Bob is lost.

Today I am the bearer of bad news. Despite a really good hunt yesterday, it appears that Bob has been left somewhere, in Pennsylvania we guess. It's a shame that he didn't make the whole trip - there were a couple of close calls where he was left in random places & then found again. RIP Bob! We have another mascot named Little Bob but he's tiny so a bit hard to pick out but you may still spot him from time to time.

It was a very early start for us today because we needed to get to Manassas to get a new mirror for our RV. We journal'd and blogg'd until we got there and then Mum and Deanna went shopping while the rest of us collected the mirror. While we were at it we went through these two really flash RV's. The first had three flat screen TVs, two bathrooms, a double bed, four slides and all this for only 2 people (you could tell becuase only 2 seats at the dining table). Not fit for us – but the next 5th wheeler we went through was awesome because it had two slides, a huge bathroom (for an RV), a TV that when you turn it around it becomes a mirror, this is connected to the double bed room. But the best thing about it is the kids room. This one had a bunk and a trundler... so cool... a bed each!!!.

We afixed the mirror ourselves, then we got a tank of well priced gas, then collected Deanna, Mum & groceries. Our water & waste were in serious need of attention so we found a campsite and paid them to let us take care of the aforementioned matters. While there we all had showers/baths so for $10 we bought our selves 3 more days of free camping... the larder, gas & propane tanks were full... & 2 mirrors... so back to DC with all systems go!

On the way back we stumbled across something Dad had really been hoping to see - the Iwo Jima memorial. You see miniatures of it in the souvineer shops so we were wrapped to see a sign on the freeway directing us there. I reckon it's the biggest bronze statue we've seen - check out the pics. And of course, Dad was a happy camper! Mind you, his parking there was a bit ordinary - but the thumbs up is also cos he's got 2 mirrors again, not just cos of pride in his parking skills!

Now it was time for some real sight seeing so we headed back to our parking spot behind the Jefferson. As we walked past there were 2 helecopters just hovering over the water, looked like they were looking for something/one. A fella said they were doing some surveying so nothing exciting after all.

The closest museum was the Holocaust museum and since it was 2:00pm by the time we got back, there we went. For those of you who don't already know what the Holocaust is let me explain... the holocaust was when the Nazis (led by Hitler) murdered millions of Jews because they were blamed for losing the first world war. The funny thing is Hitler was part Jew! The museum was all about this catastrophy of history - they sent huge numbers to ghettos, which is like a prison town with one building per family (or often more). This room had everything they need – including the toilet and kitchen but it would be so cramped (even worse than our camper!!) Most of the Jews at these ghettos (& loads of others as well) got sent to a concentration camp.

You probably don't know what that is either so let me explain – the concentration camp is a place of hard labor and they make you wear a uniform that looks like pj's. They don't feed you well and they split the girls and boys up. They all have to share bunks. Often people die of sickness or starvation. Most of the time the Jews got murdered by either getting shot or gas chambers. To stop panic they told the Jews they were going to have a healthy shower then took them underground and told them to take off their cloths and them moved them into another room then bolted the door and threw in poisoning gas that stopped them from being able to breath.

Everyone normally died after about twenty minutes. Then they took the bodies out, cut off their hair (sometimes they did that before hand) then burned the dead bodies.

I have one word to describe the holocaust: horrible!!! There were photos of when the camps were liberated - people looked lke skeletons & there were dead bodies everywhere. Emma found it so bad she could barely look. The rest of the museum was really good though if the truth be known - it told us all about Hitler too, and how he became president and changed the law to no more elections.

That was it for the day, quite a sobering finish but Dad says we all need to understand the history so we make sure it doesn't ever happen again. I hope not!!!

Our usual routine is to try find a hotspot on our way to overnight parking place. Randomly we discovered there was a very small area just near our daytime park so we stopped there. Unfortunately it's just around the other side of the Jefferson... and the cops get a bit twitchy about anything parked that close... so after 20 questions, we were politely moved on. Oh well.

Goodnight from Amy.