I have been to Washington D.C. several times in the past including as recently as 2006. Next to Boston, D.C. is my favorite tourist city. The Smithsonian museums alone could take a week to tour all of them. And the countless famous buildings and memorials and monuments are there too.

However, I had already seen most of them, at least all the important ones I wanted to see plus others that most people never see (it helps to have an aunt living there that was a tour guide). So this time I picked yet another U.S. Presidential home. This one, Woodrow Wilson (#28 1913-1921). He was the only U.S. President to have an actual home (other than the White House) in D.C. Only thing is, like in Manhattan, my GPS could not find the address and it is too obscure amongst all of the other attractions to make the GPS list. I spent two hours trying to find it. No luck. So I missed three of the Presidential homes on this trip. President Wilson does have a library, I found out, about 50 miles west of D.C. Another trip someday.

Of course, like most Americans, I have a great deal of respect for our first U.S. President, George Washington (#1 1789-1797). I had been to his home at Mount Vernon in 1969. I wanted to return because so much had changed in those 40-plus years. Those changes were quite noticeable, even from what I saw of it on the mid 1980's television mini-series about George Washington and the shots of the house that were in it then are different now. But it is still a wonderful place, and so large too. Lots of acres. Well kept although it was easy to see that the grass was suffering from the long hot dry summer.

My last stop of the entire trip was visiting with my relatives living outside D.C. They have been there for almost 50 years. My aunt passed away in just the prior month. When I had planned this trip months in advance I had hoped to see her for what at the time I thought might be the last time. But I did get to see my uncle and his descendants, my cousins and their families. We will all return here in October to celebrate one of those BIG-Oh birthdays for my uncle. Since my aunt and my mother were sisters, I will bring my mother along in October (incredibly, to the great surprise of both myself and my sister, our Mother said she would make the trip). My sister and her husband, who has never been to D.C., will also attend that birthday party.