Day 8 - All is Well, Safely Rest, God is Nigh

Glorious sleep.  Everyone got to sleep in this morning because the Hatter Girls weren't going anywhere until noon.  We lingered over coffee and breakfast and easy conversation.  Charla chauffeured us to BWI Airport; and after going through Security and grabbing lunch, we were able to board our Southwest flight back to Dallas by way of Birmingham.  Problem was, we encountered stormy weather during the flight and had to stay in our seats with our seatbelts fastened the entire time.  That means no bathroom breaks.  So while a few folks got off in Birmingham, the rest of us were told to sit still until they could count us, then we could stretch our legs (a euphemism for going to the bathroom) before a crew change and taking on new passengers.  Before you could say "boo", people were moving forward in the plane to get better seats while some of us were swimming upstream (almost literally) to get to the "lavatory".  Then the new crew starts fighting their way on, and they look at us like we're stupid for being in the aisles.  I finally told one of the flight attendants that we weren't able to go to the bathroom during the flight and that's why we're all out of our seats.   By now the new passengers are trying to get up the aisles to find seats.  It was a total mess!  We had more bumpy weather between Birmingham and Dallas and ended up arriving about 30 minutes off schedule.

While I'm thinking about it, we had the worst flight attendants I've ever experienced between Baltimore and Birmingham; they were crabby and rude and wouldn't answer questions.  We were thankful for the great crew that took over and got us safely to Dallas.

After catching a shuttle to Carol's car, we made arrangements to meet up with Brian, Kelli and Amy Wages at Casa Rita's in Frisco; we needed TexMex to bring us back down to earth.  It was nice to relax and tell stories and begin reliving the days of our lives in Washington, D.C.

----

This was a wonderfully memorable experience.  It was busy and sometimes hectic; educational and thought provoking; fun and funny.  We've all read about the history of our nation and the people who were a part of it, about the lives that were sacrificed for us to be where we are today.  But it was quite different to see it and experience it.  I have no doubt that we'll think about the Holocaust, the Trail of Tears, the wars and "conflicts" and Civil Rights Movement as we move forward, and it will change who we are because we're just a little bit more knowledgeable.  We might not always respect the people who run our nation, but we must respect their position in government and be grateful for their willingness to serve.
 
Taps
Day is done, gone the sun,
From the lake, from the hill,
From the sky.
All is well, safely rest,
God is nigh.

Toes heading home!

 

Day 7 - It's a Zoo Out Here!

We had a little more time for breakfast this morning because the National Zoo was our first destination.  Charla and Amy, Charles and Tyson accompanied us; Charles was our guide.  It was a scorcher of a day and the animals knew it.  They hid in the trees and grass or played in the water, but we were eventually able to see many: a black bear with cubs; prairie dogs; an anteater; otters; a panda bear; meercats and gray wolves.  We bought a few souvenirs and Diet Cokes before leaving the zoo.

Kathy had read about Ben's Chili Bowl, which is in the historic U District and somewhat close to the zoo.  They're known for their half-smokes, chili dogs and celebrity clientele.  Now we know, a half-smoke is a hotdog made with smoked sausage.  (It would be nice if the waitress could explain that.)  Our order included some of all of the above as well as chili rice and chili cheese fries.  We would have thought it was a dive if we'd just happened upon this place, but the food was really good and clearly the locals love the place.

Our cousins dropped us off at Washington National Cathedral for one last afternoon of museum and monument hopping.  This church was absolutely beautiful, with some of the prettiest stained glass windows I've ever seen.  We checked out the gargoyles around the roof line, which are essentially elaborate waterspouts that divert rain away from the Cathedral walls.  We went to the 7th floor and had a great view of the surrounding area, but we were unnerved by the broken pieces of stone that fell during the 2011 earthquake.

