Harpers Ferry

Yesterday we drove to Harpers Ferry. It's about an hour from DC and sits across the Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia borders on the banks of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. The town is best known for John Brown storming an Armory which was seen as a key event in the start of the American Civil War.

We parked at the visitor's center and shuttle buses take visitors down to the town. We walked up to the Jefferson's Rock first, which was named after Thomas Jefferson who visited and said the view from that point was 'one of the most stupendous scenes in nature'.


It was pretty impressive and worth the climb up the hill in 30 degree heat!


We stopped for frozen custard when we got back down to the bottom then walked through the town along to the river. We crossed the footbridge over the Potomac River and walked along the Shenandoah River. There was loads of people kayaking and rafting down the river, it looked like so much fun I really want to come back and try it.

Rock n Roll Saturday Night

So this is how we spent our Saturday night, how rock and roll are we! Enjoying coffee and cake in the late night DC heat.

Washington Nationals vs San Diego Padres

Last night we went to watch the baseball with some friends. We bought cheap $10 tickets to sit high up in the grandstand but our friend managed to get us upgraded to one of the best sections by speaking nicely to the guy checking tickets!


The game got stopped during the 4th innings when a massive storm hit and rain started pouring down and lightning looked like it was going to hit the field. Everyone was told to leave their seats and to shelter inside which caused a bit of panic! Eventually the rain stopped and play continued even though the lightening storm was still lighting up the sky.

Our friend Matt that we were with, knows one of the new Nationals players, 3rd baseman Jerry Hairston Jr (his best childhood friend was room mates with Jerry at college) so he's met him a few times and was trying to get us in to see the players. This backfired though when Hairston threw a massive strop in the game and got kicked off the field!


Our friend also spotted Tanner Cooley, the brother of the Washington Redskins player Chris Cooley sitting a few rows in front of us. When he walked past our seats, Matt yelled out 'Hey Tanner' to him and he said 'Hey guys' back to us which made us all giggle! I don't really know what he does and how Matt recognised him but I found this article about him.

I think watching baseball is my favourite way to spend warm Friday nights, sitting about chatting to friends and eating hot dogs. It also helped that the Nationals actually won the game!

Chestertown, MD

After a busy Friday night drinking until 3am (Chris!) and a busy Saturday paintballing at 8.30am (Chris!) and going to an engagement party in the evening (both of us!), I decided that I didn't want to just sit at home on Sunday. So even though Chris would have much rather laid about on the sofa all day we drove to the lovely town of Chestertown.

It was about a 90 minute drive away over the Annapolis Bay Bridge. The town is famous for it's Georgian architecture and the guide at the visitor's center recommended that we did a walking tour so that's what we did. The guide described the town as what Annapolis used to look like years ago and it did look fairly untouched with some beautiful buildings.

We walked from the dock up and down the cute little streets. It was such a sleepy little town, there was no one around! Unfortunately the thing that I find about these places is it's quite hard to take photos of the nice streets and houses because there are parked cars all the way up the streets. It was the same in Charleston and Savannah. I managed to get just a few photos though and then we found a nice little bakery to sit in.




On our way home we had a quick stop at a shopping outlet then stopped for an early dinner at Hemmingways a seafood restaurant on the banks of Chesapeake Bay. The restaurant looks out over the Bay Bridge in one direction and the marina in the other. It was a really nice spot, we sat outside on the balcony eating some great crab cakes, shrimp and fish watching people arrive on their boats, moor up and come into the restaurant for a dinner before sailing off again, what a lovely way to spend a Sunday!

National Harbor

Yesterday afternoon we went to the National Harbor just outside DC. When you fly into Reagan airport, you can see this on the banks of the Potomac and it always looks really big so I wanted to go to see what was actually there.

It looks like it was built fairly recently and as well as there being a small marina, there are a few shops, restaurants and hotels. There was a food and drink festival going on this weekend so it was really busy. We stayed away from that and just wondered around the other shops. There was a peeps shop there which Chris loved when he realised you could buy Mike and Ike jelly beans by the pound!


Peeps are strange marshmallow sweets, brightly coloured and usually in the shape of chicks or rabbits. They look pretty disgusting but I thought I'd better buy a chocolate covered one and at least try it. I was right though, it wasn't very nice!

We had lunch in a restaurant called Ketchup which served 6 different flavours of ketchup with their food. Chris ordered a vanilla milkshake which was delicious so I kindly helped him out with drinking it!

Meeting Royalty

Every American that we spoke to in the run up to the Royal Wedding was so excited about it. Everywhere we went Chris and I kept getting asked whether we were excited and whether we had been invited! Last week, just a few days after the wedding Prince Charles visited the Embassy and Chris and I were both lucky enough to meet him. He was really nice and took the time to shake hands with everyone in the room.

Pawleys Island

The last destination on our road trip was Pawleys Island. This is about a couple of hours north of Charleston just below Myrtle Beach. Our hotel was right on the oceanfront so we spent the afternoon sitting on the beach, it was a bit cooler though so no swimming in the ocean today!



In the evening we drove up to Myrtle Beach to have a look around. We had decided not to stay in Myrtle Beach but it was really fun to visit. There are loads of places to play putt putt, we chose the biggest one Mount Atlanticus.



On Thursday morning we had a run/walk along the beach then started our drive home. We stopped off in Myrtle Beach again and tried out a batting cage. Chris started off in minor league area before trying out the major league batting, while I stuck to Softball.