|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
DAY 15 - WASHINGTON EXPLORED & A MASSIVE STORM
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Not up very early at all really. Decide no breakfast in hotel - get something in "town". Slightly overcast (the weather, not us - not yet anyway) but incredibly humid again.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Bus Into "Town" | We had sorted out the bus system by now and actually had a map and a reasonable idea of where to go. Now that's a good start.
Across the road from the hotel is a bus stop. Bus runs approx every 15mins. Buy a $1.10 ticket for each journey or $2.50 all day pass. Correct money only - driver carries no cash. So, when bus arrives, 4 day passes please, 1 $10 note into machine, 4 tickets, sit down, easy. Picture in head again of roughly where bus goes, superimpose that (roughly) over map, should be able to work out where to get off to do the Mall (Obelisk, Lincoln Memorial, Capitol, Smithsonian etc). Luckily for us, but unlucky for the two ladies he sat opposite and engaged in conversation, the bus loony got on and told the two hapless ladies exactly where to get off. So we got off at the same stop, at, it transpires, the Whitehouse Information Centre, just 5mins walk from Washington Monument.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Obelisk & Breakfast | Quick look in info centre then a 10-15mins S.L.O.W. walk to the Monument. Heat+Humidity=Slow. Its shut for repairs. Damn, that means I wont be able to walk up all those steps inside - shame. KT was weak from lack of food, so breakfast at the café at the bottom of the mound - bagels.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Towards The Lincoln Memorial | Where next - it being slightly more oppressive under the awning of the café than actually out in the heat of the sun. Head towards the Lincoln Memorial, passing thru the Vietnam Remembrance Garden. A huge wall covered in the names of those Killed or MIA. Very poignant - and what a waste of life.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sweat | Everyone - not just us, but everyone - wet thru. This gladdened my heart a bit. Now, I'm not a skinny lad - in fact a bit lardy - so when the sun's out I have a "volume to surface area" problem with the body's natural cooling mechanisms. OK - I sweat freely. Today I get a strange (perverse even) pleasure and comfort in knowing that this time everyone is sweating freely (and noticeably).
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Lincoln | Lincoln Memorial, after we successfully climbed the steps to it, is magnificent in its splendour. I think that perhaps the notice asking for "Quiet Tones in deference to the occasion and the setting" should also be printed in Japanese and Italian. The walls of this enormous hall resounded with chatter - predominantly in these two languages.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Korea | I managed a couple of photos in between shifts of Japanese Tourist Non-Smiling Family Poses, so off we went again, this time passing thru the garden in remembrance of the Korean War. The Platoon Tableau there is eerie. The slogan by the pool "Freedom Is Not Free" is very deep.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Capitol - Almost | Next, slowly, dripping, we head towards the Capitol at the other end. Sun is high in the sky, humidity is high in the - thingey you measure humidity in. So we get as far as the Smithsonian Info Centre and dive (again relative speeds involved) into the aircon oasis. Find a big seat and sit there for quite a while. Without these stops in aircon I think I would have gradually got weaker and weaker, eventually having to be returned home in a bucket.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Change Of Plan | New plan - across the Mall to the Natural History Museum - quick lunch/snack in there, then look at the exhibits - especially the Hope Diamond.
As it turns out we just had a drink and a half an hour or so to look round a few exhibits.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A Tactical Error | From there we decided to walk to Union Station - this was a tactical error as it took well over half an hour in the hottest part of the day. Eventually reached it (the last bit a gently sloping road - sloping up!) and I flowed under the door into Aircon Heaven. Mary and I had a quick look at the shop layout map, turned round - no girls! They had shifted straight into Shopping Mode. Spotted them, dragged them back until a plan was formed.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Refreshments Required | Over half an hour since our last drink, lunchtime(ish) - food - downstairs into the Food Hall. Decided on Smoothies and Big Bagels plus a sit down for a while.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A Weighty Problem | Now since we have come down from the mountains, we have noticed the obesity problem. At altitude it was remarkably less noticeable - the biggest folk (men or women) being, broadly (pun intended) no bigger than me. This is because, we presumed, that Bryce, Zion etc were all "activity centred" and therefore only people capable of a reasonable level of physical activity went. Here in the capital a different story unfolded. Here kids as young as 13-14 looked about my size. Enormous mounds of blubber (in the adult phase) waddled, splayed armed and splayed, straight legged slowly about the malls. We even saw one child who was so fat she couldn't lift her legs on the escalators and had to wait until it levelled off before lifting (straight-legged) her foot to get off - gross. There were so many that there is obviously something fundamentally wrong with eating habits or else there is something fundamentally wrong with hormone levels. OK so its much cleaner than the UK. Everywhere there is little or no litter, everyone stubs out cigarettes in the receptacles provided, everyone says "Have a nice day" and sounds as if they mean it, but blimey, 22 stone in shorts waddling slowly in front of you ain't pretty.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Present Procured | One of the main reasons for the shopping trip (not that my lot actually need a reason) is to buy Katie her 21st birthday present - she wants a watch. 1st shop after lunch is Swatch. Lovely watch in there $70. Tries it, loves it, I have Visa Card ready in pocket. KT is advised caution, look around, come back if not found anything she likes better. I smile, Store Keeper smiles. Off we go and do the rounds of the shops for 45mins or so. . .
