Arlington

Our Last Day. We spent the morning leisurely and bade a fond farewell to our hosts. We left and headed to the airport via Arlington National Cemetery.

It was a beautiful day. We opted for the Tourmobile tour which stops at the three most popular sites: The Kennedy Gravesite, The Tomb of The Unknowns, and Arlington House. Along the way, a tour guide points out other sites. It's quite a hilly location so I recommend this tour for anyone who has any mobility issues. It's also nice for those of us who are just plain wore out!

Our first stop was the Kennedy Gravesite. This is a beautiful setting. The trees were in bloom. The visitors were respectful - mostly - and the view is breathtaking.

The next stop was the Tomb Of The Unknowns. We were in time for the Changing Of The Guard. Nearby are the memorials for the Challenger & Columbia astronauts so we visited those as well.

Our last stop was Arlington House. Arlington House was the home of Robert E. Lee and the Union government confiscated it for burial of Union Civil War dead during the Civil War. We decided that we would walk back to the front from here. We didn't wait in the line for the house since all of the furnishings have been removed and there are only photos of what the rooms used to look like.

On the way back to the front, we passed the graves of Robert Todd Lincoln, William Howard Taft, and General Omar Bradley.

We stopped at the Women's Memorial and saw the art installation "Faces Of The Fallen" which has portraits of all the servicemen killed in Iraq for the first two years of the war.

We tried to visit the Iwo Jima Memorial but couldn't find the right turn and kept passing it so we decided that we had indeed SEEN it and headed off to Baltimore to fly home.

Mount Vernon

Our next to last day in DC. We slept in and by the time we were ready to leave it was 11am. We headed to Mount Vernon.

It was closer than we thought, only 20 minutes. It was also the first time we paid admission to see a site here (except for the advance fee at the Washington Monument).

It was cool, literally, overcast and one of the colder days of the trip. There was a 45 minute wait to get in to the house. Unlike Williamsburg, the docents were not in period dress and spoke just like us.

The whole visit took three hours, including SHOPPING! It was by far the best shopping opportunity of the trip and I couldn't make up my mind which souvenir I wanted for myself. I finally settled on the Annual Christmas Ornament which commemorates the 275th anniversary of the birth of George Washington. I always knew I liked George, but I have a special fondness for Martha now that I know we have the same taste in dishes (blue & white all the way!).

On the way home, we passed the most enormous Krispy Kreme store I had ever seen. My companion on this adventure had been craving doughnuts since the drive home from the first Pete Yorn show so we pulled in and bought doughnuts for our hosts. Neither of us is a huge fan of Krispy Kremes, but we figured the boys would like them. The featured doughnut was 100% Whole Wheat. I could almost justify that on my High-Fiber diet so I tried one. Very delicious.

We were trying to decide where to eat lunch (at 3pm) when our host called to see if we wanted to have dinner together late this evening. We said yes, of course, and that did help us decide where & what to eat for lunch.

We have been thinking about Arlington after lunch, but by the time we were finished it was 4pm and too late to really see anything once we got through traffic.

So we went back to the house to relax for a while. This is supposed to be a vacation, right?

So now the plan is to see Arlington on our way to Baltimore tomorrow to fly home. If we have time, we will also try to visit the National Archives.

I definitely plan to return to DC some day.

Monuments & Memorials

Today we slept in. Finally! Our third day in DC. Today we have decided to go to the National Mall and see the Memorials. Depending on how long that takes, we may go to Arlington Cemetery. But we have to be in Alexandria for dinner by 5:45pm so we may have to put off Arlington until tomorrow. The DC Marathon is tomorrow so we definitely don't want to come in to the city again until Sunday. This may mean that we don't get back to anything that we have missed. Guess I'll just have to come back some day.

We decided to park near the Washington Monument. Jokingly, we thought perhaps we could park in the same spot we had the other day. I kid you not - we did! We were in exactly the same parking spot. What are the odds of that?!?

We walked over to the WWII Memorial. It's very nice albeit controversial because it destroys the reflection of the Washington Monument in the Reflecting Pool. There were a few wreaths here and there.

Then we walked through Constitution Gardens. Some cherry trees were in bloom by the Signer's Memorial.

Next stop was the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. This was the one memorial that I did not want to miss. I wore an MIA bracelet for most of my childhood. A young man from my hometown had been shot down on my 3rd birthday. I wore the bracelet until his parents had him declared legally dead which was junior high or high school.

