Natural Bridge, VA --> Millersville, MD (Washington, D.C. area)

Sabbatical Day 11 | June 7, 2011
Natural Bridge, VA  -->  Millersville, MD (Washington, D.C. area)

I am so stinkin' excited I can barely contain myself!! I have butterflies in my tummy and I can feel my face literally light up with excitement every time I think about tomorrow!! I get to see my cousin and quite possibly one of my bestest friends in the whole world!!  YAY!!!!  Uncontainable JOY!!

Most of me is terribly excited to start seeing my friends and family that I haven't seen in a while, but then there is a small part of me that is sad that we have already reached this part of the trip - the slowing down. I have become quite fond of the gypsy vacation style that we have taken on so far - the get up, go see stuff, stay at a different location each night kind of vacationing. But now we are staying here a few nights, spending a night in Pennsylvania, staying at my grandmother's for a few nights and then Vermont for a few nights where Matt will leave from. Then for me, it's back to the gypsy thing but it will be different, since Matt won't be with me.  It is totally going by way too fast. But, we have seen a lot of great stuff too though!

Today we tried to find Dinosaur Kingdom so that we could see dinosaurs trying to eat Union soldiers but, it was impossible to find so, we gave up and ended up having brunch at the Pink Cadillac Diner in Natural Bridge, VA. I had a really nice crock of French Onion soup and a side salad. Out in front of the diner, there was also a 14 foot, fiberglass, King Kong statue crushing an airplane in his hand. He was pretty fun! He was created by the same guy that made the dinosaurs that we couldn't find. It was a horrible tease. From the diner, we began our trek towards D.C..

On our way into Natural Bridge last night, Matt discovered that the headquarters for his fraternity were actually right down the road from where we were staying so he really wanted to stop there on our way to D.C.. So, that is where we headed to next. When we got there, we pulled up to this absolutely magnificent looking home. We took some pictures outside and then went in to see if we could get a tour. Todd came down and showed us around headquarters. It was really nice to hear a history of Matt's fraternity and see some of the older badges and pins that were given to pledges over the years. What I found really cool was that they had pieces of the original limestone rock from the parade grounds at Virginia Military Institute where the founders of Sigma Nu very first created the fraternity. They had the co-ordinates of the stone from when expansions were being made to the school and had it dug up so that they could hold onto that piece of their history. I absolutely loved it!  It really meant a lot to Matt to get to see headquarters and then to go to the parade grounds and see where his fraternity was 'born'. I was really glad I got to share in that with him.

From there, we drove to Quicksburg, VA to see 'American Celebration on Parade' which is essentially a warehouse full of parade floats!  A lot of the floats were from Rose Bowl parades, but there were also some inaugural parade floats and Mardi Gras floats as well. It was way super cool to see them up close and some of them are still used in parades today! It was neat to read how they will sometimes take bits and pieces of different floats to create a new one entirely and you never realize how HUGE the floats are until you stand next to one!!  On one of the last floats you could also get into the driver's seat to see what it feels like to have to drive one of the floats and get an idea of the "visibility" on them. I say "visibility" because there isn't any and now I totally know why each float has people that walk along side them!

After seeing the floats we made our way to Millersville!! We checked in and started to get settled in. Since we are going to be here for a few days, we were able to bring in a bit more from the car and I hope to take a little time to get a bit consolidated so I don't have so many random bags in the back seat of my car. We then needed to find a place for dinner and we discovered that there is a Friendly's nearby!! We totally jumped at the chance!! It was divine and as good as we remembered. I think I am definitely glad that we are going to be walking around D.C. a lot tomorrow and that I brought my "butt shoes" (my Sketcher Shape Ups LOL). I may even have to add in a few laps around the campground too just for good measure!!

For now though, it's bed time so that I can at least appear rested when I see my cousin and (hopefully) my friend - however, I do know that the first thing we are going to need to do when we leave in the morning is hunt down one of those elusive Dunkin Donuts for a monstrously huge coffee!! Whoopie!!!

Night folks!!