Having been in the D.C. area a full week, we couldn't believe we still hadn't seen all of the monuments in the National Mall!  We were supposed to do that early in our trip, but the rain forced us to change our plans a bit.  It was a long way between the Cathedral and the National Mall, so we jumped on a Metro bus and rode it as far as we could, bringing us within a few blocks of the Lincoln Memorial.  We felt fairly empowered because we got where we needed to be without spending money on a taxi or walking our feet off.  In addition to the Lincoln Memorial, we visited the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (where we found the name of a Seymour boy on the Memorial Wall), the World War II Memorial, and the MLK Memorial.  From a distance - too far for us to walk that late in the afternoon, thank goodness - we saw the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and walked by the Washington Monument for about the 5th time.  The Washington Monument is under reconstruction because of the above-mentioned 2011 earthquake and is completely surrounded by scaffolding.  When lit at night, it looks amazing.  For the last time, we dragged our bodies to the closest Metro station, fought with the machine to obtain our tickets, and traveled to Bethesda, where Charla once again rescued us from our misery.

Let me just say, the Poulands went over and above our expectations as hosts to feed us, provide taxi service, act as travel consultants and guides, and furnish better-than-hotel accommodations.  We've always loved Wanda and Charles and their girls, but it's impossible to say how much we enjoyed spending time with this family for the last week.  After our very hectic day today, we had a wonderful meal starting with appetizers and wine, then chicken and fish, cauliflower and broccoli and salad; and ending with brownies, berries and whipped cream for dessert.  Ahhhh!

At the zoo.

One of the infamous pandas at the zoo.

Amy took a picture of us and posted it on the Ben's Chili Bowl app.

Amy, Tyson, Charles, Charla 

National Cathedral

Beautiful stained glass windows! 

Toes at the Lincoln memorial looking towards the Washington memorial.

Charla took us by Charles' school where a tiled mural had been made.  The students helped design the mural.

Charles' beaver on the left side of the tree.

Day 6 - "Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.” ~Jean-Luc Godard

We had a little time to visit with everyone this morning before Charla and Amy dropped us off at the National Museum of American Indians.  We had hopes of finding pictures of our great-great-great (not sure how many greats) grandfather’s Cherokee half-brother.  You might have heard of him, Chief Robert Benge.  (JK, but you can google him if you’re interested).  Running out of time due to our reservation at the Capitol, we gave up our search.  After an arduous trek up Capitol Hill (we didn’t realize it was an actual hill), we drew the short straw and ended up in a tour group with only a handful of people who “understood” English and a half dozen small, very energetic children.  With so many tour groups going through the Capitol at one time, they use a system where everyone wears headphones, but supposedly you can only hear your own tour guide through a microphone she wears (apparently at kids'-mouth-level) on her uniform.  We could barely hear our guide over all of the kids yelling in excitement about hearing themselves on their headphones, needing to go to the bathroom and wondering what this or that button would do.  The parts of the Capitol we saw were very pretty, but we were expecting to see the senate and house chambers and that was not part of the tour.  Afterwards, we ate a very expensive meal at the Capitol cafeteria.  Hint:  They need a new pastry chef.  Carol bought a brownie for us to share, and the nicest thing I can say about it is that it would have fit in perfectly in the fossil exhibit at the Natural History museum.

We caught a few tunes in a March for Jobs rally/protest that was being held across the street from the Capitol.  Our itinerary didn't allow for much time to dilly dally, so we trudged on (yes, we were trudging by now) to visit the National Gallery of Art, both the East and West wings.  We were interested in works of art by Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas and Rembrandt....plus the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as in Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo (but we only found 3 of the 4).  However, those were merged in with millions of other pictures and sculptures in many different rooms.  We went through with the help of a "Highlights" map, with Kathy pouting a little because Carol and I wouldn't stop at each one she found, and we really did see a lot of beautiful artwork. 

To say we continued trudging as we headed to the National Air and Space Museum would be a lie.  We were dragging.  I was complaining.  We didn't want to experience anymore culture today.  But we had our itinerary and we needed to stay on schedule!!!  We enjoyed it in the long run and LOVED the Diet Cokes we got at the embedded McDonalds at the end of our tour. 

