World War II Memorial. Each state and US territory are represented around the circle.

View of the Washington Monument (obelisk) from the WWII memorial.

Lincoln Memorial in the distance, looking from the WWII memorial.

The Atlantic end of the WWII memorial. The Pacific is represented 180 degrees around the circle.

Us outside the Lincoln Memorial and standing along the reflecting pool.

The (George) Washington Monument

View of the reflecting pool, gardens and the Washington Monument (obelisk) from the Lincoln Memorial

Abe Lincoln Statue - Amazing detail in the stone carving!

Us at the Lincoln Memorial

The Lincoln Memorial Building

Beautiful autumn colours in the trees around the Lincoln Memorial

The White House - Rear Garden view. I think this may be the oval office on the top floor, but I am not sure.

Garden at the rear of the White House.

The front of the White House - 1600 Pennsylvania Ave at dusk. You can't see him in the picture, but there was a secret service officer standing on the front steps.

At the base of the Lincoln Memorial there was a very striking display of support for President-Elect Obama. Thousands of people around the world had joined together to create billboards offering congratulations and testimonials of hope for the USA and world under the new presidents’ leadership, and thousands more had signed the displays after being erected in Washington. It was quite a sight to see just how much hope Mr. Obama has given to so many people around the world.

One of the more amusing comments left by a visitor

We’re safe and sound in Virginia after driving just over 550 miles today. We were both feeling great today after our day of rest in Nashville and made it a little farther than originally planned, stopping for the night in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

The scenery today driving through Tennessee and Virginia was beautiful, breathtaking even. Right now, autumn is in full swing in the Tennessee hills and the trees are every shade of yellow, red and orange. The colours are even more striking than we are used to seeing in Canada, as here there are very few evergreen trees – nearly every tree has changed colour for the season. As we drove along, the leaves were steadily falling from the trees and drifting into the highway creating whirlwind leaf effects, not unlike driving through a snowstorm except much more colourful! As we moved further north, we passed many small farm towns, which were quite beautiful in their rustic charm.

Here are a few photos taken on our drive Northeast today, I hope they help you appreciate the beautiful scenery:

Downtown Nashville. The historic Ryman Auditorium is the brick a-framed building center-left.

Country Music Hall of Fame. The windows are like the black keys on a piano.

Union Station. A 100+ year old restored train station - now a hotel.

Nashville Music City

Downtown Nashville at Dusk

Hard Rock Cafe Nashville. Notice the acoustic guitar.

Jack's BBQ, where we had a fantastic southern meal

Cowgirl D

Inside the Ryman Auditorium, looking across the balcony. The building is more than 100 years old and a national historic site. The Grand Old Opry started in this building but now only broadcasts from here in the winter months, when tourism slows down so it was a great time to visit and see the show in the historic building.

Inside the Ryman Auditorium. We were seated near the front of the balcony - GREAT seats!!

Onstage at the Grand Ole Opry

Jimmy Dickens. 88 years old, quick with the music and the jokes!

Diamond Rio

Randy Owens (from the band Alabama)

Marty Stuart

Vince Gill performing his new song "Heaven"

View more photos from Tennessee, Nashville and the Grand Old Opry

The morning got off to a great start after a good night of sleep and a yummy complimentary breakfast which included waffles shaped like the state of Texas!! They do everything bigger and better in Texas including “the biggest cross in the western hemisphere”!

The hotel lobby had a sign in it inviting anyone to take this challenge: get chauffeured in a limo to a steakhouse and eat a 72oz steak for free if you could finish it in an hour!!
The weather was bright and sunny as we pulled away from Amarillo and headed east. We have noticed that gas is cheaper (in some cases $1.20/gal less), there is an abundance of country and gospel music on the radio, there are 3 pickup trucks to every car and there are bbq restaurants and waffle houses all along the side of the freeway. Amarillo left us with a great impression of Texas and the hospitality they are known for in this part of the country.

In between the gospel and country stations we found plenty of talk radio full of buzz about the election last night. People were calling in from all over the country with plenty of opinions and lots of praise for Barack Obama and his victory. We stayed up last night longer than we had intended watching the coverage on the news and the making of history. We both wish the best to this country that has hosted us and treated us well for the past two years. Now that we are on the road we can truly appreciate how vast and beautiful it really is here and that at the end of the day we are not so very different.

