Visiting Washington DC: Day 3

August 31, 2004 by Dennis Baker 

Destination DC ’04 Day 3 (Wed., July 27th)

This was the memorial day. We arrived at Washington Memorial at about 7:30am to wait in line for tickets. The ticket booth open at 9am so we had time to wait. Yes, it was humid that early. The line was not that long and the time seemed to go about pretty fast. While in line I heard a man talking about how he went on the White House tour that was about a 15 minute u-turn through the east wing. He mentioned to a lady from Minnesota (Yes we are all tourists in DC) that the U.S. Capitol tour was much better. I looked over to Karen noting that I did not know we cold take a tour of the Capitol.

We got our tickets for 10:30 and went to track down breakfast. A note to any future DC visitors we had to walk about six-seven block to the closest Starbucks for breakfast as there were no restaurants in the area. If you think Starbucks is everywhere go to DC and you will realize they are not. The view on top of the Washington Memorial was amazing. The views down the mall to the Capitol and the view down to the Lincoln Memorial was my favorite. On the way down the elevator would slow down so we could see the inside of the memorial. Each state donated a stone, the most expensive was Alaska and the cheapest was Florida. They made their stone out of Formica.

Then it was the long hike to see the World War Two Memorial as well as the Lincoln, Vietnam, and Nurses Memorial. They were all beautiful. It was amazing to see the magnitude of each one. It was hard to take it all in because there was so much. It was awesome to walk down the pool to the Lincoln Memorial. It reminded me of the pictures from U.S. History class. It was really cool to be there. The only problem is the closest Metro station to the Lincoln Memorial was at the Smithsonian about a mile or two away. We decided to walk up to Foggy Bottom which was about the same distance. We just wanted to say we had been to Foggy Bottom.

Being our anniversary that evening we went back to Old Town Alexandria to the Fish Market. It has an outdoor seating area on a small balcony outlooking the street. It was small and quaint, perfect for the romantic evening. Afterwards we had ice cream across the street and did some souvenir shopping for friends and family. The wierdest gift we found was a magnet that said “Virginia is for Lovers”. I guess that was Virginia’s advertising slogan a view years back.

You can view all the pictures for Day 3 by clicking here

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Visitng Washington DC: Day 2

August 5, 2004 by Dennis Baker 

Destination DC ’04 Day 2 (Tues., July 27th)

We decided to go up North into DC. Karen bought a book of the the “Top Ten” of different things on DC. With this she planned what to see. Our first stop was to go by the Capitol. As we walked by there was alot of construction going on. So much so it was hard to take a picture from the poisition we were at. While walking to our next destination we run into the Library of Congress and decided to check it out.

The only thing I knew about the Library of Congress was that you could not check a book out. (Later I find out if you are a reseacher you can check things out) It is also a musuem that at that time had four different showings going on. We saw the show that covered American life. It had artifacts from people that were involved in major events in American history.

Our next stop was the Folger Shakespeare Library. Karen thought the actor would enjoy a trounse through the ode to the English writer. We then went to the Smithsonian and realized it was more then one Musuem. No one told us. We went through the Old Castle and got information on all the Musuems. We decided it would be too much for us to see all of them so we went to the National Gallery of Art (not offically part of the Smithsonian).

Afterwards we went downtown to see the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial. David Powell was Karen’s best friend’s step-father. He was a sheriff that died in the line of duty. The office is a couple of blocks away from the actual site and to our surpirse we saw pictures they had of him in the case with pictures of other officers killed in action. It was pretty special to see his name up with all the others.

Later that evening after a much needed rest at the hotel we decided to go back into town to see the White House at night. It was cool it to see it lit up in person. It started to rain on us pretty hard as we walked around to see the other side where the fountain was. I wanted to try to find Ford’s Theatre, but we could not seem to find it as it was getting late. We made the last subway out of town, wet, but having a good second day over all.

You can view all the pictures for Day 2 by clicking here

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Visiting Washington DC: Day 1

August 2, 2004 by Dennis Baker 

Destination DC ’04 Day 1 (Mon., July 26th)

We arrived at Reagan National Airport at 9am after leaving LAX at midnight the night before. We transferred flights in Pittsburgh. Our flight out of LAX was scheduled to leave at 11:30pm which made us rush with ten minutes to spare to our transfer flight. We made it, but our luggage did not. We checked in with U.S. Airways baggage claim in DC. They said it should not be too long for us to get our baggage as our hotel was only about a half mile away. We were not worried as we could not check into our hotel till 2pm, and this way we did not have to deal with dragging the luggage to the hotel.

After stopping by the hotel to let them know that the airline would be bringing our luggage we decided to hop on the Metro and go south to Alexandria and visit old town. The Metro that travels between the border of Virginia and DC is wonderful. You can go anywhere in DC by taking the Metro. It was a little complicated as two different trains (labeled by color) travel on the same track, but it was not too long before we got the hang of it.

We walked the sixteen blocks (one way) of what was considered Old Town Alexdrania. It was along King St., and consisted of the Metro stop south to the Potomac River. On the way we stopped to see the church that George Washington attended. It is amazing to see the history in all the buildings, it is refreshing change from the bleak LA buildings. For lunch we ran across a restaurant called “La Madeline”, a quaint French restaurant that Karen loved and was introduced to it in Texas. We got “K” as our order number.

We returned to the hotel about the time to check in hoping to see that our luggage was there waiting for us. It was not. So after getting settled into our room (not too hard without luggage) I called the airline. They told me that the luggage was still in Pittsburgh! What! There was not a flight so far that could hold extra luggage and I was told that they would not know when the lugguage would arrive in DC. After a few choice words they said that we could have a $100 voucher and all we had to do was bring the receipts to the baggage claim. I thought this would do as I saw no reason why our luggage would not get there by that night.

We decided to go North on the Metro up to Pentagon City were the exit was right under a mall. Now we planned for it to be humid and sunny while in DC, but the forecast called for humid and raining so we had to rethink our shopping plans. Thank goodness for the sale rack at the Gap. I walked out with everything I needed, but Karen was frustrated that she could not find pants that fit her (which is a normal problem). The real problem was she had found pants in Alexandra, but we did not want to attempt the 32 block walk again for a pair of pants.

We arrived back at the hotel 9pm that evening to find our luggage had arrived, and with $40 dollars still to spend on the voucher. Good news, we did not have to get pants. Moral of the story get your voucher before you leave the airport so that you don’t have to make two shopping trips on your first day on vacation.

You can view all the pictures for Day 1 by clicking here

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