We made it to the Metro and successfully arrived in Bethesda, where Carley picked us up and took us back to Charla and John's.  We were greeted with appetizers and the smell of steaks and salmon cooking on the grill.  It's amazing how family and a fabulous meal can make you feel better.

This was the beautiful scenery we saw every day going to and coming from D.C.

 

Amy snapped this picture of us after letting us out.  Kathy was trying to take a picture of them.

Carol and Diane desperately searching for the Capitol visitor center.

Toes at the Capitol.  (Picture, if you will, 3 middle aged ladies sitting on the floor sticking their feet in the air.)

Painting by Cezanne entitled "Boy in a Red Waistcoat", dated 1888-1890.    We think we know where the idea of Woody came from!

Day 5 - Crime & Punishment

We all got a good night's sleep, so we were ready to hit the ground running this morning.  No sign of rain and lots of sunshine greeted us as the four of us, including Charla, drove to Arlington National Cemetery.  We met our tour guide, Steve, and walked all 150 miles uphill, or so it seemed.  Truthfully, it was an amazing sight and very humbling to see how many lives were lost so that we might enjoy the freedoms we take for granted.  Especially interesting was the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier; the presence of the Boy Scouts finally served a purpose, as we saw them assist in not one, but two wreath laying ceremonies.  Steve pointed out grave sites of the Kennedys as well as Joe Louis, Glenn Miller and Audie Murphy, who was the most decorated American soldier.  We saw memorials to the Challenger and Columbia crews.  After a long morning, we drove to the Iwo Jima Memorial, then had lunch at the Rhode House Grill in Rosslyn before Charla dropped us off at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment.

Our favorite section of the museum told the stories of mass murderers and mobsters.  We got some kind of thrill out of seeing the torture paraphernalia used through the centuries.  It was especially interesting to see how prison inmates expressed themselves through their art.

We consider ourselves lucky that we didn't get arrested and punished for our crime of posing as Library of Congress researchers!

From soldiers to criminals, this was a somewhat sobering day.  We're happy to report that we successfully took the Metro from the museum to Bethesda, where Charla, John and Charles picked us up and took us out for a wonderful Italian meal and afterwards for frozen yogurt.

Lucky Charla, she has Wanda, Amy and Tyson coming tonight to visit for a week!  Also, Carley has been gone on a trip to New York and she will be returning home tomorrow.  It's going to be a full house!

Happy Anniversary, moma and daddy!

Iwo Jima

Toes at the Crime and Punishment Museum

Day 4 - If a Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words, Please Quit Talking

Before we tell about our day, we wanted to relive something that happened yesterday afternoon.  When we were on the Metro coming back to Charla and John's, it was rush hour and the train was pretty crowded.  Carol, Kathy and I had to stand and hold on to the hand rails, much like we did on the cable car last year in San Francisco.  After one of our stops, with the three of us hanging on for dear life and almost losing our footing, a sweet young woman offered Kathy her seat.  I said, "Kathy, it's because you're her elder."  The girl was from Ireland and we don't think she got why that was so funny, but we got such a kick out of it!

Today we started out at Ford's Theater and learned everything you could ever want to know about Lincoln and his assassination.  We paid for the audio tour and thought it was well worth it, though the Boy Scouts got in our way most of the time.  After having brunch at Lincoln's Waffle House, we visited the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, then went to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.  We wanted to like the portraits and modern art, but seriously, we couldn't make anything out of much of it.  The last stop of the day was the National Museum of Natural History, where we saw the Hope Diamond, plate tectonics and decomposing bodies.  Our cousin Charles had told us where to find the Seymouria dinosaur by the cafe, and he was right!  However, we were so tired we could hardly walk.  Charla picked us up around 7:15 and brought us back to their house for homemade hamburgers, crab cakes and salad.

In Ford's Theatre where Lincoln was shot.

We titled this "work of art" I've Gained So Much Weight, What Am I Going To Wear Today? 

We haven't stopped yet.....

The Seymouria dinosaur fossil in the National Museum of Natural History.

