amain

One of my former youth group teens got married!

Chip and I made the trek to Annapolis, MD to attend the wedding, turning this into an extended road trip and visited a few things in the area.

We drove to Pittsburgh first. We're hoping to come back and kayak sometime...

The main thing we did here was visit the National Aviary (yay! birds!), which is a nice little field trip, if you're ever heading east (or west, depending on your starting point). We had enough time to walk through and to catch one demonstration.

Then it was time to head to Annapolis!

The wedding was Saturday afternoon, so we took the morning to walk around downtown, as well as a quick walk through the State Building. This downtown is quaint and attractive, and we enjoyed stopping in a couple of the shops as well (including a tea shop!). This is another town that we would love to come kayak. And tour the Navy Academy grounds.

We enjoyed a fun and beautiful wedding and got a few tips for Sunday plans (a great local coffee joint, for example). On Sunday, we headed into D.C. and visited several monuments. It was HOT and HUMID, so we only lasted until about 2 pm before heading back to Annapolis. Fortunately, we did accomplish quite a bit and got a great deal of exercise.

(note: we visited all but Viet Nam)

Monday we started to head home, stopping by Mount Vernon. This was by far my favorite historical stop on our trip. I also was excited to see the wax statues that were the main subject of a book I used for my teen lit online class a couple of years ago!

This included a pop by the newly renovated mill and distillery! Both are operational, but we didn't buy anything (and in fact, the whiskey was almost sold out--they only make small batches).

Then on to Fredricksburg, VA and a bit of Civil War history. We were wearing out quickly by this point in the trip, so Chip did the short walking tour right by the visitor center and I walked through the new (and nicely done!) exhibit within the visitor center. Then we drove around the Chancellorsville battlefield (and walked through their visitor center, which is also very nicely done!). After this, I felt a bit depressed--this particular history has so much horror, so we decided that was enough for now and began the rest of the trek home. One overnight in WV and then back to WI!

Not sure which state this was anymore... but not WI!