I was going to wait until the end of the month to look at this but I happened to check today. We're almost 2/3 of the way through 2020. It's remarkable how much of an impact COVID has had on our spending.

In 2019, our average monthly spending came to $6,657 or $79,884 for the entire year.

So far in 2020, our average monthly spending is only about $5,190. Extrapolated out for 12 months that will be just $62,280, almost $18,000 less than last year.

I haven't sat down and really dug into the numbers but just on the surface, the biggest chunk of the savings has got to be from the lack of travel. Number two would be the lack of dining out.

We have started dining out again since NJ opened for outdoor dining at the end of June but we're still doing way less than previously. It's been too darn hot to eat out most of the time. As the weather starts to get a little more moderate, we'll probably go out more so our spending will pick up a bit, but we'll still be way off last year's numbers. And travel isn't resuming anytime soon, certainly not in 2020.

I know the sharp drop is temporary but it's still nice to have that extra cash to stuff into savings.

I was planning to attend a medical conference in St. Louis in early July. I booked the hotel months ago. I realized that I haven't heard anything about the status of the convention itself so I went to their website last night and sure enough it has been cancelled.

I checked my saved email and it turns out that while I had made the hotel reservation, I had never actually registered for the convention which is why I didn't get a cancellation notice. Makes sense.

I went on and cancelled the hotel stay this morning. Fortunately, I had the good sense to not book airfare in advance so I don't have the hassle of having to cancel that.

Looks like I'll have a little staycation in July. No reason to cancel my PTO. I have more PTO than I will likely use this year anyway. I might as well use it. Hopefully by July we'll at least be able to do something fun with some of that time, even just a day trip or two. Who knows at this point?

We love to travel but we are not major planners. We rarely plan our Disney World trips more than 3 months in advance and rarely plan other trips any farther out than that. We might know when and where we want to go but don't usually make all of the plans far in advance.

The only exception is when we're attending a specific event like a convention or something like that.

Disney World's 50th anniversary is October 1, 2021. Disney opens room-only bookings 499 days in advance, which was just a couple of days ago. I hadn't made note of the booking date but fortunately a friend posted on Facebook this morning that he made his reservation. I immediately e-mailed our travel agent to book us a room. I'm waiting to hear back. It will be stupidly expensive but we've said for years that we want to be there for the anniversary and stay at the Contemporary hotel so that we can walk in to the park and not have to deal with any transportation. Hopefully it hasn't already sold out.

It turned out to be an expensive few days, some of which was anticipated and some that wasn't.

Wednesday night we attended a whiskey tasting at a local liquor store that we go to regularly. In addition to the tasting, they held a raffle for the right to purchase 1 of 11 different hard to find bottles. My wife won one and I won one so we came home with 2 bottles at $100 and $150. Not something we were expecting but we'll get to enjoy them for months to come.

Yesterday and today we were in NYC. That was a planned trip for my wife's birthday which is next week. We had bought show tickets a few months ago. Of course, there were also travel costs (though the hotel was free on reward points), meals, and some incidental spending. We also ended up at a piano bar last night after the show which ran us another $107 in addition to the $130 for dinner, plus lunch yesterday and today, parking, etc. Worth every penny though as we had a great time.

Fortunately, it's all stuff we can comfortably afford to do while still meeting all of our investing goals and remaining debt-free.

Not much new going on. Everything is cruising along nicely which is good.

I've sold a couple of items on Facebook Marketplace recently. It definitely has advantages over Ebay and I've used it to get rid of some things that have been sitting around or a while, including things that I tried unsuccessfully to sell on Ebay. The fact that there's no shipping cost helps a lot. That's what makes it hard to sell lower priced items online.

I maxed out my 401k a month or so ago so for the last couple of paychecks, I took the money that would have gone to that and put it into our Vanguard account instead. I did the full amount even though I was doing it with after-tax dollars. We have one more paycheck in December and then the 401k funding will resume, plus they upped the limit $1,000 for 2020 so it'll take a bit longer to max it.

We took advantage of the Target gift card sale today and bought $600 worth at 10% off. Last week we bought gift cards for one of our favorite restaurants. If you bought $75 they gave you an extra $20. We go there about once a month so that'll save us a bit. And yesterday I paid our auto insurance bill through PayPal with our Chase Freedom Visa which has 5% cashback on PayPal purchases this quarter. That saved me $63. $60 from Target, $20 from the restaurant, and $63 from the insurance. All of those things can really add up over time. Oh, and we bought $300 of the Target cards with our Discover card that has 5% back at Target this quarter though we're not sure if that includes gift card purchases. I'll have to wait and see.