The toes at the Smithsonian.

One of the "works of art" in the Hirshhorn Museum.  We figure if this exhibit can be in the Hirshhorn....

...then our version should too!

 

Day 3 - Books, Docs, and Rain

Day 3 started out a little dreary and damp, even though we slept in a tiny bit. Charla took us in and dropped us off at one of the 3 buildings of the Library of  Congress. Kathy led us to believe we could go in at the Adams building and get a library card.  Since we were at the Madison Building we walked, in the rain, across the street and down the block to the Adams Building.  Well guess what! One of the docents told us that library cards were issued at the Madison Building! Of course!!!

So we go in, through security, to the magic room. To our dismay it says "Reader Cards are not souvenirs!" They were only for researchers. So all of a sudden we were researching our family's history.  We walked around this building a little bit looking like we were doing some serious research and then we made our way to the main building, the Jefferson Building.  This building was SO pretty and ornate. With our lucky cards we were able to go into the main reading room.  Diane and Kathy might have been a little bored with this but Carol thoroughly enjoyed it.

Knowing we had reservations at 2:00 for the National Archives, we headed out to find something to eat. Charla had recommended a place named West Wing Cafe.  We located it and went in for a bite. Unfortunately they gave Carol the wrong sandwich and forgot to make Diane's and Kathy's sandwich, which forced us to inhale our food so we could hightail it to the Archives, in the pouring rain.

With our pre-purchased tickets we were able to skip through the lines and enter the National Archives  without a wait. It was interesting to see some of the important documents that were produced in our nation's history. It is hard to do these excursions without thinking about how much Mama would enjoy this, especially the genealogy pieces.

Our next stop was the Old Post Office Pavilion which offers a tour of the bell tower and the most panoramic views of Washington. The stairs to the observation deck were VERY narrow and steep. We were about sick by the time we got to the top, even though we took elevators and only had to go up 2 stories!!

We went back down to look around at the stores inside the pavilion. We found a couple of cute shirts and other little items.  After a refreshing diet coke, and rain pouring down once again, we talked to Charla and made plans to take the Metro to Bethesda, meet up with John and catch a ride home with him. By doing so though, we were foregoing our walk around the National Mall.  Hopefully we can pick it up at another time.

Our first adventure with the Metro was hurried, harried, and wet.  We finally figured out the ticket machine, got oriented as to which line we needed to take and jumped on, squished up with all the other folks needing a ride home. We reached Bethesda, found John, and made it back to a wonderful meal cooked by Charla.

We had a relaxing evening visiting with Charla, John and Charles and also doing a bit of blogging.

Tomorrow we will head out for more DC adventures!

Retired librarian in her element.

In front of the Capitol as seen from the Library of Congress.

The reason we got tickets to the National Archives.

Old Post Office Pavilion

Toes at the Old Post Office Pavilion.

The Capitol from the top of the Old Post Office Pavilion

Day 2 - Money, Tears and Scandals

We were up early this morning to start our adventure in D.C.  Charla's husband John volunteered to drop us off as he went to his office in Bethesda.  We wanted to be in line at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing by 7:00am to get tickets for a 9:00 tour.  He told stories and pointed out interesting sights as he drove, then suddenly we were "there" and we quickly piled out of the car. After getting directions from a couple of security guards, we found the ticket stand and took our place in line, with only two people in front of us!  We were hungry and needed a bathroom, but we were bound and determined to get our tickets.  Afterward we walked around a bit and got coffee, then found our place in line.  Wouldn't you know, they let us in early and we had to throw away our $3 coffee!  It was a good tour, and at the end we went to the gift shop.  We saw a photo booth and thought that would be a great souvenir for a mere $5.  We squished our three selves into the booth and read the directions, which told us to insert our money, select our background, hit the "freeze" button and smile for the camera.  The downside was, Kathy was in charge of the select button and she couldn't get it to go to the background we wanted.  After we put in $5, it stayed on the "your picture with Obama" option, which we DID NOT WANT!  Kathy insisted on hitting the button a thousand times, like she thought it would finally change, and she ended up changing the language to Spanish!  We laughed so hard we were crying, and all the people outside the booth were watching us.  We kept saying, "It's not working!", but all they could do was tell us to scoot together.  We figured out that they could see us on a screen outside the booth!  So we're laughing and crying and telling Kathy to "select, select, select" and she's refusing to do it; she finally gets mad and hits the freeze button, and the darn thing takes our picture.  Once I realized it, I screamed "Nooooooo", but that's what was captured on film forever, me and Obama and Carol's hair and Kathy's side of face.  You're darn right that I called the 1-800 number to get a refund!!

