zoo. It just took us a couple of hours to clean out all the trash, books, crumbs and other stuff in the car the next morning when we woke up
We brought Max home a stick from Ohio! I wonder if he thinks it tastes different from our local SC sticks????
Now all three of the kids have visited 15 of the 50 US states.
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