My wife and I are going to NYC this week overnight and seeing a show. It's for her birthday. I booked the hotel on reward points so that's free. Of course the parking, dinner, and show aren't. Unfortunately, it looks like it will be very cold so we probably won't do much in the city. That's okay because I like wandering in the city much more than she does anyway.

I guess that's all the main stuff for now.

A few weeks back, someone on the forums mentioned looking at new credit cards. I suggested the one we have and they ended up signing up for it with my referral link so we got 20,000 bonus points. It's a Marriott card so that's at least 1 free night and maybe more depending on the hotel.

We scored a ton of Marriott points last month between travel, spending, a promotion they were having, and that bonus. All together in one month we earned just over 64,000 points. A typical hotel stay for us is 15,000 points so we earned more than 4 free nights last month alone. We are using points for one night in NYC in a couple of weeks but we really need to plan some other times to use points as we now have over 500,000 on our account.

My wife and I spent Friday-Monday out of town in National Harbor, MD, just outside of Washington, DC. We had a nice time just relaxing and spending time together. I had booked a hotel package that included a full buffet breakfast every day (not like a Holiday Inn Express buffet but a full buffet). It also included a $50/day resort credit toward food and drinks.

First night we had dinner at a great Mexican restaurant there. We've eaten there numerous times and it remains one of favorite restaurants anywhere.

Saturday we did some shopping at the outlets in town. I picked up a new belt and several shirts. We had dinner at the hotel sports bar (with our credit) and then went over to the nearby casino. We both lost but it was fun. Went back to the sports bar for dessert and drinks.

Sunday we went across the river to Old Town Alexandria and strolled around the shops and waterfront area. There's a large art studio there and it's always interesting to check out what all of the artists are working on. Had lunch at a rustic Italian place. Went back to the hotel and hit the gym for our workout. Had dinner at a Western-themed spot just across the way from the hotel. And ended the night back at the hotel for drinks to use our credit for the day.

Yesterday, we had breakfast and then got packed up. Our daughter was actually at a convention in Arlington, VA, about 25 minutes away. She had taken Amtrak down on Thursday. We checked out and headed over there, picked her up, and we all drove home together.

All in all, a very nice getaway. Not cheap but I had planned it a couple of months ago as a little treat for paying off the mortgage. It was definitely well worth it.

I said I'd try to blog more regularly so figured I actually need to post every couple of weeks.

I made our latest mortgage payment which brought our principal under the $10,000 mark. The end is near. I expect to pay it off in August most likely so that's exciting.

I haven't picked up any extra shifts at work the past week or two. I need to take a look at the schedule and pick up something in the coming weeks.

My wife and I are doing an overnight getaway this weekend. We're just going across the river into the city. There's a whiskey bar we've been wanting to try (we are big bourbon and whiskey fans). We didn't really care for their dinner menu so we're eating at a different place in the next block and planning to then go to the bar for drinks and dessert. The only problem with that is that we couldn't reserve a table just for that so we'll have to wait for space at the bar on a Saturday night. Hopefully around 6:30-7:00 it won't be too crazy yet. We're using a free hotel voucher for our stay. Just have to pay for parking.

Haven't done any decluttering lately. I'm hoping spring brings a nice weekend soon when I'm off and can start attacking the garage.

Need to start working on plans for our June trip to Dallas. The hotel was booked months ago but I haven't bought airfare yet. DW has been browsing the tourist sites looking for things to see and do when we're there.

I can't think of anything else of significance from the past couple of weeks so I'll stop there.

Happy Spring!

As I've been doing the year-end financial stuff, one thing I looked at was how much we ended up spending on travel. It was way too much, definitely something we need to rein in a bit going forward.

We had a great time and had some wonderful trips: a Caribbean cruise, three trips to Disney World, Phoenix and the Grand Canyon, Kentucky, and a few smaller trips.

Part of the problem is that on a couple of those trips, we stayed at much nicer hotels than we usually do when we travel. We have always been the type to stay on the outskirts of our destination where prices are lower and then drive or take public transit into the main part of town. With Phoenix, Grand Canyon, and Kentucky, we stayed right in the heart of everything. While it's great to be able to step out of your hotel and walk to shops and restaurants and attractions, you also pay a big premium for that convenience. Time to go back to the old way of doing things.

