The Votes Are In!

We had a lot of fun in the DMV over the past nine days! Here are the highlights that marked our ballots...

Girl Power

The first item on today's itinerary was the 10:00AM ranger-led tour of Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument. So after grabbing breakfast from the lobby this morning, we walked a few blocks east to the Metrobus stop at New Jersey Ave NW & K St NW and rode the 96 Capitol Heights bus past Union Station to Massachusetts Ave NE & 2 St NE (5 stops). It was a short walk south to Belmont-Paul (0.2 mile). 

☑ Unit #198

We're Golden

Thanks to the National Park Travelers Club, I found out about another website which allows you to keep track of the counties you've visited. While I'm not as die-hard as my some of my fellow NPTCers when it comes to county collecting, it is a fun way to see where we've been. In Virginia there are 38 municipalities that are independent cities which are not under the jurisdiction of any county, so those are slightly harder to get. Having already "counted" Fairfax and Alexandria so far on this trip, we took a small detour through Falls Church this morning so that I could mark it off on our county map.

Really, it was on the way...

Ok, so maybe I *might* have a problem... 

Today's route: 30 miles

Going for Silver

Since joining the National Park Travelers Club in 2011, our travels have gotten us the Special Achievement Award (minimum 10 units in 2 regions with 20 stamps) every year except for 2020 (pandemic 😢) and last year when we earned the Bronze Master Traveler Award (min. 25 units, 4 regions, 50 stamps). This year because we have been able to visit a number of different NPS passport regions (Western, Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and North Atlantic), we are really close to achieving the Silver MTA (min. 35 units, 5 regions, 75 stamps). Only need stamps from 7 more units before the end of the year! 

So, in an effort to get our (okay, *my*) certificate, we took a slight detour on our way down to my parents' house today to move 3 units closer to Silver...

225 miles

Rosie the Riveter

It doesn't take much to convince me to get back on the road somewhere... anywhere will do! So a few weeks ago when J saw the promotional email from Best Western (stay 3 nights, get 1 free) and figured out that after our Massachusetts trip we only needed one more stay to get the free night (yep, he's my son!)... let's just say that I wasted no time getting online to check out hotel locations. And when I found one in Vallejo next to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, the rest of the family was totally on board for a quick trip up to the East Bay!   

The added bonus is that there are 4 national park units in that area which we haven't visited yet. Unfortunately, Port Chicago Naval Magazine National Memorial was not open to the public because the military had active operations on the base, and Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site only had limited hours due to the sequester. But we could still visit the other two, so Rosie the Riveter National Historical Park in Richmond, CA was our first stop.

The Heat Is (Still) On

We spent Wednesday night in Canton, while K went back to Cleveland since he had appointments with customers on Thursday and Friday. I stopped looking at the weather forecast because, really, what difference does a few more degrees make once you've moved beyond "cooked" on your way to "well done"?! Ugh. So thankful that the A/C works well in the car and that most of the places we're going to are indoors!

Cleveland Rocks!

We checked out from Hotel Breakers first thing in the morning and grabbed some breakfast to eat on the road. About 90 minutes later, we were in Mentor, Ohio (~30 miles northeast of Cleveland) to visit James A. Garfield NHS.