After Vietnam opened up to the West, his sister went to Vietnam and she was able to discover that he had, in fact, died not long after the crash.


We started at the wrong end and didn't have a list to look up his name, but I noticed papers that had the dates and locations. Since I know the exact date (how can I forget it), we were able to locate the panels for the month and it was just a matter of time before we found the name (see photo) James K Patterson. I have to admit I felt a little weepy. We left the memorial and were able to locate his name in the list on the other side. After a moment to compose myself, we set off for the Korean War Veterans Memorial.

I think this is a pretty cool Memorial. There are life-size sculptures of soldiers walking as though they were on patrol in Korea.

Then we went up to the Lincoln Memorial. After some time there, we walked along the Reflecting Pool back to the car. We still had an hour left on our time!

We headed over to the Jefferson Memorial and also saw the George Mason Memorial before heading home.

We didn't have enough time to go to Arlington before we had to get home for dinner so we decided to do it another day (we have two left).

At dinner, our hosts assure us we can do Arlington and Mount Vernon in one day. We decide to go to Mount Vernon first tomorrow as it is the furthest and we could always do Arlington on our way to the airport on Sunday.

I realize that I'm not going to see everything I had hoped to squeeze in on this trip, but I have seen and done quite a lot. I'm really glad I came on this trip.

The Halls Of Government

Our second day in DC. We have to be at Congressman Schiff's office at 10am. Our host says we MUST leave at 8 to get a parking spot and allow for traffic.

With only 4 hours sleep, it was really hard to get out the door and we left about 8:45. oops. We get off the freeway at the Capitol at 9:30. After much stress looking for street parking, and getting turned around by one way streets, we park at Union Station. It is now 9:55. I called the Congressman's office and let them know we were running late. A very friendly member of DC's finest gave us further pedestrian-friendly directions because you can't walk from the Senate side to the House side straight across the front any more.

A very nice intern in Rep. Schiff's office gave us a private tour of the Capitol. At the end we went to see the House in session and they were voting when we arrived. We saw our Representative vote. We looked at the time and it was noon. We had a White House tour at 1 and you have to arrive 15 minutes early so we had to go. I didn't even have time to go to the gift shop!

We hot foot it back to Union Station. Dividing to conquer, one goes to the car to leave the purses (you can't take anything into the White House except keys, money and id) and the other goes to get Cokes because we haven't had anything to eat yet today and we really need the caffeine to keep going.

Then we hop on the Metro and we arrive at 12:50, only 5 minutes late! The friendly Ranger said we could go on in. Rep. Schiff's aide had told us that he didn't think we would enjoy the tour of the White House as much as the Capitol. Another friend had said it's not as great as it used to be. They were both right. We finished in 15 minutes. But I had never been before and now I have so I am glad that we went. If I am ever in DC at Christmas time, I might go back and see all the Christmas trees.

We took the Metro back to Union Station and had a nice lunch at America. The menu had something from every state. My only complaint was that their "Hollywood, CA" cobb salad was NOT really a Brown Derby style cobb. The food was delicious and the service was fabulous.

A bit of shopping and then we were off to Baltimore. We had tickets for the Pete Yorn show at the Sonar club. We had encountered quite a bit of traffic going to get our luggage and we thought it was better to drive to Baltimore early. We had a recommendation for a restaurant and it was quite close to the club. We arrived, parked and walked over to the restaurant.

The sign on the door of the restaurant said "Closed For The Summer". Either they are REALLY late or REALLY early, but they are definitely closed. So we went to the deli nearby and ate outside on the plaza.

We headed back to Sonar for the show. Tonight was even better than last night. We have had six or seven hours sleep in the last three days, but we managed to last through the whole show. I hadn't seen the whole Moses Mayfield set the night before, but I did tonight. I really liked them! I obviously am already a huge fan of Minibar and Pete Yorn or I wouldn't be at their show in BALTIMORE!

When we arrive home, we leave a note for our host on the counter: "Don't wake us up in the morning!"

All of our scheduled itinerary items are finished. We are now at leisure. We can sleep.

I'm 550 Feet Tall On A Good Day

My first trip to our nation's capital. I'm very excited. We land at Reagan airport and our adventure begins.

We go to pick up the rental car and they are out. We have a choice of two and while the guy is pointing them out to us, someone takes one! We had reserved a compact and got a full-size. As we are driving away, we chuckle and think our friend the Pilot would be proud of the upgrade we finagled!