I was shocked to add it all up and realize that we spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 on travel between December 2016 and January 2018, so a little more than a year. Time to go back to choosing the hotels off the beaten track.

One good thing at least for 2018 is that we have a ton of Marriott Reward points. We easily have enough for 15 free nights. My goal for the year is to focus on using those whenever we can to help keep costs down. We did one free night just last weekend when we were driving home from Florida and stopped for the night so that probably saved us about $110.

Another thing is that my new job gives me a pretty generous continuing education allowance. So we will combine a vacation or two with conference time. That way the hotel and transportation costs will be covered by work. It means I'm tied up in classes for a lot of the time but I'll still have plenty of free time with my wife (and daughter if she is with us) to enjoy the local stuff.

We just got back from a week visiting a few colleges for our daughter who is a rising high school senior. Someone asked about it in another post on an unrelated topic but I thought I'd talk about it here in case others are interested.

Our daughter is interested in studying mechanical engineering. Prior to this week, we had attended an engineering open house at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in November and a general open house at Univ. of Virginia in April. She fell in love with RIT and it went right to #1 on her list. She didn't care for U. of VA and that got crossed off. It's just as important to know where you don't want to go so we were good with that.

This past week had us checking out 2 new schools and a return visit to RIT. We started in Troy, NY at Rensselaer Polytech. Great school, nice campus, but we just didn't feel it was a good fit. Kind of stuffy. Next was Univ. of Rochester. I knew nothing about the school and I was really blown away. Beautiful campus, great program, staff and students we interacted with were all very down to earth, friendly, had great senses of humor, and were clearly passionate about the school. DD didn't go into that visit expecting much and came away really liking it so it is staying on the list for sure.

Finally, it was back to RIT. Thursday and Friday was for a Woman in Engineering program and the Friday and Saturday was a College and Careers program (which also included an overnight stay in the dorms). There were parts of the programs that she found somewhat boring but overall, the 3 days there just cemented her love of the school and desire to go there.

There are still other schools on her list: Rutgers, Rowan, Lehigh, and more, but I doubt any will displace RIT from the top spot. Now we just have to hope she gets accepted - and figure out how to pay for it.

Our daughter is a junior in high school and in the process of exploring her college options. She is looking to go for mechanical engineering. Our first college visit was in November at Rochester Institute of Technology. That was and is her first choice. She loved the campus, the people, and the program. That's a good thing but it also makes subsequent visits tough as everything gets compared to RIT.

Anyway, we just got back from a trip to Univ. of Virginia. Nice campus, very impressive engineering program, well-equipped labs doing high end work, but the overall feel and experience just didn't do it for her (or us for that matter). We all agreed that it wouldn't be the right fit. In fact, we didn't even bother staying for a campus tour. Went and hiked a bit on the Appalachian Trail instead while we were in the neighborhood. By no means a wasted trip as she got to see another school, got some great advice on the whole college application process, and it is just as important to learn what you don't want as it is to learn what you do want.

We don't have anything else set up yet but Rensselaer Polytech, Univ. of MD, and Rutgers are among other schools on her list.

My wife and I have always been theater fans. We both did theater work in college and beyond. In fact, it is because of theater that we got back together in 1989 and ultimately got married. I was working as a lighting designer and invited her to come be on my lighting crew.

Despite our love of theater, a love we have also passed on to our daughter, we don't often go to see live shows. The cost is a definite factor.

My daughter recently heard about a new show on Broadway called "Seminar" starring Alan Rickman (Professor Snape from Harry Potter). We decided we'd go up and see it. I ordered tickets today for next Saturday for the low, low price of $404.75 for 3 tickets. Of course, that doesn't include transportation to and from NYC, parking, meals, subway passes, etc. We are also planning to spend the night. Fortunately, we're using Marriott reward points for the hotel so no out of pocket cost but they still have monetary value. So by the time we're done, we'll probably spend at least $800 for an overnight stay and the show.

I'm happy to do it, and my daughter is thrilled, but it is a lot of money. Yes, we could see a touring company production of a show in Philadelphia which wouldn't be quite as pricey and wouldn't have the travel costs, but it isn't the same and if you want to see a new production, like this, NYC is your only choice. My wife and I did see "Rain" 2 weeks ago in Philly and it was great but still wasn't cheap. I think we paid over $90/person for that.

Any other Broadway/theater fans here?

