Gorgeous Day in Washington DC

Actually, we had 2 gorgeous days in Washington DC.  Then we hung out at the RV park (Cherry Hill) for a third – got laundry done, answered some email, etc.

 

Since it was so nice, we didn’t spend much time inside the many museums.  We briefly toured the Spy Museum (fun) – but spent most of our time outside.  We walked quite a bit, and then signed up for the hop-on, hop-off double decker tour bus.  We liked that a lot.  $35 – let you ride as much as you wanted for 2 days.  And, their speaker system worked well, so you could hear the commentary everywhere you go.

 

We took so many pictures, I can’t decide what to post here, so I’ll just give you the whole slideshow from our Picasa Web Albums.

Washington DC and Arlington

By Jim

 

We are in the Nation’s Capitol for a couple of days to see the sights and visit my Mom’s final resting place.  I miss her.

Arlington Cemetery is a beautiful place.  Many of our nations finest are buried here.  I visited here many years ago after JFK was buried.  Now he has family all around the eternal flame.

We bought tickets for the Open Top Tour Bus. The weather was perfect and we rode topside, great for pictures.  We crossed the river back into DC to see Lincoln’s Memorial and the Mall.

 

  

I really like the busses where you can get off and on all day.

We spent a lot of time in the Spy Museum, then found a sidewalk sports bar for the second half of the Dolphins game.

We’re headed back tomorrow for more sightseeing.  There is too much to see in such a short time.  That just means we have to return!

Our Nation’s Capitol Building and a kick-ball game.

Wi-Fi and Full Moon

We were supposed to make it to Cumberland, Maryland yesterday, but the stop in Columbus to get a new tire took a *lot* longer than expected.  We only made it as far as Zanesville – about an hour east of Columbus.

 

The park is Wolfie’s and you need to put it on your list of good Wi-Fi!!  Good, Free, and Fast!  Such a treat.  We have been so few places this summer with good Wi-Fi.  We could watch Jon Stewart’s Daily Show from the web without needing to stop and buffer a dozen times, and without exceeding our Verizon download limits.

 

It’s pretty here too.  Mom and I took Odie for a walk on the trail.

 

 

 

We saw the sun set, and the moon rise.  Have you ever taken a picture of a full moon and been so disappointed that it only came out as a little speck in the sky?  I did that with this great pumpkin display as the foreground.  You can’t even see the moon unless you look really hard.  And the empty pool with chain link fence isn’t the most attractive background either.

 

 

So, I took another picture of the full moon, with the telephoto.

 

 

And, then I put them together :-)  No – picasa can’t do this … I use Fireworks, most people use Photo Shop.  Do we have too much fun with our computers or what?  Of course, I should have been answering emails or doing our newsletter.  Oh well.

 

 

Off to Washington, D.C. today.

Scenes of a Rally

There were probably close to 300 people at this rally and most of them show up for Nick's welcome.  To read more about the rally – check out Nick’s Blog.

 

 

It’s so nice that Nick asks the vendors and the seminar speakers to introduce themselves to the crowd, and tell about their products/seminars. 

 

The weather was quite chilly most of the week, here Mom and I are grabbing a little warm sunshine.

 

Beautiful trees and early morning sunshine by our site.

 

And here’s our table in the vendor area:

 

This is Joe Kieva and Vicki Kieva (next photo.) If you’re an RVer, you probably know of them because they’ve been writing a column in Good Sam’s Highways magazine for many, many years.  I found their website, RVKnowHow, very useful even before we first got our RV.  We met them, very briefly, at Life on Wheels in 2004 and enjoyed their seminars then too.

 

 

I also found it inspiring that they were making a career out of presenting seminars and writing articles and books for RVers!  The Gypsy Journal Rally was their only speaking engagement this year.  I’m so glad we got to see them!

 

We presented 6 seminars during the week and had a blast at all of them, but especially the two advanced classes we taught – Picasa: Beyond the Basics and Blogging: Beyond the Basics.  We could have taught several days on each, but we kept it to 1 and a half hours!

 

 

After the end of the last seminar .. who should walk thru the door but our good friends Lynne and John!  They’re traveling in their motorhome from Florida to Iowa, and we’re headed back to Florida.  So nice that our paths cross now and then.  And, it was wonderful to see their smiling faces!

 

 

Thanks Nick and Terry for a great rally.

Well Done!

Tribute to early RVers: my parents

We’ve been having a good time teaching our seminars here at the Gypsy Journal Rally … we taught one of our very favorite topics this morning: “Creating Narrated slideshow movies with Photo Story 3”  We have our routine and material down pat with this one, so my mind was free to wander a bit in getting prepared. 

 

It dawned on me that since my Mom is with us it would be cool to show a sample Photo Story movie using pictures from my family’s RV travels in the 60s.  RVing in Alaska, Mexico and Canada are popular topics in RV circles – and we did it in the 60s.  So, I made sure my Mom was in the audience for this seminar and I quickly put together this little movie as part of our presentation:

 

To learn how to make your own narrated slideshow/movie, see our tutorials at: http://geeksontour.com/photostory.cfm

It’s SOOO easy!  And, Photo Story is free, just like everything else we teach.