D.C. Trip - Sugarloaf Mountain, Holocaust Museum, and the End

Thursday Bags took us to Sugarloaf Mountain.  It's only about an hour or so drive from her house.  I little bit wept in the car because of the beauty.  I don't know why pretty country places make me cry.  It's the result of the get-emotional-over-odd-things gene I inherited from Pod, I guess. 

We tried to picnic by the parking lot before we started hiking, but the gnats were disastrous - millions, swarming all over us.  I was trying to hold the babe with one hand and eat with the other, leaving me no hands to wave gnats away (not that waving was successful), so I ended up eating in the car.  Then we headed out on a five-mile hike on the White and Blue Trails to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. 

I wanted to take pictures of all the trees, and I did take pictures of many. 

  





Chao Lin fought off sleep:



We stopped to take in the view at White Rocks:



 

There were ladybugs and stink bugs all over us.  I've never seen so many in all my life.  Pod showed off three ladybugs on his arms:

Ever chillaxed as we hiked on:

 

Next, we made our way to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain:

 

 

Even the parking lot area was beautiful:



As we drove home, we admired huge, amazing houses in the middle of vast fields.  I tried to capture the beauty of the countryside from the car, to no avail:



Suffice it to say, I'd like a house there, and Bags wants to get married at Sugarloaf Mountain someday.

 

Pod had meetings Friday morning, so we ladies had a leisurely morning and then picked him up at lunchtime.  We ate at the very popular Nando's Peri Peri Chicken and then shared a shake for dessert from the next-door Shake Shack:

Mamo and Bags took care of Dolly the rest of the afternoon while Pod and I went here:

It was wonderful going with Pod because he goes slowly and reads everything, as I like to.  We didn't really have time to get through the whole thing before they closed; had to skip most of the stuff about the people who helped smuggle out the Jews and about the liberation (although I did get to read a little about how Jim's people, the Danes, saved the Jews).  That is the most incredible museum I've ever been to - the displays, the building.  I wished I could spend hours going through it alone so I could let myself sob.  The Holocaust is so unbelievable to me - that Hitler was appointed Chancellor and then within no time got Nazis appointed to pretty much all government positions, that he started killing people within months, that the Germans were all so willing to believe that Jews (who were only a tiny percentage of the population) and Communists were the source of all Germany's economic woes (rather than World War I), that Hitler marched through country after country and took them over so quickly.  And then there's what they did to the Jews and others.  The medical experiments.  The mass killings.  I lost it when I viewed the displays about the killing of children with handicaps or other problems (Ever has made me very sensitive to sad stories about children), the pictures of the starving Jews, the videos of executions, with the victims falling into mass graves they had dug themselves.  I just don't understand how that entire thing happened.  I still cry when I think about the things I saw in that museum. 

While I got depressed at the Holocaust museum, Mamo and Bags had a nice afternoon on the Mall.  It was very important to Mamo that she take Ever on her first merry-go-round.  Mission accomplished, although they said Ever was a little freaked out:

Saturday we girls went shopping at Tyson's Corner while Pod attended his meetings.  Dolly wasn't super-happy about being in the stroller, so I found it hard to do much shopping.  Bags found some good things, though, and then we enjoyed lunch in the food court.  Dolly participated in the meal by eating some of Mamo's bread and Bag Lady's wallet. 

We talked about going into D.C. Saturday night, but Pod was tired after his meetings, and I worried about keeping Dolly up.  So we stayed in and got ready to fly out the next day.  It was a wonderful trip, and I'm so glad we got to go.