We went to the travel agent this morning and booked a family cruise for July. My mom is turning 80 in August and told us recently that she'd like us all to go on a cruise to celebrate. The date that worked best for all of us was actually early July. It will be DW, DD, me, my mom, my cousin and my MIL. We're doing a 7-night trip from New York to Bermuda. We've cruised 3 times before, most recently in 2005. My cousin is the only one of the 6 of us who has been to Bermuda before but it was about 20 years ago so he is looking forward to going back. I've always heard great things about Bermuda like how clean it is and how friendly everyone is so I'm excited about finally getting there.

My mom actually wants to treat us to the cruise but we're definitely paying part of the cost. Of course, we'll also have plenty of incidentals to pay for, like excursions, tips, souvenirs, meals off the ship, etc. We won't have airfare but we will need a limo service to take us to and from NYC.

Those of us on the east coast have been buried under record snowfall this year. We've officially broken the all-time snow record by over 6 inches as of last night (and it is only early February). This week alone, we've had two major storms totaling over 40 inches which is unheard of in this area (hence the record).

Anyway, while most people have been snowed in, we actually got snowed OUT. Last night while I was washing the dinner dishes, I saw a bright flash out the back window. My wife happened to be looking out the front window at the time and saw the transformer blow on the electric pole and out went the power. Considering it was still snowing heavily and the number of homes without power was in the tens of thousands, we figured it could be quite a while before a crew got out there to fix the problem and restore power. So we decided to escape and spend the night at a hotel.

I called the local Fairfield Inn and booked a room, then went out and cleaned off the car and shoveled enough of the driveway so I'd be able to get out. My wife and daughter packed overnight bags while I was doing that and we hit the road. It was kind of eerie as roads that are usually heavily traveled interstates were deserted. Between home and the hotel, I doubt that we saw more than a dozen cars. We made it there safely and checked into a nicely lit and heated room, two things that were lacking at home.

This morning, I called the house and the answering machine picked up so I knew the power was back on. We had breakfast (included with the room) and packed up and came back to the house. Other than one large tree branch coming down (no damage done), everything was in order. So ended our little snow adventure. And only a tiny ding to the savings for an unplanned hotel stay.

In the past month or so, I've really taken notice of the fact that we do not take advantage of many things that are in our own backyard particularly as far as inexpensive entertainment is concerned.

When I was off from work over winter break, my daughter and I rode the train into the city to do some sightseeing, lunch and shopping. We try to do that every year but for some reason, this year really opened my eyes to what is out there. We walked through the downtown area and passed endless shops and restaurants that would appeal to all of us, even if just for window shopping. Of course, there are also a ton of historic sites, museums and other places of interest within walking distance of the train stations.

Then yesterday, a school friend of my daughter's was performing in a play at a nearby college. This time, we drove into the city (not near a train station). For $10/person, we saw a very good show. We did pay another $13 to park plus the $4 bridge toll, but that's still less money than if we had gone to NYC to see even an off-Broadway show. The colleges in the area offer all kinds of entertainment - concerts, live shows, art exhibits, film festivals, etc. We never go to any of that stuff and we really should. It is usually inexpensive and sometimes even free. It is close to home. And it is not mainstream stuff so there is an educational/cultural/expand your mind aspect to it, too.

I'm going to start looking around online to see where they list upcoming events and make an effort to do stuff like that occasionally throughout the year.

4 days from now, we'll be on the road on our way to Disney World! We'll leave Friday afternoon, hopefully by 3pm. We'll drive until about 10pm or so and stop for the night. We'll get back on the road about 8am Saturday morning and arrive at our rental house in Kissimmee by around 6pm if all goes smoothly.

Then we'll have two whole weeks to enjoy ourselves. We've been to Disney World many, many times but one thing we've never done is gone for 2 weeks. We're looking forward to having time to do some stuff we don't usually do. We have tickets to see Cirque du Soleil. We plan to do an airboat ride in the swamp and lots of other fun stuff besides all the usual Disney stuff.

I'll be online the whole time so I'll post reports.

Today was a spending day, but a fun one.

My daughter has attended theatre camp the past 2 summers and will do so again this summer. This year's show is "Dear Edwina" which none of us was familiar with. I happened to be browsing at Theatermania.com last weekend and discovered that the show is currently playing off-Broadway. We decided to go so I ordered tickets for today.

