Washington

I know, I know, I haven't written in a VERY long time. I apologize. I'd like to say it's because we were too busy, but the truth is, we settled into complete laziness. We just figured we had sooooo much time to wait out and we were quite annoyed/pissed off that we got stranded we became a little depressed. I think we lost track of just how lucky we are to be out here on the boat. We took it for granted. But you'll be happy to know, we've gotten our priorities back in order.

During our "vacation" here in southern Maryland we rented a car to visit Washington (as I mentioned in the last post... I figured I'd remind you...it's been a long while!). Washington is a pretty cool city, very clean, great public transit, and lots to do.

We visited the monuments. The Vietnam memorial was incredible. For those who don't know, the Vietnam memorial lists all the names of those who died in the war. There are so many names. I think what moved me the most was watching people look for the names of their friends, some were looking for the names of those who served with them. You could get a pencil stencil of the name. Also along the memorial were pieces of paper with names of a soldier, their age, how long they'd served, and how they died. One gentleman had just turned 19. He served only a couple of months. So terrible. There were also postcard and letters, so asking us to remember those lost, others were confessions of people who felt they should be on the wall instead of someone else. The other monuments just could capture that feel...so they don't get mentioned in the blog!

We also did a few museums. That's right Josh, went to the museum...not always willingly but he came. I think his un-excitement (I can't think of the proper word) was because our first museum was the Air and Science museum, it was boring. The only cool thing was the Wright's brothers' plane, the exact one they flew. But other than that it was just a bunch of screaming kids and some rockets.

On the list of "good" museums, the Holocaust museum is a must-see. They do a wonderful job explaining the events leading up to the war and the post-effects. A lot of the exhibits try to get you to understand just how many people were affected by the Holocaust. It's a concept that I don't think anyone can grasp. Somehow my mind won't allow me to envision such atrocities.

Also on the list of "good" museums, was the National Museum of Natural Science. It's the one with all the dino bones. My favourite part was an exhibit of butterflies. You walked into this gazebo, inside were 1000s of butterflies. They were everywhere, you could get really close to them. One landed on my leg, another landed right in the middle of a lady's forehead. They're spectacular.

We saw the National Museum of Portraits, which was ok. There were too many paitings of dead people we didn't know! The International Spy museum was by no means international. The only mention of another country was to mention ex-KGB spy that worked as double agents for the US. It would have been super-cool had I been in my early teens.

Other than that we sat at the dock watching the guys work, or waiting for the guys to get to work. We had some "issues" with the yard. They really dicked us around, they were sneaky, we had to stay on top of them. Had we been the ones who actually had to pay the bill, there would have been some major issues. They charged the insurance company extra hours on lots of stuff. They charged 250$ for a job that Josh did. They weren't going to give us the extra pieces that came with what they'd replaced. If it comes in the same box, it's all ours. They made assumptions that certain electronics were going to work...they didn't of course.

*CAUTION* technical terms. The replace our autopilot brain because it got fried the most, yet they assumed the autopilot itself as well as the fluxgate compass and the rudder thing (see I don't know all the proper terms too!) were correct. They weren't. They also didn't change the chartplotter (or as Mommy calls it a plot-charter) right off the bat either. The general rule of thumb for lightning strikes is change everything. It's impossible to know if one little wire inside your instruments is a little charred. ANYWAYSSSSS, the work is done, the bill paid and we're off...watch out guys here we come.