Hilton Columbia

... of the pandas gathered his meal and brought it to a clearing to lunch in front of us. He carefully peeled the bamboo shoot of its green outer layer to get down to the tasty woody parts. I imagined how great he would be at a bamboo chair eating contest. He was munching, grinding, and crunching away. The bamboo looked delicious. We also read up on the history of the pandas in DC and found out that there were many unsuccessful attempts before they finally succeeded in 2005. Their ...

... a walk down Pennsylvania Ave took us to the Archives Museum where Christopher was keen to see the original Declaration of Independance. We finished our day at the Smithsonean Air and Space Museum which houses the Wright brothers plane amongst many other interesting items. As darkness descended we headed back to our car. Although we knew we were heading in the general direction as got 'closer' there was some debate as to the acutal direction we ...

... free on Sundays, so double wammy! There is little to comment on the city, except that it is great to walk around all those buildings which we grew up watching on TV, time and time again, while adding some real history to them. We managed to visit all the following: - The White House. http://www.lewiston.k12.id.us/Camelot/N ationalMonuments/Becky ...

... should come speak at UP. He is a guy who never went to college and is now having 50 speaking events a year at least and doing some TV stuff he was an Oprah Angel. He was very down to earth though and told off one of my class mates who generally acts like a jerk it was great. The only other experience I can really think of is today I went walking outside barefoot in the pouring rain (which I do a lot at home but have never done here) we walked down to Starbucks and apparently ...

... home, and I certainly didn't want to start a lease in Maryland and commit myself to this area like that. I've had a lot of fun this summer, been working a multitude of jobs (Calvert, my office job which I finally left in mid-September; babysitting; flute lessons; cleaning) and finally feel like the timing is right and I am ready. As far as why Boulder... I had come up with a list of places I wanted to possibly live, and Boulder ended up being the ...

... I hope to see the two main big cities, Quito and Cuenca which have lots of historical sites from the Spanish colonial period. Also, there are tons of villages, many of which specialize in certain crafts. Then finally, I want to visit a resort town that's close to the edge of the Amazon basin. That's it for now. My flight leaves at 6AM tomorrow which is killing me already.

... have been demoted to backpack ballast. Found a lodge within the park that had tented chalets for $26 a night. Sadly its high season here and everything was full so had to drive to small town called Harringburg where I found the usual cheap and cheerful Motel for $30 a night. God bless the cheap Motels. Tomorrow I'm going to finish the drive through Blue Ridge using the Blue Ridge Parkway and then onto the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On a side note ...

... in the tidal pools, trying to get a video of the little fish that were in there, which looked, to me, like the cyclids that are in fish stores. But the light was too bright for the LCD panel and looking through the camera lens reduced the picture so much, I decided I couldn't get them on film accurately and shut the camera down. I looked up - where had Larry disappeared to? Oh, there he was, still on the bank of the shore which was comprised of ...

... most colleges have cancelled classes. There are 620 schools, busnesses, museums, even government offices that have closed. It's worse south to Chicago. While our airport has cancelled 18 flights with 35 flights delayed and winds of 35mph, O'Hare cancelled 400 flights. The news has been showing photos of people in flip flops ready for vacation in Hawaii whose flight now won't leave until tomorrow. Madison is only supposed to ...

... attitude of the west. For example, whenever somebody had food, they would offer it to be shared to those around them, regardless of their financial situation or whether they knew the individual or not. When Nicole and I would be looking at a map to find our way, more often than not, somebody would stop on the street, ask us where we wanted to go, and personally walk us there themselves. I have never met kinder people in all of ...