We just went for the day as we were busy last night and are busy tomorrow. We got to NY about 10am, parked at the Port Authority and set off on foot in the direction of the theater (at 4th and 15th, across from Union Square). I wasn't sure if we'd walk the whole way because my daughter hurt her knee a couple of days ago. I figured if we needed to, we could hop in a cab or on the subway. We took our time as we were in no hurry and had time to kill. At 23rd street, we stopped for lunch in a nice Greek diner. That gave her a chance to rest her leg, too. From there, we continued on our way.

We stopped in a drug store across from Union Square to buy snacks for the theatre and headed over to wait for the show.

The show was cute and well done. The cast was great. If you have middle school or older elementary school kids, it is good for that age group. In fact, there was a middle school group that filled 6 or 8 rows of seats behind us (theater only sat 99 people) and they all sounded like they were enjoying the show.

We did not walk back to the car. We got on the subway right at Union Square and rode it back to 42nd street. Then we headed home. Normally, we'd hang out in the city, but since DD couldn't walk that well and had already trudged from 41st and 8th to 15th and 4th, I thought she had done more than enough for one day.

Money wise, it wasn't the cheapest of days, but we all love the theatre and don't get to shows nearly as often as we'd like. Here's a rough tally of what we spent.

Tickets: $88.00
Parking: $28.00
Lunch: $45.00
Snacks: $6.00
Tolls: $20.00
Gas: $13.00
____________
Total: $200.00

It was well worth it and is sure cheaper than if we had seen a Broadway show. One ticket would have cost more than all 3 tickets to this show.

I realized I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. Nothing particularly exciting has been going on but I figured I'd give some updates.

1. Even though I stopped doing the Exercise Log entries, I have not stopped exercising. I'm still working out with Wii Fit. I think I did 22 minutes tonite.

Now that I've had it for over a month, I would still highly recommend it for anyone looking for a home exercise regimen. Much more convenient than a gym, not dependent on the weather and you can exercise on your own schedule. It is even portable if you go out of town and want to pack it. As long as you have a TV to hook it to, you're all set.

Not only that, but the other night, the TV was in use so I just went upstairs and did several of the exercises I've learned from Wii in our bedroom. You can't do the balance games but can certainly do the yoga, strength training and aerobic ones.

2. My wife and I visited a local casino (Chester, PA) last week. I won $93 and she won about $12. We had a casual dinner at their sports bar and just had a nice evening out. We're planning to go again on Saturday morning while our daughter is at a school program. We'll play a little and maybe do an early lunch or snack.

3. Got the van fixed today. It had failed inspection for an emissions problem. Repairs came to almost $1,500. I know I could have had it done cheaper elsewhere but the dealership is so convenient. They provide excellent service, a free rental and I trust that they know what they're doing. They did recommend some other work be done (like front brakes and tires) but I decided to shop around for those things. Now I just have to get it back to DMV to get re-inspected.

4. We had to scrub our annual Disney World trip. My daughter was hand-picked for a special school program that meets every Saturday for 6 weeks and that conflicts with when we were going to go. We're all bummed since we have been going annually for a long time (my daughter just turned 13 and has been there 14 times). We're talking about going next summer instead. We'd love to go for more than a week so we could do that then. Can't do it during the school year.

5. Since we can't go to Disney, we may just go away for 2 days that week when my daughter has no school. We're deciding where to go. Lancaster, PA is always on our list so that's probably where we'll end up.

6. As I mentioned on the boards, I got 2 books for doing medical surveys. I put them on Half.com and sold one within 24 hours for $7.99. The other one is still listed but hasn't sold yet. Since I got them for nothing, anything I make is okay with me.

7. Watching my portfolio dissolve right along with everyone else but keeping my cool. 18 years until retirement and 6 until college so time for things to turn around. I'm sorry that I already maxed our Roths for the year. I would have liked to have been putting that $10,000 in now instead of earlier in the year like I did. Oh well.

Can't think of anything else to report at the moment.

I think there may be a new financial goal in our future - a vacation home. In the past, we had considered buying a home in Florida to use for our Disney trips and to rent out the rest of the time. After looking into it, speaking with a realtor, a property management company and some other owners in the area, we decided against it.

Now, though, we are thinking about getting a place much closer to home in a location that we actually visit regularly, multiple times per year. It is close enough that we could use the place just for an overnight or weekend stay. We wouldn't be looking to rent it out, though we would consider offering it to a select group of friends and family for a modest charge (well below the going rates in the area) just to help defray our costs a bit.

