Washington D.C. Trip Day 2

Ohio to Virginia

It's nice to wake up and not have a number of tasks you need to accomplish for the day.

Today it was simply: 1) get up. 2) Drive to Virginia

Amy scouted a Waffle House by our motel, so that was breakfast. I used to live in South Carolina and Amy knows I sometimes wax nostalgic for the Casa de Waffles. After breakfast we gassed up and headed out. The kids listened to play-a-ways (high tech books on tape) we checked out from the library. After a while, we played some mad libs. I blogged last year that we scream marshmallow when we cross from state to state. So far the Marshmallow update is 2 yesterday (Indiana and Ohio) and 2 today (West Virginia and Virginia. Also we were in one of Amy's favorite geographical localities: The tristate area. There we were, just miles away from Kentucky, hopping from Ohio to West Virginia.

As we got further and further unto West Virginia we discovered on the highway food signs a new world, Biscuit World. Biscuit world is a fast food place that seems to be the biscuit equivalent of the Waffle House. We ate at one when we got into Charleston. This was our third meal in a row where the restaurant had the name of the food served in the title (Kentucky Fried Chicken, Waffle House, and Biscuit World).

While in Charleston we visited the State Capitol which is based on the Capitol Dome in D.C.






As we drove out of Charleston, we quickly discovered why West Virginia is nicknamed the Mountain State. As we crossed into Virginia the mountains continued. The last 20 miles we drove at dusk going through a mountain pass averaging 20 miles and hour (sometimes 5, sometimes 40). For some reason they didn't put up any guard rails until we got to the bottom. It was majestic and frightening at the same time. We arrived safely and we were glad to buck the food in the title trend with a take out pizza and salad from the Italian eatery across the street from our inn.

Tomorrow it's the Walton's Museum and maybe back in those mountains to see a waterfall.

Next Time : DC Trip Wordless Wednesday

Jelly Belly Time

Jelly Bellies are awesome! Amy and I prefer Starburst jelly beans ourselves but when I had the opportunity to cross state lines last Friday and tour their facility on the Cheese side of the Illinois Wisconsin border we went for it.

It was one of those tours where you were not allowed to take pictures. What did they think we were going to report their latest accomplishments to Slugworth?

Oh well, the tour was free, the kids enjoyed themselves, and of course there was the two words every jelly bean lover lives for: free samples.


I was able to take these pics after the tour . . .

Here are a few tidbits learned on the tour.

• Jelly Bellies were very popular with former President and California Governor Ronald Reagan. In fact, the blueberry jelly belly was created for Reagan's Inaugural in 1980 so they could make a special red, white and blue assortment. Reagans's favorite flavor was licorice.
• Jelly Bellies take almost a week to make.
• The current most popular flavor is Very Cherry a distinction formerly held by butter popcorn flavor ,which, by the way, my daughter Emma does not much care for.

Next Time: Washinton DC Trip Day 2

Washington D.C. Trip Day 1

It's Six Word Saturday time.

My 6 Words: My journal from our Washington Trip


Dos semanas pasado (not sure how I remembered how to say 2 weeks ago in Spanish) We left on our trip to Washington D.C. I wrote in a journal every day while we were gone. Over the next few weeks I will


Today was a fast paced high stress day. Had a 110 or so last minute details to attend to before heading out of town at 3 p.m.

Among other things I/We . . .

• Drove Amy to work so we could pick her up at the end of the day and head out of town.


• Put brake fluid in my car fir the first time ever.


• An hour before we left, I received 500 baseball cards I had won on Amazon. Not enough time to even begin to wade through them. Oh well, they'll be home waiting.

I was about 10 minutes late for picking up Amy. otherwise all went off without a hitch. So far we have only forgotten thing of little consequence. Drove about 5 1/2 hours to Dayton, Ohio.

Ate dinner at KFC, had the buffet. We would eat at that KFC again, but the buffet was a little pricy and with the time constraints we were up against, it wasn't the best choice. Although they did have Okra, vegetable of the gods.

Got to Dayton about 10:30 Eastern time. Our Motel 6 lights were burnt out, so we are pursuing litigation against Tom Bodett. Heading towards Walton Museum area tomorrow.

That's Day 1. More to come in the future. For more 6 word Saturday head on over to Show My Face Dot Com

Next Time: Jelly Belly Time

Things Fortnightly

Time once again for our biweekly thing festival. SO many things so little time. Let's get to them shall we.

Thing #1. Blog Insider - A look at the widgets, gadgets, and what nots of Home School Dad.

Tonight's Episode: Here but not here.

My family was visiting the Washington D.C. area last week. We had a wonderful time. I took plenty of pictures and even kept a trip journal. I will be sharing from both of these sources in the posts to come. While I let my face book friends know I was gone, I didn't want to announce on the blog my absence just to make sure that no unscrupulous types took advantage of our absence from our home. To that end, I used one of my favorite features of blogger and wrote and scheduled 4 posts that appeared the week I was gone.

If you click on the post options menu while writing your current post, you can schedule your posts in advance. This not only helps when you are warning to post date a post, it also helps if you start a post and save it and want to have a current date on it. If you save a post without changing the date and then come back and publish it later it will retain the original date and often get lost behind whatever you published in the interim. If you post date your work and save it, then you can change the date to the current date once you have made your revisions.

Thing #2 What's on my screen saver

Charlie is playing soccer for the first time in an organized league. He really enjoys it. His first game is Saturday. He is looking forward to it.

Thing # 3. Chock full of Chuck.

It wouldn't be Thursday if I weren't telling you about the awesomeness that is Chuck. As I have mentioned in the last few times here Chuck VS. the Beard was the Best Episode Ever. The 4 episodes that followed it and ended the current story arc all were very very good. I would have to say that Monday's episode Chuck vs. The Other Guy was the second best episode ever. No Spoiler alerts here, but many things transpired in this episode that would have been impossible to even fathom less than a season ago. But every plot point seemed to fall in place and seem very genuine and most of all immensely watchable. Chuck takes a 3 week hiatus until the end of April. This means that in the next things fortnightly, I'll have to fins something else to go on and on about.

Thing # 4, Something to count on.

Last year right around Thanksgiving time I applied for a temporary job with the Census Bureau. I worked with them in 1990 and was hoping to do so again this year. I got 98% on the test and was thinking I should have heard from them one way or another by now. They called and I got a job as an enumerator. I have 4 days of training in late April and then a number of weeks of collecting census data form the field. This is my first paying gig in 2 years and I am just excited that I'll get a W2 next year. Besides the training, I'll be able to work my schedule around the kids homeschooling. It is a real answer to prayer.

Well that's all the things I have for today. If you have some things you'd like to share please click on Mr. Linky below.

Next Time: DC Trip Day #1

As Another Begins

I posted earlier this week about the end of college basketball season. Major League Baseball was getting into full swing (pun intended) as the NCAA tournament winded down. The tournament , anation obsession, is giving way to basbeball, the national past time.

Hopefully it will be a good season for both sides of Chicago. The Sox have started 1-1 and the Cubs have faltered out of the gate so far at 0-2. That's 2 down and 160 to go. Much too early to draw too many conclusion. I will be posting my musings each week as the season progresses.