BEMM

We enjoyed a wonderful ceremony on the Mic-Mac reservation in upper Canada on July 4th.  We had an incredible breakfast that morning.  It was difficult communicating with the waiter.  He spoke very little English, but did wish us a Happy American Day.  It took us a while to realize he was wishing us a happy 4th of July or Independence day.   We got up early on the 5th and drove to Quebec. 

Today, we plan to tour the Citadelle of Quebec and Montmorency Falls, before leaving for New York state.  We have decided to skip Montreal and just go to Niagara Falls before heading home. 

The hotel last night had okay Internet access.  I was able to upload a few more pictures to our Picasa account.

Pictures from our visit to the Statue of Liberty.

Some of the Pictures from the Wedding.

Bill, the father of the bride and Melinda’s dad has a favorite movie, “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.”  It may not be his favorite any more after living it.  The plane he was to take to get to the wedding had issues.  We were concerned that he would not make the wedding.  He luckily was able to get a bus to a town close by the wedding location.  We drove over and picked him up.  He arrived 14 hours later than planned but at least he arrived. His only comment about the ordeal.  I’ll never fly Air Canada again.

Today, we left for New Jersey.  Before we left we visited a few more Amish sites and returned to Intercourse for a few things.  We could not find Megan a shirt that she liked better than the one she first saw in Intercourse.  I also wanted some more homemade Amish Ice Cream from Lapps.  It has to be the best ice cream I have ever eaten.  The last thing I wanted us to do was take some pictures in front of Zimmerman’s Grocery Store.   Zimmerman was the store that the pay phone call was made from in the movie Witness.  I’ll have to watch the movie again when I get home.  It has been over 20 years since I last saw it.

I was not able to upload pictures from Day 2 until we got to our hotel in New Jersey.  You can view them below.

Tomorrow, we will get up early and visit the Statue of Liberty.  Then we are off to Canada. This will most likely be our last post.  We will have very little internet access for the next 6 days and our cell phones will be off while in Canada to avoid international fees.

We will try to twit some. You can follow updates at http://twitter.com/biged95 or http://twitter.com/meag95.

Last night, we stayed in old-fashioned caboose turned into a motel. The Red Caboose is an interesting place to stay. If you are ever around Paradise, PA it is worth at least one nights visit.

Yesterday, we went on a buggy ride to a working Amish farm. Today we plan to head back to Bird-in-Hand and Intercourse before heading to New Jersey to see the Statue of Liberty tomorrow.

The Internet at The Red Caboose did not work so this post is via iPhone.

You can say what you will about the Amish, but you can’t say they don’t have a sense of humor.  How could you not have a sense of humor when you name towns Intercourse, Bird-in-Hand, and Blue Ball.  We started the day driving around Bird-in-Hand then we went to Intercourse, PA.  We went on a horse drawn carriage ride around Intercourse before visiting some of the local shops.  We ate some of the best home made ice cream we have ever eaten.  We left Intercourse and went on a Northern Amish Countryside tour.  We saw a lot of the covered bridges that Melinda has read about in her Amish books.

We ended up in Blue Ball were we ate at the Shady Maple Smorgasbord.

Tomorrow we plan to visit an Amish Village, more shops, and maybe the Train Museum.

We visited the Arlington National Cemetery this morning. You can’t but the experience into words. The changing of the guard was breathtaking. We are now off to Amish country.

What a great day in DC. We started off on the Metro Train that dropped us off at the Navy Memorial. We then made our way to the United States Capitol. We were a little upset with the view. They were setting up a tent in front of the Capitol and they had drained the Grant Memorial pool out front. We guess in preparation for the 4th of July.

We left the Capitol and headed for the Washington Monument. Along the way, we stopped at the Air and Space Museum. At the Museum we started talking about the movie “Night at the Museum”. This of course led us to The Natural History Museum. We finally made it to the Washington Monument to find out we could not go up inside it. We took some pictures and headed to the White House. From the White House, we made our way to the World War II National Memorial. Melinda and the kids cooled their feet off in the pool before we went to the Lincoln Memorial. It was strange to see Lincoln’s statue after seeing it in so many movies.

It was about 4:45pm when We decided to go ahead and walk to the Arlington National Cemetery. We made it to the metro in front of the cemetery when exhaustion set in. We headed back to the hotel. Took showers and passes out.

We will visit Arlington National Cemetery.

It was nice to sleep in and catch up on some much needed sleep after two days of driving. The internet at the hotel is slower than dial-up, so will try and post from iPhone.

We plan to start at the Capital and work our way to Lincoln Memorial.

We made it to Washington DC around 8PM EST. It has been a long trip so far.  If someone says they don’t believe in GOD then they need to get in a vehicle and travel from Texas to DC.  The scenery along the way is breath taking.  It helps you reflect on how small we really are in this world and how great GOD is to have created it.

We are waiting on the house sitters to arrive, so we can hit the road.  We are fortunate to have friends willing to stay in our home while we are away.  It also gives me comfort to know that my parents are close by and can stop in to check on the sitters if they need anything.

The van has 150,000 miles on it.  We had her serviced before we left, so we hope to not have any mechanical issues on our trip.   Just in case we did sign up with AAA.  I hope we don’t need to use them.

Please pray for us.

We will keep everyone updated as we travel.

BEMM