Washington DC - Days 1 and 2

After the white knuckle experience of driving down Pennsylvania Avenue, everything was a breeze! We parked the coach and the car in a beautiful Campground in College Park, Maryland and have now become two day experts at the bus/subway system. A metro bus picks us up at the campground and takes us to the subway station about 15 minutes away. We hop on the subway and can take it to any one of 10 or 15 stops at various places in DC. We have been on four of the 5 lines (red, blue,green and orange and have not ended up lost, or going the wrong way. I suspect that by the time we leave we will be more skillful than lucky.

On Wednesday we went to the Metro Station in downtown DC. There we followed our practice of picking a City Tour tourist package that put us on a open air double decked bus. This gives us a chance to snap pictures while getting familiar with the geography and history of the neighborhoods. It also allows for an opportunity to "hop on , hop off" for the entire day (in our case 2 days.) We did the entire route, 28 stops, with out exiting, and then after lunch, we had chosen where we would stop. We learned to duck when traveling through tree lined residential streets.

Our big adventures included the National Cathedral on the a hill above Capital Hill. It took several hours to go through the sections that are open to the public. The craftsmanship, the artist, and the private funds that were used to build the Cathedral were breath taking. Neither words nor pictures could do it justice.


We then went to Arlington Cemetery to see the eternal flame at Kennedy's grave site, the small grave sight of Robert Kennedy, The Robert E. Lee homestead. Itwas transferred to the United States along with his estate that became Arlington Cemetery during the Civil War prohibiting him to reclaim his property after the war.

We finished our day observing the ceremony at the tomb of the unknown solider and than walked back through the cemetery to call it a day.

Thursday we returned to DC to get a personal tour of the Capital Building courtesy of our Congressman, and friend Rick Larsen. We were greeted by a young staffer who spent 2 hours with us in the Capital Building including a walk through the tunnels from the Offices to the Visitors Center. The tour was very personal, and again we were the only ones on this tour with the staffer allowing for lots of questions and answers that you don't get in a big group. We finished the tour back in Congressman Larsen's office and a short time later he came in from voting to "meet and greet" us. He needed to get back to the "floor" for another vote so he led us with an intern back to the Capital Building through some passage that the intern had not been through. He had secured no wait tickets to go up into the House and Senate Gallery's to observe. The house was debating the Energy Star Rating Cash rebate initiative but not voting on it. The Senate only had two Senators in the room and they where speaking on the issue of "Fanny and Freddy" and the need for regulation. The rest of the Senators were not present and the room was pretty empty. It was a great experience, and we both enjoyed the afternoon. We went down to eat in the basement of the Capital Visitors Center, and than back to Congressman Rick Larsen's office to retrieve cameras, cell phones, and other things that are not allowed in the Senate or House of Representatives Gallery.

We jumped back on the bus to see where else we wanted to go and decided HOME. Tomorrow either we will head back to see some of the Smithsonian Museum or Sue will take a break and Steve will go back for a self-misguided photographic tour walking from The Capital to Arlington Cemetery.

You will see.