I've just started to look into it and run numbers to figure out what we can afford, what places are going for in the area, and when we can seriously consider it - we can't at this point in time. Maybe in 5-10 years or so, though, we would be in a position where we could make it a reality. Just something to dream about right now.

Apparently a few of you would like to hear more details about our trip, so here is more info. I'll try to keep it brief, but I'm happy to elaborate on anything if you have questions.

Day 1: Freer Gallery of Art at the Smithsonian. We went there primarily for their Asian collection as my daughter has developed an interest in Japanese culture. Very nice museum right on the Mall.

After lunch, we went to the Museum of Natural History for a while and saw the Hope diamond, the dinosaurs, and a few other things before we ran out of steam and went back to the hotel.

That night, we went to the Arlington Fair that we had seen advertised on TV (and went online to get all the details - how did we live without the internet). That was fun and was a neat way to spend my birthday. We had dinner (carnival food - corn dogs, fries, funnel cake) and went on a bunch of rides.

Day 2: We drove out to Dulles Airport to see the satellite location of the Air and Space Museum. They have a huge building there where they display many aircraft that they simply don't have room for on the Mall. Some highlights are the Enola Gay, a Concorde jet, the space shuttle Enterprise and many others.

We had lunch at the McDonald's there, a place that we are very unaccustomed to eating (I know, it's un-American but we simply don't go there). I have to say we were very pleasantly surprised. I had the Asian salad which was really quite good - fresh veggies, tasty grilled chicken, mandarin oranges, slivered almonds and sesame dressing. I'd definitely recommend it.

That night, we had dinner at the Sunflower Vegetarian Restaurant in Falls Church. This was another place that we located on the internet. Very good food and service. After dinner, we stopped at Fashion Centre Mall at Pentagon City. We browsed the shops and we actually got my daughter a nice bracelet at one of the jewelry shops. My mom wanted to give her something for her upcoming Bat Mitzvah but wanted her to pick it out, so that was good.

Day 3: We had 11:00 tickets for the National Holocaust Museum. I knew that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was next door and they give out timed tour tickets each morning. We headed over a little early and I went and got tickets for later in the day so we could see the tour after the museum.

Holocaust Museum is wonderful and does a great job telling the story of what led up to and what occurred during and after the Holocaust. My family and I are very well versed on the topic but still learned some new info while there. I found the early years of Hitler's career very interesting as I really didn't know much about his rise to power.

The one artifact that really got to me was the train car. I think that is because of seeing the movie "Paperclips." If you have any interest in the topic and haven't seen the movie, definitely rent it and watch it with a box of tissues handy.

We had lunch at the museum cafe. Food was fine but overpriced.

Then we got to learn all about printing money. It is always quite a sight to see stacks and stacks of sheets of $100 bills coming off the presses.

That night, we had dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant near the hotel called Cafe Italia. My daughter had homemade gnocchi for the first time and absolutely loved them. I don't think I've ever seen her enjoy a meal quite that much.

Day 4: I had ordered tickets in advance for the International Spy Museum and their Operation: Spy program. Wow! This place is fantastic. I had no idea it was as large or as involved as it is. Operation: Spy is a 1-hour long interactive experience where about 15 people are taken into a totally themed area made to look like a foreign country and embark on a spy mission to retrieve a missing nuclear trigger device. You have to work together to solve puzzles, do surveillance, search an office, crack a safe and more. The theming is excellent and the whole program is well worth every penny.

Then you enter the museum itself (you can buy either admission separately or a combo ticket for both). The museum tells all about history of spying, famous spies over the years, lots of displays of spy equipment and pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about spies. Great place to visit.

We had dinner at a little Greek diner near the hotel. Quick, reasonable and good food cooked to order. I took DD to the pool after dinner for a little swim.

Day 5: Hopped the Metro to Old Town Alexandria, an old favorite of ours. King Street is filled with unique shops, galleries and restaurants. We found a nice Thai place for lunch. Food was excellent. Then we spent time browsing the shops. We visited the Torpedo Factory which is a working art studio for about 80 artists. We stopped for ice cream before heading back, just in time as a thunderstorm started when we were riding the trolley back to the Metro station.

Day 6: Checked out and headed toward home. We stopped at Inner Harbor in Baltimore for lunch and shopping. DW actually found jewelry to go with her dress for the Bat Mitzvah there - a necklace and matching earrings. She's been searching since she bought the dress and hadn't found anything, so now she's set.

And that's about it. Let me know if you have any questions.