Day 4 - Thunderstorms and swimming

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We started today in Alexandria. I led a tour (of four) through the cobbled streets of Old Town. We got (a little) off the beaten path as I shared a couple tidbits about Fire Insurance plaques and old buildings. We also managed to find a couple tourist shops to squander some hours in. Melinda found a license plate with her name on it. No such luck for Gretchen (she never has any luck with that).

After lunch we took the Metro back into DC. We're still ticking off "Mt Rushmore" events off our to-do list.

Aside. In 2004 when we drove out to Denver, on the way back, we stopped at Mt Rushmore. Before we exited the car, we had a 5 minute conversation about the fact that we'd driven 2500 miles for this next thirty minutes. Furthermore, we were about to hit the biggest tourist trap north of Orlando (Wall Drug Store) and if they were good, we'd let them get a souvenir. For the record, they were good and our visit was excellent. End Aside.

Thus, the name "Mt. Rushmore" events. For this trip each of us gets to claim one item as having "Mt Rushmore" significance. For Tracey it was the Smithsonian American History museum. For Gretchen - the Lincoln Memorial. Melinda's was a specific Vermeer picture at the National Gallery. Melinda's VermeerI'm still working on mine. The girls are trying to label my boondoggle to Gettysburg my item. Nothing doing - Dad get a boondoggle AND a Mt. Rushmore event. It's good to be the king.

Today we knocked off the National Gallery, then passed on the monuments - the heavens opened up. We hung out in Air and Space for two hours. Quite a bit of which was Rob saying, "Do you realize that that is the APOLLO 11 Command Module?" "That's the Spirit of St. Louis!"
We did get back to our hotel in time tonight for the girls to get in a bit of swimming, phew - got that monkey off my back (for a day).

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