We went to the Holocaust Museum next.  It's hard to say that it was enjoyable, but it was so interesting and eye opening and sobering.  It was well worth the time we spent there.  Even reading the postcards at the end of our tour brought tears to our eyes, especially the rhetorical plea of the mom who wondered where to place flowers for her son's grave when she didn't even know what happened to him.

We grabbed a hotdog and a Diet Coke off a vendor truck and ate it on a park bench in the National Mall, then visited the Boy Scouts' Memorial and took pictures of the south side of the White House.  We found out that the Boy Scouts' Jamboree is being held sometime this week or next in Virginia, so many of the Scout troops have descended upon our Capitol.  We've seen them everywhere and they've  come from everywhere.  In fact, we saw a group of Sea Scouts from London who was accompanied by the granddaughter of Lord Baden Powell, the founder of Scouts.  We were impressed. 

The Smithsonian's Museum of American History was our afternoon stop.  There was so much to see, we could hardly take it all in.  We felt like we should be more interested in the light bulbs and engines but we just couldn't get into it.  All I could think is how bored our kids would have been if they were with us.  Mostly we were pretty tired and hungry...again...and we still had one more stop to make that night. We grabbed sandwiches at the museum's cafe and hoofed it to meet Charla at the Secrets and Scandals walking tour.

This was a free tour where we were encouraged to tip based on how much we enjoyed it.  The tour director was knowledgeable and funny and really enjoyed the stories she shared with us.  Several of the roads around the White House were barricaded and we were interrupted by a motorcade that apparently took Obama or Biden to the Old Executive Office Building, next door to the White House.    Talk about lazy!  We did learn a lot of useless but interesting information and tipped her well.

Charla and John provided wine and snacks for three tired girls when we got home tonight, which was very much appreciated.  We expect to sleep like babies.

Toes at the BEP

"Noooooo!"

Sea Scouts with Gillian Clay--granddaughter of Lord Baden Powell

South side of White House

And the north!

Day 1 - Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Up and at 'em at 3:45!  Ugh!!!  We tried not to let that little detail spoil our excitement...

After an uneventful, albeit a little choppy, flight into Baltimore, we were met at the airport by Charla, our hostess for the week, who also became our chauffeur/tour director.  Now, 9 hours into our day, our miniscule airport breakfast, plus our 1"x1" bag of nuts on our flight had long since worn off and we were so hungry we were about to eat our arms!  Charla, fearing for her limbs as well,  quickly got us to Baltimore Harbor to find a place to eat!  We settled on Bubba Gump's where we had a panoramic view of the harbor.  After our seafood meal, we walked around the Harbor to see the sights before heading over to meet John and Charles at Camden Yards.  Our affordable seats were on the upper deck, first row, which completely unnerved Carol.  Since she was a basket-case everytime someone stood up, it was considerate of the Rangers not to give us any reason to stand and cheer.  Thankfully the storms rolling in gave us a good excuse to make an early exit, never mind the fact that we were falling asleep in our seats!

We arrived at Charla's house around 10, got settled in our basement suite, which beat the heck out of last year's Motel 6s, anxious to get our 5 hours of sleep before starting a new day.

At the airport

Baltimore's Inner Harbor

Our view at Bubba Gump's

Diane, Carol, John, Charla and Charles

Our toes at Camden Yards