. . . All pretence thus over, back to Swatch, Store Keeper is busy with another customer, girl at counter puts her friend on hold on the phone, gets our chosen watch from the drawer Store Keeper had put it in. I pay, KT smiles, Store Keeper and I share the "knew-you-would-be-back" smile. "Thanks for coming back to us". All happy.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Metro Across Town | This time there is no way we are walking anywhere. Want to go to the Old Post Office which is near our bus ride back. Down to the Metro. Sort out routes and prices etc. (we can all do Metros - we've done the Tube in London often enough) and off we (confidently) go. Red Line to Metro Central, change to Orange Line for Federal Triangle. Out the other end at the correct stop. Look at our map - hang a right and there is "The Pavilion" - a mall within the Old Post Office.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Aerial Views, Storm Brews | Now here there is a huge Bell Tower (Bell Ringers actually play each week). You can go up to the top of this tower for free and get good views of the Capitol, Monuments etc - so off we trot. Glass lift up the inside of the building to the 9th floor, then smaller lift up the actual tower to 12th floor. Didn't have much time for a really good look round because they closed it and forced everyone downstairs PDQ as an electrical storm was on its way. So downstairs, quick look at the (fairly naff) shops and outside. STOP !!
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Stranded On The Steps | The storm had broken and rain lashed down into the street. We had forgotten to purchase ponchos this morning so we were stuck. Then the thunderstorm broke and all hell let loose! We seemed to be at the epicentre of it all. What we thought was lashing rain REALLY got going - it was running down the gutters like a small river, the sky was continually lit up by multiple forked and sheet lightning followed by enormous, rolling cracks of thunder - all with rain bouncing up above knee height. VERY impressive.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A Plan Devised | So, over an hour later, still sitting, several options. Stay here on the steps to the Old Post Office and have someone find our skeletons in years to come, walk out into the rain only to vanish into the storm drains carried along by flash floods in the canyons that are the streets of Washington, OR . . . call a cab - anyone got a dime? Got the number of 3 taxi firms from a concierge, down to the food hall level and try to call a cab. 2 repeatedly have busy lines 1 is not a real number.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abatement & Enterprise | Fed up we head back to the steps to see if we can hail a cab. Wait a minute, storm has abated (I suspect its just doing it to someone else nearby having got bored with us sitting, waiting and not getting soaked). Only raining slightly so off we went towards Pennsylvania Avenue and the haven of our bus. Still raining tho, so we are starting to get wet. Enterprising Yellow Cab driver is cruisin' looking for people who are only slightly damp, who wont ruin the velour seats of his sedan. We seem to fit the bill, HE hails ME and I accept the commission on behalf of my family.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Damp But Determined | Even tho' its coming up to 5pm, even tho' there is still rain everywhere (and lightning in the direction of Georgetown where we are headed) shopping must be done. So the taxi gets snarled up in the slow moving traffic as it crawls, wetly up M towards Wisconsin Ave. Eventually, within a block of M and Wisconsin, driver cracks first. "Wanna get out here?" Might as well. Pay up. Girls get out and say "Thanks". Driver (West Indian) smiles and tells me that if they had been American kids no "Thank You" would have been forthcoming. This pleases me no end - very proud at that moment of my polite offspring.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Georgetown | There we are on M St in Georgetown in a drizzle that is gradually turning nasty, surrounded by shops that are still open. What to do as a man faced with traipsing round more shops? I know - dive into Eddie Bauer and by myself something! Hey - this is easy. 3 shirts and a pair of shorts - tried on, approved of - that's a bit of a worry - does that mean I'm (perish the thought) trendy? Nah! No Way! Mary also bought stuff in here. Lucy still not really into it - nothing purchased - hope Hayley doesn't find out.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A Mall Mauled | From here we dodge from shop to shop in the rain, moving inexorably towards our ultimate destination - Georgetown Park Mall - loads of shops indoors.
However, when we get there, something of a tragedy. The violent storms had taken their toll on the place. The Atrium Roof had leaked (good style), the car park on the lower level had flooded, on all 3 floors shops had been partially flooded, ceiling tiles steadily dripping onto the merchandise and the floors. Half the place was already roped off - and there was a "chemical" smell - the storm sewers had overflowed somewhere.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Heading Home | Enough of this, outside again (walking the escalator that had been switched off as a precaution) and try to walk up Wisconsin - past open shops - it was a very slow walk punctuated by minor offshoots.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Food | Back at the hotel, warm showers and a change of clothes - down to the restaurant - all 4 just had soup and salad bar (having checked we are allowed to go back as often as we like). Still filled up quite easily (I wore my new shorts of course).
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Planning the Sabbath | After that, into the girls room to plan tomorrow's "campaign". Need to find accessible malls, on a Sunday, that are reasonably priced.
Eventually settled on
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |  |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Words and pictures © Steve Andrews 2001 - 2012