Off to the Washington Monument on three hours sleep. We are on Constitution Avenue and see a parking spot. One slightly legal U-turn later, we are parked! We have three hours. We walk up to the monument and ask a Park Ranger if we can get in earlier. He says no. (Very firm about that!)

We haven't eaten since Dallas so we head toward the Old Post Office Building for lunch - it's a food court & shopping center now. They also have a tour where you can go up the tower and see the bells and view the city from above.

If you go to DC, I highly recommend the Tower Tour. One of the ladies on our elevator asked the Ranger if the elevator would drop suddenly. Gotta love Disney fans!

We walked back to the Washington Monument and arrived about 30 minutes before our tour time. This time the Ranger (same one) said "Come on in!"

We went up to the viewing level at 500 feet and we had to take the elevator back down. The Park Service is understaffed and not able to have visitors walk down the stairs. They do slow the elevator down and illuminate the shaft so you can see the commemorative stones. But someday I will have to go back and walk down (I'm going to ask first).

Back to the car we went. I think we were the only car on the block that didn't have a parking ticket. Obviously people don't read the posted signs. We still had time on our three hours, but now we were off to Baltimore to pick up our luggage (see previous post for the explanation).

90 minutes later, we are back in DC and the cell phone rings. Our host wants to know what we want for dinner. About 45 minutes later, we are approaching our exit in Virginia when we hear someone honking and we turn and it's him! So we had an escort to the house, which was lucky because there's a certain jog in the road that we would definitely have missed.

We hate to eat and run, but we have tickets to a show at the 9:30 club that evening. The guidebook had warned that this neighbourhood was a bit rough but we knew there was a parking lot nearby. We only got lost once, in a traffic circle, but we just went around again and made sure we were in the correct lane. Who laid out this city anyway? I am used to midwestern and western cities that are virtually grids with some diagonals, perhaps a few jogs for farms or whatever. DC is crazy!

I loved the 9:30 club. I have heard broadcasts from there on NPR. I love that you can go in and out. The staff were friendly, the patrons weren't too rowdy. I met some very nice people, and had an excellent time. It goes without saying that the musical entertainment was BRILLIANT. Minibar, Moses Mayfield, and Pete Yorn. A show so nice, we are seeing it twice (tomorrow night in Baltimore). I finally got my Desert After Rain CD signed. Silly me forgot to take it to the last show I went to.

We got a bit lost again on the way home. One way streets that don't go all the way through are nearly as bad as traffic circles. We ended up near the Old Post Office and were able to get our bearings at last.

I'm very grateful to be staying so close. All I can think about is sleep, but we have to get up tomorrow morning. We have an appointment with our Congressman's office at 10am.

Sleep is for the weak!

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane?

I am writing on a flight from Dallas to Reagan Airport. This might sound like a perfectly normal way to start a vacation in DC, but I was actually booked into Baltimore. When we landed in Dallas, the helpful flight attendant read a laundry list of connecting flights, but not Baltimore. So we checked with the gate agent.

(Aside here - In my experience, gate agents at DFW are THE BEST. They love to help you find ways to get out of their airport. And it ain't that way anywhere else in Texas so there must be some special pixie dust in Dallas!)

The gate agent informed us that the flight to Baltimore had been cancelled (did they not know this when I checked in at LAX?) The airline had already re-booked us on the next flight, but it would have been impossible to get to the Washington Monument for our tour time. She said we could fly in to Reagan and arrive at the same time as our original flight. If we wanted to do that, we could just go to the gate and ask to switch.

The rental car company was happy to move our reservation. It was even cheaper! So we asked another very helpful gate agent to rebook us to Reagan.

Of course, our luggage is going to Baltimore so we will have to get it later. But at least we can eat lunch and see the Washington Monument before we need to do that.

More exciting trip news to follow. Well, at least I hope it's exciting...

White House Tour!

I was very excited to get a phone call from my Congressman's office yesterday. They were able to get me tickets to a White House Tour. It's my first visit to DC so I'm thrilled.

I've ordered tickets for the Washington Monument as well. The only day available was the first day of our trip so we have to go there straight from the airport. It's a great way to dive right in to vacation!

I will have to put tea at the National Cathedral off for another trip as they only do that on certain days and it was that or the Washington Monument.

I'm excited to see the show at the 9:30 Club after hearing so many broadcasts from there on NPR.

I made a list of other places to see. I have way more than I can fit into our long weekend. Some things will have to stay on the list along with tea at the Cathedral. At least, it will be an excuse to go back!