As part of a master-level class we visited the Virginia War Museum. The museum has quite a bit of property with beautiful gardens in the middle of Huntington Park, a large collection of military equipment in a "petting zoo" format, and a large collection of posters from several advertising campaigns to support various war efforts. The tour guides were expert veterans of WWII, Korea and Vietnam. The price was $5 to get in (for military and AAA members, $6 for adults) and we received a guided tour, complete with graphic descriptions of the horrors of war. Those who are in the military always want peace but we serve to protect our freedom when threatened. The equipment outside is not for letting kids climb on the peices and some are very rusty anyway which would require a tetnus shot if you did climb on them. The large rail gun in front is HUGE and there are several tanks, AAA and howizters outside. Inside has numerous displays, many war-related posters and an entire section of the Dachau Concentration Camp fence. Be sure to see the flame-thrower copied from the Japanese during WWII. The gift shop specializes in miniature models of soldiers and equipment, along with a multitude of military-related campaign posters. You can see pretty much everything in the Virginia War Museum in less than 2 hours. Be sure to drive around back behind the main museum building past the military equipment park becasue the front driveway and parking area is a 1-way street. The museum covers all wars from the American revolution to the present conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terrorism. For the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, you can't find a better place to learn about our nation's history in battle.

This arch was first built out of wood and plaster in 1919 to honor American servicemen and women when they came back from war. It was too hard to maintain this temporary version so in 1962 they turned it into a permanent arch out of stone. It's a nice structure not far away from the Newport News city hall and actually right at the entrance to the Victory Landing Park from where you can see battleships being maintained and have a beautiful view of the Norfolk harbor.

So our first tour took us from Alexandria, VA to Newport News, VA.  After taking care of some business at the courthouse we walked around the area to see if there was anything interesting to see. And see we did. We came across the USS George H. W. Bush which was right there at the harbor. We saw it from the Victory Landing Park which also has a beautiful arch. The Victory Arch, go figure. lol The weather was beautiful and way to warm for this time of year so we decided to eat some of the food that we brought along from home. We had a little picnic under a tree  and planned our next step. So we hunted down my friend's ex husband. hahaha He was very surprised to see us, to say the least. We had to get some gas so we went to Langley AFB to gas up.  We had a long trip ahead of us and wanted to get the cheapest gas possible. My friend got to see some planes landing and she was happy about that. Then we went to Norfolk and just drove around, looked at some of the aircraft carriers here and then started looking for a hotel for the night. The cheapest place we found was a Motel 8 in Portsmouth which was pretty crappy but well, that's what you get when you don't plan ahead. And $82 is not cheap, specially not for a motel. But whatever. It had a bed and a TV so we didn't complain. We went to bed early after watching super Tuesdays outcome. 

I just checked into the hotel about half an hour ago after a long flight from San Diego. Its about 2am and this is my first time staying at an Omni. It has a nice front desk and lobby area. The rooms are decent size with a huge king bed that looks super comfortable. The bathrooms are nice and come with nice amenities. If you sign up online for the select guest program (which is free) you receive 2 bottles of water, newspaper delivered daily to your room, a nice robe to use, and fresh coffee or juice delivered to your room daily. I will write more when I get a chance.