Washington DC March 27th - April 3rd
We are here and the wet/cold weather finally caught up with us. Although we can’t complain too much when we check the Seattle area weather. We’ve had temps in the fifties and lower 60’s with occasional showers. We found a national park called Greenbelt which is only 13 miles outside of DC. Around DC distance is measured in time instead of miles. When we first drove from downtown DC to Greenbelt, a distance of 12.5 miles according to the GPS it took just over an hour. We can see why people use mass transit here. Greenbelt National Park is within 2 miles of two separate metro stops (College Park and Greenbelt on the Green line) and Judy has become an expert in determining route of travel including transfer points to the various other red/blue/yellow/orange lines. On our first trip, Kyle met us at our Greenbelt stop and showed us the ropes of getting a smart card. We were jealous of his Obama smart card and so he took us to the metro center where we were able to purchase our very own Obama card (for a $5 surcharge). When we were stopping at other RV resorts, our rig seemed very small in comparison to most of the other RVs. When we have been traveling on the highways next to big trucks, our rig has seemed very small. When we drove through the heart of DC to Kyle’s apartment and out to the campground, our rig seemed huge! Harris did an excellent job of negotiating the horrendous traffic on city streets.
White House from a distance
We have seen some of the sights. On our second day here after Kyle dropped us off at the aforementioned Metro Center we continued on to the Mall getting off at the Smithsonian metro stop. It was a cool pleasant day. We strolled the mall coming up on the Washington monument around closing time. A family thought they had extra tickets from a packet they found on the lawn and gave us a couple and so we found ourselves riding up the monument just before closing time without having to come early in the day and lining up for the tickets. The view was great even though the glass could use some cleaning. You look out one window and see the White House. Look out another and see the Potomac River where you can rent paddle boats. Look out another and see the Lincoln Memorial and finally look out yet another you can see the Capitol building. It was a very impressive beginning to our sight seeing.
The buzzer Judy pushed!
We’ve seen Kyle’s acupuncture school, the American Indian Museum, the Portrait Museum, the American History Museum, the Natural History Museum, The White House Visitor Center, the National Building Museum, all the war memorials. We walked by the White House and Judy pushed the buzzer at the front of it but no one answered. We figure that we will have to speak with our congressman and get tickets to see the inside. We spent parts of our days walking 14 blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue, Old Town Alexandria, and some of Georgetown. We have walked our little tootsies off and then some. If we had to pick our favorite, it would be the American Indian Museum. It is the newest and we have seen the others before (although we enjoyed seeing the gems including the Hope Diamond again). There was so much more to see in the Indian museum than we could cram in the few hours we were there.
"I don't care!" statue at the Indian Museum
Judy is rethinking the name of the van. We thought it was going to be Howie but she is considering The Turtle because we carry our belongings in our little house wherever we go. Right now it is a TBD. One morning when Harris turned off the generator, all the electrical circuits in the house part of the van went dead and he couldn’t turn anything on including the generator. After checking the circuit breakers and finding nothing tripped he was worried that something major was wrong with the van. He called Pleasure Way and they told him about another set of circuit breakers that might have been tripped by a power surge that sometimes happens when turning off generators. Sure enough, that was what happened. He reset the circuit breakers and the circuits were all back on line!
As close as we could get w/o tickets
We took a day off sight seeing to visit Mike and Eileen Donahue. We’ve known Mike since he was a kid in Juneau and Harris had him in his class as a seventh grader. They live in a very pleasant neighborhood that was only 20 minutes away from our campground and it was great to catch up on their lives. We thought it was very appropriate that after Mike’s dad served on the Juneau School Board, Mike should be on his son’s school board. It’s now been a week that we’ve been in DC and it’s time to start back home. We are thinking about sticking around for the Cherry blossom parade on Saturday before we leave. As we post this on Friday morning, we are on our way to pick up Kyle and take him to his school for an appointment and it’s raining like crazy (but it’s warm—in the lower 60’s). Hopefully it will be sunny and warm tomorrow for the parade.
Marine One?? seen from WWII monument
The hardest/saddest part of our trip occurred here. Kyle and Jen are breaking up and it has been hard on them and us. It’s been awkward as well as difficult for all 4 of us. We can only hope that there is a positive for each of them that comes out of this emotionally wrenching time.
Kyle and Judy
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