As if summer isn’t exciting enough as it is, we decided to start it off with a grand vacation to Washington D.C.! We came home from school on Friday afternoon, packed like mad, then woke up at 5:00 on Saturday morning to go catch a flight to one of our favorite places in the world.
I admit that I’m not sure how to condense a 10 day trip into one blog post, so I’m going to break it into more than one. Even still these accounts will be much too long, I’m sure. The trip was kind of like three different trips anyway. We spent some time in Ohio, most of our time in D.C., and a quick little jaunt up to New Jersey.
First up, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
We arrived in D.C. on Saturday at about 1:00 in the afternoon. Seeing the monuments out the airplane window seriously made me a little teary. I love that place! I was so excited to introduce Adam and Amelia to this piece of our lives.
This is what it looks like to travel with 4 young children (and he wasn’t the only one carrying to capacity- we all were).
We hopped in our beat up rental mini-van and immediately headed to one of our old haunts, Clemyjontri Park, to meet our good friends the Smiths. It was a hot day and the park was a mad house, but it was fun to see them and play nonetheless. It was just the first time of many during the trip that I wished we had more time to spend there.
Anyway, that was Virginia. After our time at the park we hopped back in the car for a little 6 hour drive out to Ohio. I know it sounds crazy to plan a 6 hour drive right after a 4 hour flight, but it wasn’t so bad. After all, at that point in the trip we were still fresh and full of enthusiasm.
We got in to Cleveland at midnight. The kids had been sleeping in the car, and had just enough of a nap so that they were wide awake when we reached the hotel. Glenn and I were tired. It took us two hours of battling with the children to finally get them asleep again. I was grumpy, but optimistic. After all, being tired is a small price to pay for visiting the beautiful eastern part of the country!
We spent Sunday in Kirtland visiting church and family historical sites. Both Glenn and I have ancestors who lived in Kirtland, so we were excited to make family history come alive.
We visited the little historic Kirtland village that the Church has restored, the Isaac and Lucy Morley Farm (which is particularly meaningful since they just happen to be Glenn’s 5th great grandparents), and the Kirtland Temple. Glenn and I were more impressed with the wonderful history than the kids were. The 6 hour drive after the 4 hour flight was starting to take its toll, and the kids did not want to stand still for more than 2 seconds. I had envisioned taking lovely pictures of our children, thrilled to be visiting the land where their ancestors had walked and lived. Instead, we got a nice family shot in front of the temple and a picture of Glenn next to the sign at the Morley Farm as we were making our hasty retreat with wound up children. Good ole’ great-great-great-great-great-great Grandma and Grandpa must have been shaking their heads at us. Or maybe that was just the other visitors.
After Kirtland we drove back toward Cleveland where we were headed to see some of my family history sites. We stopped at the cemetery where my great-great grandparents are buried. I wasn’t sure exactly where, so we drove around and told the kids to look for a “Ludwig” grave marker. After about 1 minute, Derek announced that he saw a “Vajner” grave marker, which is another of my family names. We stopped and jumped out of the car. Sure enough, there were my ancestors! Interestingly, the Ludwigs shared the same grave marker. Their names were engraved on the other side. The families must have been good friends (two of the Ludwig sons married two of the Vajner daughters, so they better have been good friends).
That was probably the highlight of the family history portion of the trip for Derek. I don’t blame him. There is something really thrilling about locating old grave markers for your ancestors (at least it is thrilling for me).
We went and had dinner with my dad’s cousin, Sandy. I have talked to her on the phone a couple of times, and it was fun to meet her. She lives out on the most gorgeous plot of paradise! Glenn and I both agree that Ohio is absolutely beautiful. After letting the boys run and run and run around through her gigantic and luscious back yard (and I mean gigantic and luscious), we headed back to the hotel for the night. Not a bad start for connecting with our family (dead and alive) on the trip.
Monday we drove around to see the houses where my grandparents were born and grew up. It was mostly boring for the kids, but not completely. There was one building that had us all holding our breath. I found an address on some real estate paperwork for a building that my great-great grandfather built about a decade after he came to the United States from Moravia. My great- grandfather helped run a drugstore in that building, and it was in the family for many years. When I looked it up on Google Maps, I found that it had the name “Ludwig” engraved on the front! It is in a terrible part of town where many buildings are being torn down, and the Google image was from 5 years ago. Despite trying to find information about it online, we just weren’t sure if it was still there.
We drove to the street and turned the corner. We were all leaning forward in our seats, craning our necks. Sure enough…
I have to admit that the pawn shop signs plastered all over the beautiful brick exterior kind of lessened the dramatic impact a little bit, but still. How many people have an old building with their name engraved on it? Our ancestors lived and worked in this very building!
This is more like it!
When we got to the house where my Grandpa Ludwig was born, there was a man sitting out on the front porch. I asked him if it was okay for me to take a picture. Despite a warning from a friendly neighbor at the Ludwig Building that we should be very careful in this neighborhood, the man was extremely nice. He even let me go inside the house and take some pictures. All in all, very fascinating for me and a lot of fun. I could post a whole slew of pictures here, but I’ll stop with one more. I just wish I could have seen it in its glory days!
When we had seen everything there was to see in Ohio (there were 13 stops on the itinerary for Monday and we hit all but 2), we turned our course back east and headed for Pennsylvania. We drove for 5 hours until we hit Gettysburg, which has to be the most beautiful Civil War Battlefield there is.
Our family has changed a bit since we were there last, huh?
It is hard to believe how horrific the scene was right in this spot over a hundred years ago. Now it is so peaceful and pretty.
I think this was one of the boys’ favorite stops on the whole trip. In contrast to the family history stops we had been making just hours before, at Gettysburg history seemed to come alive for them (in part because they were climbing on forbidden, real Civil War cannons- oops- we did make them stop once we became better educated).
I loved how interested our kids were in American history and why things happened the way they did. It was the perfect way to spend Memorial Day- remembering our ancestors and those in our great country who have given so much. As President Lincoln said right in that very place, “from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
This picture of Amelia is a pretty good illustration of what a ragged bunch we were by the time we arrived at Gettysburg. Wild hair, no shoes, and a messy face. Even so, she loved it there!
Particularly as the sun started to set over the gorgeous fields.
We ended the day with ice cream at a restored house that was there when the actual battle was taking place. There were bullet holes in the fence and tree out front (although they are no longer there). It doesn’t get much better than yummy ice cream and history at 9:00 pm on vacation!
Well, there you have it. Days 1-3 of the trip. Busy, chaotic, miserable at times, but overall really wonderful. I miss it already!
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