Sep 25, 2011 - First Week of a Wild Ride

Entering a completely new phase of life, this week has been a wild ride!! Thank the good Lord for the infusion nurses...they seem to know every nuance invading my body as a result of chemotherapy. My listening ears have taken in all their tips and advice. I could sort through a long list of "ugh's" experienced this week; however, let's just say I'm sticking with my motto, the poison is saving my life!! As Nurse Darla says, "this is potent medicine". For now, I will accept the necessary adjustments. There will be life after chemo! THANK YOU,...

Nov 22, 2008 - Washington DC

As the trip nears a close we hit Washington D.C. where I have been before but only briefly. We drive straight to our Downtown hotel and rest for a while before preparing for a night time tour of the main attractions. As darkness falls we visit the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, several war memorials and the Capitol building. The White House I have seen before but I'm again surprised at how small it looks albeit at a distance. All the museums in the city are free expect the Spy Museum so next day I visit the Museum of American...

Nov 5, 2008 - Day 74 Washington DC

The contrast between yesterday and today was stark. Whereas yesterday was the most perfect autumn anyone could hope to have, today is bleak with heavy fog. The leaves are off the trees for the most part as we drive across the state of Maryland on our way into Washington D.C., and it is beginning to rain, not hard, but the kind of rain that usually accompanies fog, drizzly. We can't help but see this as a prophetic picture. The nation is blind, it doesn't know where it is going. It was a very "wierd" experience for us in the United States...

Oct 9, 2008 - Smithsonian Day in Washington, DC

Cherry Hill Park, College Park, Maryland Oct 9 Smithsonians in Washington, DC We arrived downtown Washington, DC a couple hours earlier on the second day. The weather was warmer and the sun was very bright on all those light coloured buildings. It seems that the building designers got together and decided that light grey or white was ‘the’ colour to have for Washington, DC buildings. There are few red brick buildings to be found. Our Canadian Embassy is quite close to the Capitol Building. We figured ‘they’ had done a good job with...

Sep 11, 2008 - Washington DC Sept 11- 14

Sept. 11 Glad to be leaving New York City on the 7th anniversary of 9/11. We thought it wasn’t going to be too bad – but getting on the New Jersey Turnpike was a disaster! We took two wrong exits and had turn around and go through the last two toll booths again. Once we got into the Trenton area the traffic started to thin and Ed wasn’t so white knuckled anymore. We did run into an accident on our side of the freeway so it was slow going getting off and finding 295. We travelled at about 54 mph almost the whole trip. We have never seen so...

Jul 2, 2008 - Full day in D.C.

Last night, Jim told Claire and Amanda to plan the entire itinerary for today -- and they did an outstanding job. They even had contingency plans in case something did not work out. That was a good thing since the line at the National Archives (to see the Declaration of Independence) was ridiculously long and out in the hot sun and also because the Museum of American History is closed until Fall for renovations. (That means we missed the First Ladies' dresses and Dorothy's ruby red slippers. We wiped away our tears and soldiered on). To...

Jul 1, 2008 - Washington, D.C.

After Monticello, we drove to Washington, D.C. We were all very excited at our first glimpse of the Washington Monument and Jim was ecstatic about how well the GPS worked to guide us to our hotel. We are staying at an old family-run place (translation: BARGAIN) that is just a few blocks from the White House. We checked in, unloaded the bags and headed out for a walk. We saw the White House first and Claire managed not to get arrested (by shouting something rude and threatening, for example). We made scenes for our movie by Happy Dancing on...

Jun 17, 2008 - DC

Rolf Henn joined us to give Erich a glimpse of DC: The Capita tour, a really cool sustainable exhibit, the new museum on American Indians and the Air & Space Museum. So much to see, so little time. Quiz, do you rememeber the first Astronaut? Hint he was named Able

Jun 4, 2008 - Washington DC

Actually, I am staying at the Arlington-Fairfax Elks lodge in Fairfax, VA. It isn’t too far from DC & just a few miles from the Dunn Loring Metro Station. For those that know the area, I am not far from Tysons Corner, Vienna & Reston. The SHORT trip that should have taken around 4 hours ended up over 8.5 hours! Nothing bad happened to Dagney, just mostly bad weather & HORRIBLE traffic. It started when I missed the turn off from I 76 to I 70 which took me on an additional 45-minute journey through some absolutely BEAUTIFUL farm land country...

May 6, 2008 - A walk around Washington

We got up and made our way to Starbucks for breakfast and a strategy meeting. Steve had already been to Washington so he was going to show me around. We decided to buy a book on Washington instead of doing the city tour thing. Our self tour started at the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It was really cool and Washington is so green at the moment that the white contrasts beautifully with the green. Awesome!!!! We then walked to the Washington Monument to get tickets for later that day and too our dismay all tickets had been distributed...

May 5, 2008 - Washington, here we come

We slept in and then rushed off to Harvard to have a look. We then went back to Fenway and bought Red Sox caps. We were running late so we sprinted back to the hostel to pick up our bags when the lock of our room door broke and we couldn't get in. Not ideal so Steve spent about 20mins picking the lock which he eventually got open. We grabbed a cab and raced to the train station to catch our train to Washington from Back Bay station, Boston. We had a hot dog in the station for lunch and the vendor could not speak a word of English. We...

Apr 3, 2008 - Cherry Blossoms in D.C

This is my favorite time of year- the cherry blossoms are in full bloom around the tidal basin in Washington D.C. I had an absolutely picture-perfect day to enjoy the gorgeous scenery. There is something about walking through hundreds of blooming cherry trees that just puts a smile on your face. Enjoy the pictures.