Washington DC was so much more like what we like, than NY. We walked around most of The Mall, the grassed area with all the monuments and the Smithsonian Museums. Unfortunately they were working on the Washington Monument and also on Lincoln's statue, and you can't get very close to the White House. The highlights for us though was being able to read some of quotes from Martin Luther King, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D Roosevelt, some of these quotes I think have been forgotten by most of America and need revisiting. All in all we really enjoyed DC. On our way out of DC we stopped in at one of the Smithsonian museums where they have the space shuttle Discovery and a Concord, amongst many other planes. It was remarkable to be able to get up close to the shuttle, a truly marvelous piece of engineering. We then headed south to ride Skyline Drive, we had been told by a few people to do this drive, it runs through a National Park and some beautiful forest. Here we saw our first Black Bears, two Bob Cats, a Ground Hog and numerous deer, we were quite excited about the bears, they were right on the edge of the road when we spotted them, unfortunately we weren't able to get photos of these animals, by the time we would stop and get the camera out they would be gone. We didn't get to see many of the great views from Skyline either because it was raining and foggy, but we continued on to Blue Ridge Parkway, here the rain stopped and the fog lifted so we were able to see some of the magnificent views. Then we turned west and continued on through the mountains for quite some time, some of the forest and views were very nice, eventually the hills and forest started to thin and we arrived in St Louis, here we visited the BMW dealer and replaced the rear tyre and had a couple of small issues sorted. Then on the recommendation of a friend, and Billy Connolly went there too, we visited the St Louis Arch, the gateway to the west. A most impressive structure that towers 192 meters above the ground and offers a most impressive view over the city. Also in St Louis we rode a small part of the famous Route 66, in fact our campground was on it! Then we went West young man in search of our fortune, unfortunately we haven't found it, we have found oil fields and farms, but that is about it. Despite it being a while since our last blog, there really isn't much to tell, we have met some interesting people like we usually do, but in an attempt to get up to Alaska before the weather turns bad, we have been doing around 600 Ks a day since Blue Ridge, and that doesn't leave much time for sight seeing, most days we have set up camp around 7.30pm and been on the road around 10am. We hope to slow down a bit once we hit the Rockies.