From former capitol Philly to the present capitol DC.

You know that Philadelphia was the temporary capital of the US from about 1790 to 1800. Then began the move to DC. There is the factual lesson for the day.

After I kinda caught that sunrise in the last posting, i went to find  barnes and noble in order to begin typing the previous blog. I'm really behind by the way. that was the 12th. Today is the 19th that i begin this blog. Tuesday night. Boy have i been all over since then. I'll try to keep it brief. I'll try to post more pics than anything.
After my sitting at the bookstore, i was off on a 6 hour journey to Pennsylvania starting from Norfolk, VA. If you bust a map you will see where that is. Norfolk VA map .
maybe that will pop up as a link. anyhow, an old buddy of mine, Sean from TX was in the Navy and stationed in Norfolk. He said. "yo adam". he's a black brother and he always says, "yo, listen up, adam". =) He said, "you gotta check out the tunnel there". if u look at the map you will see that there is a little bitty thin line which is a bridge tunnel. he suggested i take that. it was interesting. You take a long bridge.....wait wait.. sorry. first you pay TWELVE bucks. ..then you take a long bridge, which before you know it dives under the depths of the ocean for about less than a ¼ mile. Then you shoot out of the water like a torpedo and are on a bridge again, then you dive into the waters again like a penguin for another 2/10th of a mile or so...then you shoot out like a second torpedo and lastly cruise on this bridge for the rest of the way til you hit land. What do you think? was it worth the twelve bucks for you? =) i just know that with my ticket purchase they gave me a coupon to eat at a restaurant which was on the first dive in spot. The coupon was for a chopped pork sandwich with fries. My rant: the customer service here sucked. i waited like 20 minutes for my food. and then the guy didn't give me my fries. He didn't believe that i paid for the fries. so i punched him in his optical viewing range with my coupon which said "with fries" on it!

the first part of the bridge

Underneath these rocks are cars entering the tunnel, in the distance is the shoot out point.

a boat going over cars which are under the water in a tunnel.

going below the waters.

out of the waters on the second leg of the bridge

back down again

here is the tunnel entrance (out of sequence).

back on the bridge.

Moving right along. Let me tell you. Since I took this Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, I decided to cruise up that way all the way to Pennsylvania passing  first briefly through Maryland and then through action packed Delaware. Oh the action. MMM. My destination was a small town called Upper Black Eddy. Do you recall my friends that I met in Asheville NC. Well they were from Pennsylvania. Jesse got in touch with me and invited me over to stay the night with them in Pennsylvania so that the next day I could go to the Philadelphia Airport to meet my buddy Jerome who happened to have a layover in Philly from San Antonio to London. Yess! Below are some pics from my car en route to Katie's house in Upper Black Eddy.

Death Camp for chickens

entering maryland for the first time.

the exciting delaware sign

beautimus.

yay. pennsylvania!

rear view mirror show

So Jesse and Katie. These are the girls that always gave me info that turned out to be not true. We wont call them liars, but rather friends who give me misinformation for reasons unknown to me. =) i wasn't sure if the address they even gave me would lead me to their door. But it did. It was legit. And I was happy to see them once again.
The night I arrived they had made some yummy spaghetti for me. mmmm. That night the 3 of us went to a Bar called the Shipp Inn just down the road in Milford New Jersey. There was an open mic going on. yay. I met a Brahman from India there. he was a mouth harp player (harmonica). He's a PhD and works with vaccines and stuff here. neat guy. anyhow I got to sing. I enjoyed the evening with my two Pennsylvania friends who are moving to Asheville NC. <high 5>
The next day we visited a place called Ringing Rocks. Tools required: a hammer. and some comfy shoes. you hit rocks with a hammer.. some of them ring, and some don't. They sound like church bells. kinda. but it's fun for a few minutes! it really is! kept me entertained. There was like 20 people with hammers doing the same thing. here's some pics. After that I think we took a nap. Then they peaced me out. Peace out my Penn State Peeps.

katie

Jesse

scrapple for breakfast! mmmm.

on the way to Ringing Rocks.

the perfect form to ring a rock. all the white spots are from billions of hammers over the years.

Jesse and Alyce, Katies sister and son

more views in that park.

Oh my. the colors!!! Not photoshop, Just purely God's handiwork.

Jesse took a pic of me singing...or sleeping with a guitar.. i can't tell.

my peace out!

