33 days. 12 flights. 1 bus trip. Thousands of air miles. It's been a crazy trip, this, and in so many ways I'm pleased that someone else had to do the organising. On the other hand, control freak that I am, if I'd been doing it I'd have done it differently. For a start, I'd probably have spent a bit more to get better airlines and seats, but that's just a small quibble. The agony of air travel fades after a couple of days. Still, business class seems nice ...

So today was the last real day I had for sightseeing in Washington DC. From tomorrow, it's going to be jam-packed all week, and with the Government Shutdown last time we were here, we had a lot of catching up to do. So I crammed in three museums into one busy day. I started with the Library of Congress at 9am. Like so many of the buildings in Washington DC, it has a classical architecture. Stepping inside, it's like a cathedral devoted to the worship of book...

On Friday, we had most of the day off. I had considered going to Chicago for the weekend with Yigang, but with so much work to do, not to mention boring stuff like clothes washing, I decided to stay in Dubuque and do a little catch-up. It also gave me the chance to go to a concert on Friday night. My new friend, General Bob, had said that he was covering the concert for 365Ink, a local newspaper, and that if I wanted to go the night would be on him. So I took...

Wednesday also held one of the best parts of this trip so far. We were scheduled to visit the Mines of Spain and the EB Lyons Interpretive Centre, but I wasn't sure what that was. Turns out, Mines of Spain is a regional park that was originally a lead mine, back in the early days of the settlement. Now, it's a very pretty hiking park, filled with all kinds of creatures. The EB Lyons Interpretive Centre is an educational facility primarily aimed at kids, tha...

On Wednesday I got to play with fire. Well, a fire truck. Well, go up in the basket of a fire truck. But that was still pretty cool. At the Dubuque Regional Training Centre, they have a purpose-built facility for police, fire, ambulance and emergency management to train together, including a fire training house which is set up with a fire simulation engine that is computer-controlled. It allows the trainer to set up endless different scenarios, add smoke, ...