Visiting Washington DC: Day 1

August 2, 2004 by  

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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    Related posts:

    1. Visiting Washington DC: Day 3
    2. Visitng Washington DC: Day 2

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