We have driven all the way from Miami, Florida, to New York City.
We slept in Daytona Beach, Savannah, North Myrtle Beach and Washington, DC.
And visited many other places along the way.
We finally arrived and spent Christmas evening in the city, and drove around Manhattan on
the next day.
We also drove around the New Jersey side, the not so touristy parts of the Bronx, Coney
Island, ate a slice at a Brooklyn pizzeria, and eventually started on our journey back
south, visiting Atlantic City the way.
Today we continue on our way south, so buckle up.
The adventure continues.
Good morning from Atlantic City.
We spent the night at the Caesar's and I don't think this gambling thing is for us really.
Our winnings for the night.
Oh well.
If you have been following our journey, you know that we couldn't really enjoy our nation's
capital on the way north due to the bad weather and lack of time, but today we have a little
more time to explore and, frankly, the weather is, shall I say, glorious.
We are leaving Atlantic City and I wonder who would do that to a Neon, but anyways,
I digress.
We drive non-stop to DC passing by many of the places we visited on the way north.
Wilmington, the Susquehanna River, Baltimore.
We finally arrive and park at the Ronald Reagan Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, a mere two
blocks away from the White House, although I must warn you, he blocks in DC are very
long, so....
Looking back towards the Capitol we begin walking towards The White House, the bleachers
almost ready for Obama's second inauguration.
We continue walking on Pennsylvania Avenue admiring the Washington architecture, passing
by the Treasury Department.
We arrive at the south lawn and take a long look at one of the most secure buildings in
the world.
Hello there.
We continue walking on this large open area, which is called the National Mall.
It extends all the way from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial, with the Washington
monument right in the middle.
The Lincoln Memorial was built in the form of a Greek Doric temple; the 36 columns symbolize
the 36 states of the Union at the time of Lincoln's death.
And here's the statue of Abe himself, sculpted by Daniel Chester French.
Washington emanates grandiosity, with its large open spaces, oversized Greek inspired
architecture, and why not, a gigantic Egyptian obelisk smack in the middle.
The National World War II Memorial honors the 16 million Americans who served during
the Second World War.
The monument has 16 pillars each engraved with one of the 48 states at the time of the
war as well as DC and the rest of the American territories at
the time.
Our next point of interest is the Washington monument, which has remained closed, unfortunately,
since the 2011 earthquake.
There's the white house again from the Washington Monument.
We were here back in 1994, notice there's no World War II memorial yet.
DC was a much less paranoid place back then.
It is getting chilly so we go back to the car to get our heavier jackets, and we have
lunch at this place called The Occidental Grill.
Fancy place, delicious food.
We go back to the National Mall and get to see this beautiful view of the Capitol Building
almost at dusk, and the Smithsonian Castle, and the Washington Memorial, the Washington
Monument, one more time.
The Smithsonian Castle houses the Smithsonian Institution's offices and information center.
The Smithsonian was created in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.
Today we are visiting the Air and Space museum, and I am really looking forward to this one.
It is one of those museums we you are seeing actual artifacts of the not so distant past,
such as the Allan Sheppard capsule, for example, the first American in space and second human
to have that honor.
The Gemini 7, the fist American spacewalk.
Amazing to see how small these early capsules were, they were like clautrophobic.
Here we come face to face with a cold war era soviet ballistic missile, the SS-20 Sabre.
There's the Pioneer, and the Apollo 11 command module.
There is so much interesting stuff in this place, I'm like a child in a candy store.
I even get to touch a moon rock.
I'm touching a moon rock.
The Viking never came back so...
This is the Viking Mars Lander.
While Viking 1 and 2 were on Mars doing their thing this third vehicle was used on Earth
to simulate their behavior.
Pretty cool stuff...color chart for the camera for color balance.
This right here is a sample of aerogel, it's the lightest solid ever created, it used to
collect comet samples and interstellar dust.
Now let's go back in time to the earliest flying contraptions.
We get to see different engines planes employed and the cockpit layouts from the 1040's to
the 1970's to the legendary Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, the mother of all planes even to this
day.
Then we step on what I believe is a DC 3, and see what traveling was like back in the
day.
Much more comfortable I must tell you, and probably much more expensive as well.
Predator drones and other planes.
Yeah, it's V-ger.
Yeah, this is voyager, launched in the 1970's, it is traveling, further than any other man
made spacecraft ever, to the border of our star system.
Going back in time once again, here's the original Wrights Brother's flier.
Amelia Earhart.
And finally some more space stuff, we get a peak inside Skylab, the original space station.
It orbited earth from 1973 tom 1979, and then it crashed into the Pacific.
There is so much more stuff, the lunar module, the Hubble telescope, you ought to come and
see it in person, and, by the way it's free!
Well, time to go.
The Air and Space Museum is definitely one of my favorite ones in D.C., but then again
I'm kind of partial to all this space stuff.
We continue our journey south.
We spend the night at the Country Inn in Petersburg, a few miles south of Richmond, a pretty good
option right next to the interstate.
On the next day we continue relentlessly south anxious to get back home.
Well, the vacation is nearly over.
We are traveling on our journey south on I-95, but we're still gonna have one more attraction
to visit.
It turns in the 1950's there was this firecracker stand in the middle of... in the border between
North and South Carolina, and the engineers happened to run I-95 right next to it.
The place became known as South of the Border and nowadays it is the ultimate tourist trap,
and we're gonna get there in about an hour.
And we have arrived.
Yep it is the ultimate tourist trap all right, but it is pretty unavoidable if you are traveling
on I-95.
Might as well enjoy the faux Mexican motive.
There's food, fireworks, and you can enjoy the view from the top of a giant sombrero.
What else could you ask for.
Obviously that little kid doesn't get out much.
We continue on this seemingly endless journey riding into the sunset.
We cross into Georgia, and finally into Florida.
We spend our last night at the Crowne Plaza Jacksonville Riverfront.
We also got a pretty good deal using the hotel tonight app.
In the morning we depart.
Six hours later we are back in the 305, Miami, Florida.
I hope you have enjoyed or weeklong holiday road trip along the eastern United States.
If you like what you've seen please subscribe to the channel so I can keep you posted on
our next adventure, which will take place in the great land of Canada.
Until then I want to thank you for watching and see you on the road.