6 July 2009
Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig
Posted by admin under: Outings .
Miss the blog? I upgraded to Wordpress 2.8 just before I left for a trip and it bombed out, but I fixed. Apparently, only for myself. The problem was in the Google Analytics code somewhere. I didn’t exactly figure out where because I took a blowtorch and eliminated all analytics code and the blog came back. Thanks for those who sent me messages regarding that. Unfortunately, I was on the other side of the country without internet access and couldn’t do anything about it.
Click here to view these pictures larger
So where was I? I’m glad you asked! My Girl Scout troop took a giant trip from Los Angeles out to Washington D.C. and Philadelphia, PA to connect with our national roots. We flew out of LAX at 11:59pm on Sunday June 28th. Those who could napped and with the time change and a 3 hour layover in Chicago we arrived in D.C. at noon on Monday. We immediately began our tour with our guide from Education First’s Smithsonian Student Travel. His name is Bob and he escorted us to our very own private bus with
Ron as our jolly captain.
I could write a 30 page description of all the things we did, but I’ll condense it all down to this summary. We saw many monuments and memorials, toured the Capitol, a few Smithsonian museums, Mount Vernon, and historic Alexandria, Virginia. The highlight? Fireflies! Well, personally, I was taken with the chance to see the House of Representatives from the gallery (Congress was not in session), but everyone thought fireflies drifting up from various lawns and bushes were pretty much the neatest thing in the world. You probably have to have lived your entire life out west where there are none to understand how impossible it seems to have dozens of the insects lighting up around you.
We drove through Amish country (great food!) and spent the next couple of days in Philadelphia. Did you know that the place where the first and second Continental Congresses were held, the Constitution was drafted, and Liberty Bell is housed, the first Supreme Court, the first federal Congress, and the President’s house are all in a four block radius of each other? Add to that the history of William Penn and Benjamin Franklin plus the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Rocky Balboa’s famous run and statue are experienced and you’ve got a pretty full schedule (plus real Philly cheese steaks on South Street). We were there on Independence Day so there was a real carnival atmosphere in town. It’s also the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth so we were exposed to civil war re-enactors camped out in the town square. We finished up in Constitution Hall with a show and dozens of exhibits before we boarded our plane to get back to Los Angeles at about 12:30am on July 5th.
There were some issues of staying in our rooms at night or treating blisters after days of walking, but overall we had a good trip. Bob and Ron were great. 75% of the security checkpoints were friendly. Even our broken suitcase was easy to replace at a nearby Wal-mart. Problems were surmountable and the memories are permanent. As the last trip together before our girls separate into different troops it was a pinnacle worthy of the end of an era. Now I have to go look for a Dairy Queen.
- Victory Base Makes The News
- Rick Santorum Discusses Philadelphia Council Controversy
- Cradle of Liberty Proceeds With Case
- Focus on the Ridiculous
- Another left-wing attack on Boy Scouts
2 Comments so far...
Dawn Says:
6 July 2009 at 3:04 pm.
We survived an awesome trip! I hope the girls will always remember it. I sure will! And I’ll never forget George *sigh*
Dan - ScoutingNews Says:
7 July 2009 at 4:20 pm.
Welcome back!
Sounds like an awesome trip. I’m looking forward to a trip out to that area in 2010, its been a while (1997) so I’m sure I’ll have a blast.
