Bragg Family South

After a couple of enjoyable days in the Williamsburg, Virginia, area, we pulled out and headed to the North Carolina coast.  Our next destination was the Wright Brothers National Memorial on Nags Head of the Outer Banks.  We arrived a little early, so while we waited to get into the park, we found a nearby beach that we strolled on for a little while (pictured above).  Our intent had been to spend a fair amount of time this day on the beaches; regrettably, that did not happen to the extent we intended (more on that later).  At Wright Brothers National Memorial, we got to learn about the early efforts in flight by the brothers, including seeing a replica of their plane: We also saw Kill Devil Hill, from which they launched some of their experiments from: While Hope took Beth and Stephen to an interpreter's program, Kenny and I hiked to the based of the monument pictured above.  Below, you can see how large this monument was: After our visit to t...

After our quick visit with Susan, Jay, Oliver, and David in Kentucky, we drove a couple hours further into West Virginia.  Early the next foggy morning, we headed east towards Virginia, stopping briefly to pose for this picture (above) just down the road from where we stayed the night.  Our first destination would be Appomattox Court House, Virginia, a national historic park where Confederate General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered in April of 1865 to the Union armies commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant, basically ending the Civil War.  Below, the brick building is the actual court house: But the surrender didn't occur in that building, but rather the Maclean house, pictured below: While this was the end of this particular Civil War campaign, it actually was our first battlefield stop on this leg of our trip.  Below, Kenny poses in front of another historic home in this small town; those would have been Confederate artillery...

Notice how I put "vacation" in all caps in the title--unlike so many of our previous "vacations" that also include a substantial work component, this trip involved actual vacation (almost exclusively).  We first headed up to visit Hope's family in Michigan, meeting up with her parents near Toledo, Ohio, to visit a national battlefield known as Fallen Timbers (http://www.nps.gov/fati/index.htm).  The picture below is of the main monument at this site (getting refurbished), which notes a major battle between the US government and Native Americans in 1794: We also went to a local park, which has part of an old limestone quarry open for fossil collecting: Most of the week we spent with Hope's parents consisted of enjoying the balmy weather, including some "cucumber" baseball: We also visited a park in Ann Arbor, and the kids enjoyed the wildlife-themed play equipment: Another highlight was a visit to Greenfield Village (http://www.t...