I took off about 5:30pm to go meet my buddy DJ Finger aka Jerome at the Philly International Airport. Oh my. Philly is stinkin' HUGE! It took forever to get there.
When I arrived in the cell phone parking lot he had just landed and grabbed some grub. Mind u i hauled ass 6 hours to come see this guy for such a short visit. I called him and he said. "I don't think i'll be able to leave this area i'm in to come out and see you. And i definitely don't want to miss this flight." Elephant Dung! I'm not gonna take that for an answer and i let him know it!!  Anyway he hung up to ask some questions and called back telling me where i can meet  him! Yess! So now we didn't have that much time. He was recommended to be back at least 25 minutes early for boarding. That left me with like 15 minutes to meet up and greet up. (i don't think this stuff is interesting. if you read this...you amaze me). So he told me where he was. I obviously didn't hear him right cuz i couldn't find him! and this airport is HUGE just like the dang city. You know what it's like going through the Arrival lanes only to have to go alllllll the way out and around this long dang road just to get back in! 15min minus 6 minutes of wasted time! 9 left! So I rush the loopy and arrive in the Departures where he told me to go in the first place. and BAM! there he was.. my boy! looking all handsome and grown up like a married man.

by the time i got to him there was actually about 6 minutes left before he had to leave! Small chat. Hug. and hug good bye! Farewell and off to London! I don't care. but it was worth seeing him for the brief time it was!

and 5 minutes later!  off to London!

K. That night i found a place to continue the last blog in Philly. It was in the most ghetto McDonalds i've ever been in. By the way. I stopped frequenting the Starbucks to use the web cuz i kept on buying coffee. Per the recommendation of 2 people. I don't remember the first, but the second was my buddy from London, Dave who now lives in KY. I didn't realize McD's offered free wi-fi at most of their stores.
k. so the customer service at this McDonalds was ridiculous. I mean they took care of me well. But while i was on the web and an old couple was at the next table to my right, the employees were like highschool kids kickin' it with their homeboys talking smack like young kids do. Cussing and yelling and vulgarity and running around like kids. And the manager would go to the registar and mess with the monies and be talking with the same potty mouth. LOUD! C'mon now. I don't mind cussing all that much....but there is a time and a place. And it's definitely not while you are working fool! With customers around. Especially old people. What's up with that? k. useless stories. =)

Well, Then i drove at least 20 miles through this South part of Philly trying to find an Wal-Mart with a parking lot bigger than a Dollar General parking lot. There were so many wal marts in that town that the walmarts weren't big like most walmarts i'm used to. The walmarts reminded me of walmart from back in the early 90's or something. How long has wal-mart been around? hmmmm. Side note. So the first walmart started in 1962 by Sam Walton in Columbus GA. That's where me and Ruffio spent all day looking for his dad....and i didn't even know that's where walmart was born. I might have slept in the first Wal-Mart parking lot ever made. ok, then "In 1983, the first Sam’s Club members-warehouse store opened. The first Supercenter opened in 1988, featuring a complete grocery, and 36 departments of general merchandise. By 1989, there were 1,402 Walmart stores and 123 Sam’s Club locations. Employment had increased tenfold. Sales had grown from $1 billion in 1980, to $26 billion." Today there is 8650 stores throughout the world. Source taken from http://walmartstores.com/aboutus/297.aspx. So anyhow. I didn't feel comfy in such a small lot. There were no cars around. i would've been a good target to be jacked or something else bad....dumb thinking. So I drove another 20 minutes to the next town out of Philly towards Washington DC to visit an old friend, David-Craig and his wife. That's his name. The whole thing. you gotta call him, not David, nor Craig. But David-Craig. =)
Very interesting. I left that Thursday morning in order to arrive in DC by 4 pm to pick up David Craig from work. I stopped in Baltimore on the way to continue the last blog. do you see why i don't like blogging? oh my. too much time. I've been sitting here forever in this basement typing this stuff! you better be happy all you people who encourage me with this stuff!!!
so David Craig is a bombtastic song writer. he is in two bands and one of the bands happened to have band practice up in the attic the day of my arrival. The group: Twins of a Gazelle. Song of Solomon 7:3. It's a biblical band name. I love this band. I don't love many bands. But this band is tight. I love different instrumentation. He has plenty. Violin, Cello, Trumpet, drum, bass and many more that show up when they can. And the songs are well written and fun! a link to a Twins song. Twins of a Gazelle- Constellations.
Since i've been here, I attended an Apple Picking Saturday at a farm back in MD. There were apples and pumkins and all sorts of other Fall stuff there. Hay rides, goats, TURKEY LEGS, apple fritters (yum), beautiful weather and lots of apples on the floors through the apple fields.