We crossed into Oklahoma around noon and noticed an immediate and drastic difference in the landscape. Western Oklahoma is GREEN! Farms and farms and more farms…oh…and some cattle and  hay bales too. We drove past Oklahoma City (surprisingly big city) and then noticed again that the landscape changed into hardwood trees turning to beautiful fall colours.

At this point I took the wheel to give Jamie a break. Somewhere about 2/3 of the way across Oklahoma I was clipping along to a very upbeat country song when I came over the top of a hill, saw a police cruiser lying in wait and I was busted!! 80 in a 70 zone. The cruiser pulled up behind me with his lights flashing and so I pulled over. Up to the window came officer ” hunk” who thankfully gave me a warning after checking out my license and insurance. I have been driving for 12 years and that was the first time I have been stopped!

Arkansas looks pretty and like a farming state. Much of the landscape was not visible to us on the way as it gets dark so early now. We’ll get a better idea tomorrow when we leave and start heading into the eastern part of the state. Our route tomorrow will take us across another state line and into Tennessee with a likely stop in Memphis before stopping for the night in Nashville.

More news and pictures tomorrow, keep visiting and LEAVE SOME COMMENTS (please).

Western Oklahoma

Eastern Oklahoma

It was an interesting day to be in the US, as it was election day. Even though we’ve mostly been on the highway, we did manage to see a few interesting aspects of the election both over the past few days as well as today. As we stopped in rural Utah for lunch a few days ago we ran into a full group of McCain/Palin party organizers in a local Subway restaurant. We got more than a few ‘funny looks’ from those folks when they saw our California license plates on the car (California of course by far being Democrats). Today we saw something both cute and inspiring: a group of four school-age boys, no more than 13 years old standing on a street corner near the freeway exit in Albuquerque with a handmade sign reading “HONK for Obama – NOT for McCain!”. They were there by themselves, no parents around, jumping up and down and very excited about the support they were getting from the motorists passing by. Personally I don’t even remember knowing what an election was at that age, let alone publicly supporting one candidate or another. One other nice thing today – Starbucks was giving away free coffee on election day, we didn’t even know it until we stopped in for a caffeine break mid-afternoon.

Our Votes: The Best We Could Do!

   

The temperature has really started to change as we travel away from the West Coast. Despite being so far south, it was COLD – just a little above freezing temperatures – when we left Arizona this morning. It probably doesn’t help that we are almost 5000 ft feet up as we travel across this area. This afternoon it did warm up to very comfortable temperatures – and it is warmer this evening in Texas. Thankfully we have still not lost the continual sunshine that we are so used to from California! Also BTW, we passed through another timezone today; we are now on Central Time – 2 hours ahead of California and 2.5 hours behind Newfoundland.

Zion National Park is indescribable in its beauty. The entire area is composed of sandstone and the unique geology of the region makes for some breathtaking landscapes. With all the natural beauty, we couldn’t resist taking literally several hundred photos and narrowing down the photos to share with you this evening was quite a task – there are more than normal but we couldn’t resist! I’m not sure these photos can entirely do the park justice, but I hope they can convey some of the natural beauty we saw today.

I have to say, when I thought of these types of landscapes in the past, I would have thought of Arizona, never Utah. I had no idea how beautiful Utah is and of how much there is to see and do – there are many, many National Parks in southern Utah, I only wish we had time to see more of them. I think there will be a return visit sometime in the future!

BTW – we really appreciate receiving all your comments on posts, even if we don’t have the time to respond to each individually (our Internet access is limited each day). We do read and appreciate each one – please keep them coming!

Driving down Utah highway 89 South to Zion National Park

Panoramic vista just outside the park entrance. Click to view the larger version!

Us at Zion National Park Entrance!

Typical example of the scenery inside Zion National Park

These mountain cliffs form the walls of a very, very deep canyon which you drive down into on your way into the park.

One of many beautiful views in Zion Canyon inside the park

Me in a tree! We were hiking and I couldn't find an unobstructed view (from other trees) of the landscape so I had to climb up to get it!

Beautiful yellow tree in the park - click through to view a larger version.

Autumn in Zion Canyon

Dominique checking out the river in Zion Canyon

Beautiful fall foliage in Zion National Park

Interesting cacti in a beautiful landscape

Zion Canyon Walls illuminated at Sunset

Zion Canyon Walls illuminated at Sunset