As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, when we were in town on Wednesday, we spent some time at the National Museum of American History, which is one of the dozen or so museums that make up the Smithsonian in Washington. This is our favorite of them all.
We saw all kinds of interesting exhibits and famous things, including the original flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the siege of Baltimore in the War of 1812, inspiring Francis Scott Key to write the Star-Spangled Banner, which became our country’s national anthem. No photographs are allowed of the flag to protect it for future generations.
But I did get some pictures of a few other things you will recognize, including Archie and Edith Bunker’s chairs from the sitcom All In The Family.
And here’s some memorabilia from another favorite old television show, the jacket worn by the Fonz in Happy Days. Next to the jacket is country comedienne Minnie Pearl’s famous hat, complete with dangling price tag!
And for the ladies who like cooking shows, such as Miss Terry, they even have Julia Childs’ kitchen on display!
As well as the ruby slippers that Dorothy wore in The Wizard of Oz.
The museum’s collections include everything from musical instruments to coins, dresses worn by America’s First Ladies, weapons, computers, and anything else that tells the story of America and Americans.
We’re supposed to leave here Sunday, and our original plan was to go to the Thousand Trails campground in Gloucester, Virginia for a couple of weeks. But we have a new issue of the Gypsy Journal to get out, and I’m having trouble finding a newspaper printer in the area who uses the same size paper we do, and who can do the job at a price we can afford.
Newspapers don’t get printed at quick print type places, they require a specialized press that is about three times the size of your average motorhome, and cost about 100 times more. We really don’t want to go to the new size of newsprint, which is about two inches narrower and three inches shorter per page than our current format, but sooner or later we may be forced to.
So we’re up in the air right now as to our next move. I have some feelers out to other newspaper printing plants in the region, because our only other option is to go all the way back to Elkhart to get printed at our regular printer in that area. We really don’t want to backtrack that far if we can help it.
The big storm that has been pounding the east coast certainly pounded us here at Cherry Hill Park in College Park, Maryland. We decided to just stay home yesterday and take a day off from playing tourist, but if the weather gives us a break, we’ll be back at it today. We only have a couple of days left here in the Washington D.C. area, and there is so much to see and do that we could never get to all of it. But, it sure is fun trying!
Bad Nick took advantage of the rainy day yesterday to write a new Bad Nick Blog titled Why Didn’t They Resist? Check it out and leave a comment.
Thought For The Day – The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick, I have been following your blog for some time now, and I have to say the photos are a great addition. Keep up the good work!
Once gain thanks for the photo’s. We were glad that you were able to post, we have been concerned about your safety in the aftermath of the storm. Our inter-net and phone have be not to available for some reason. We have put Washington DC on our bucket list but with the costs of parks we do not know when we will be able to do it. Keep the pictures coming.
Nick, as we blogged a little time back, we have learned that the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas is closing this month (on the 17th). Maybe the Smithsonian will take some of his stuff. It would be a shame to just have all that in storage, especially the pianos!
Nick,
I started a weekly in North Tampa, FL called “In the Loop.” 40,000 circ. Sold it to Media General after four gruelling years of meeting that weekly deadline every single week, no matter what. We were the first weekly in FL to go electronic. We couriered a DVD to the printer 50 miles away in Lakeland, FL. Today, you could send it over FTP or some other method. I’m sure this is not new information for you. The two problems I see with this idea for your situation are, you are not physically there to see if they are getting the color registration right, etc. And you have to come up with some way to get the bundles of papers from the printer back to you. Maybe you could find a printer who can distribute as well??? Probably prohibitively expensive, but who knows.
Again, you probably do. 🙂
You mentioned the challenge of finding a printer in the area that could print your newsletter on the size paper that you have been using and not charging more than what you usually pay back in the midwest. I would suggest you look at the printing businesses in the Hagerstown, MD area. That is about 70 miles west of your current location and there are some great campgrounds in the area. The 7th Day Adventists have a huge printing operation called the Review and Herald. The local newspaper, the Herald-Mail puts out a daily and, I believe, they do outside printing jobs. The other large printing concern is HBP (Hagerstown Bookbinding & Printing) There is a Yogi Bear Campground near Williamsport, MD that is ranked tops among private campgrounds in MD… You just visited Gettysburg… Well, the Antietam Battlefield is just south of Hagerstown with a beautiful Visitors Center and excellent driving tour.