davidcraig

So Saturday night we were going to go check out a certain band called Dangerosa. The interesting thing about this band is that my friend from 6th-8th grade named Avé Luke is the lead singer. She was the oboe player at Hobby Middle School, whilst I was to her left in the Saxophone department. We were going to surprise her by me shouting out something like, "go Avé, bust out that Oboe" between songs. But while we were walking up to the venue, there was a group outside and David Craig said, "uh oh, she's in that group, i'm going to talk real quick and we'll go in". Well, David Craig told her I was coming sometime to visit in the previous weeks, he didn't specify when....so when we walked over, she saw me and got way excited. It was neat. She recognized me instantly and gave me this fatty hug. It was great! She was a super awesomely nice person back in the day and she has the same amazing loving qualities. The band has her and her hubby and some other guitar players. Fun stuff! We chatted. It's amazing to see and catch up with old friends whom you haven't seen in over 10 years or so.. in this case it was since 1994, when i got kicked out of band, 16 years ago. wow.

my friend Avé in Dangerosa

Um. What else? David Craigs wife Elise is a super cook. Sunday night we had a Thanksgiving dinner with pot roast, Palenta (? grits with a fancier name, very yummy), carrots and yams and some fresh apple cider from that farm. Oh my! what a meal. whenever I stay with folks I am so blessed in the food/ belly department. my soul is relieved from the ham/turkey sandwich monotony. So that same day she made a taco. Not just any taco. A vegetarian taco. Yuck you say? You better take that back fool! Don't be deceived, the taco will not be mocked. She ate one the night before and it didn't look too appealing. I actually turned it down. But this day....no this day Adam was going to be a real man and eat a vegetarian taco by Elise. Oh my. No regrets. It was almost better than a real taco. In fact, it was a real taco..but what i meant was it was so yummy, i might actually prefer it over a meat taco if a meat taco were present. i don't know what was in it. there will be a picture so you can figure it out. i know there was carrots and beans and cabbage i think...and a hint of avacado.

Sunday I visited a Unitarian Church. very interesting. different. then i went with david craig and his wife into an IKEA. What the heck? I've never been in one before. These are like furniture theme parks. They even sell Ikea hotdogs (50¢) and Ikea ice cream ($1). They had an eight foot by 12 or so banner raised up advertising their hot dogs....in a furniture store. That was new to me.
Monday and Tuesday I've been going to and fro on my bicycle to the Downtown DC area while my hosts are at the full time job. I need to work out more. so many hills. at least 12-18 miles per day on the bike. that's not really a whole lot. but it is for a tough guy such as myself. I've talked to very few humans in my sojourns to the downtown DC area. But here are some pics of my stay. The band will be playing thursday in a small restaurant, Rhode Island Reds, I'll be there. Then they are playing again Saturday night. I'll be here for that. I think i'm leaving Sunday! Sign out. 1:11am Eastern Time, Wednesday Oct. 20, 2010. Washington DC.

this is me in my sleeping quarters waking up Thurs to head to DC

the colors were fantastic

more tunnels

it was raining all the way to DC. headed into a tunnel.

Many houses in DC are comparable to these.

DavidCraig and Elises Dogs LuLu (left) and Quito (Rt)

the job i was thinking about getting

   

This is Actually Lucy, the bones.

an interesting bus advertisement. Recruitment maybe? or just letting people realize they're not alone?

The coolest Museum ever! the Newseum. That's the first amendment on 127 ft of marble slabbery

washington monument from the stops of the Lincoln memorial

from the Newseum upper deck

at the newseum, this is the actual radio tower from one of the twin towers. on the wall is 150 or so newspapers the day of 9/11 from around the world

my view this night Tuesday 10.19

Washington monument in the background

green is full freedom of the press; yellow, partly free; red, not free. one in six people live in countries where the press is not free!

my lunch at the newseum today, double portion of carbs.

korean war memorial

i had to put myself in a picture

Waiting for this guy to get off the toilet at the FDR memorial

T. Jefferson

T. Jefferson quote. You should look up the Jefferson Bible. He took out all the supernatural stuff out of the new testament, but kept everything else.

washington monument from the Lincoln memorial. The capital is behind there, two miles away

i love this pic.

An abandoned bldg on the bike ride home tonight.

So if u actually got this far. Be the first person to email or comment how many pictures are in this particular blog and i'll mail u a post card from any one of my final destinations or any destination en route to wisconsin or new york. =) shoot. if u even want a post card.. lemme know. i'll get u one.  =)
Remember the adamo.
so now i'm finally done with adding pics and junk. it's 4:43am. i know it shouldn't take that long.. i don't know whats up with that.. maybe emails and random searches on the web slowed this down... but g'night world.