Dear Readers, its Eli.

I feel as if I am writing an essay, which I do not seem to be very good at after a year of no schooling. But I'll try to intrigue you with my writing nonetheless. In a three week period we have been to Washington D.C, the Civil war battlefields and New York City. What an OVERLOAD…

Most of what we did in Washington D.C., consisted of the Smithsonian and the monuments to the former presidents. It was incredible and we learned a lot but the human brain can only take so much in the week that we were there. If you plan on going I would recommend at least two weeks or more. My favorite museum there was the museum of American history. It had the most variety and artifacts of all the other museums. It had the real Kermit the frog on display and a room filled with the earliest inventions that now consume our everyday life. It also had a First Lady's dress display. Men, budget at least an hour and a half for the women to go through. There's a neat American war museum across from it that you can look at while you wait.

The museum of natural history was really cool, they had all kinds of mounted animals (most of which we had seen living at the Washington zoo the day before.) And they had neat mining exhibits with all kinds of gems and gold and amethysts and shiny things. Mom being the natural magpie that she is, could hardly leave that exhibit. The worst part about the museum though, was all the evolutionist propaganda that they had. Apparently I have evolved from a rat looking thing the size of my palm and there were absolutely no similarities between us, I had to admit though he looked a lot like my sisters.

Then there was the holocaust museum… That was beyond words and inexplicable. You will have to go through it yourselves one day. Much like the civil war battlefields, you can't appreciate it fully, until you've seen it and I realize seeing the museum is only brushing the top of what happened during the holocaust. To see the actual death-camps would be a completely different experience, it's all a very personal experience.

I wish I could hop to a happy note next but, it turns out that our travels brought us to the civil war battlefields, fewer fatalities than the holocaust but still, just as terrible. The first battlefield we went to was called Antietam Battlefield. On this farm where most of the battle was fought, there ended up being the largest amount of American casualties in a twenty-four hour period in history. There were over 23,000 Americans killed, wounded or missing. It makes a little more sense when you understand that both sides were American but it still was a bloody battle, fought amongst brothers. We read some stories of family fighting on opposing sides, some were pretty brutal, and some even fought each other in the same battle without knowing!! Interesting fact, Abraham Lincoln's own brother-in-law was a surgeon for the confederate army, that's how much families were separated which is one of the most brutal parts about the war.

Our last civil war battlefield was Gettysburg. It was much like Antietam except it raged for three days, with over 43,000 casualties or more. In numbers it was not more deadly than Antietam however, because it took longer. This is where Abraham Lincoln gave his ever-famous address "Four score and seven years ago…" which at the time was thought to be terrible due to its short length. However today it is one of the greatest pieces of literature in America!!

Since then we've done Amish Country, Hershey's chocolate factory, and New York City, but that would probably take me another page or two. We've had lots of fun so far and we keep having fun - oh and learning lots!

I laughed, I cried, two thumbs up! - Eli