DC Vacation AAR

I posted some snapshots last week of our DC vacation, and wanted to follow up a little bit with some further analysis/thoughts on the sights and sounds of DC. A dozen or so pictures and snippets pounded out at oh-dark-thirty while I try not to wake the family with my blogging don't do the nation's capital justice - heck, my meager attempts here will most likely fall short.

Note to T-bolt: Laurel, MD isn't as bad as you made it sound. I half-expected to have to step over crack whores and junkies to get into my hotel from your description of the area. Even though our hotel was literally adjacent to the racetrack, we had no noise issues arising from that partnership. I did mention the trains in jest, but I don't think we heard a single whistle after about 7 or 8 PM. The only issue I did have was that our hotel seemed to be the premiere stop for high schools touring DC for the week, as bus after bus of rowdy teenagers stopped in...

Holy lord DC is expensive! Even the Metro to get into the District is insanely high priced - on days where we hit peak rates, we spent over $40 for the four of us to drive to the station, park, and take the train in and back out again. The MARC train into Union Station was cheaper, including free parking, and considerably nicer than the commuter rail up our way. One of the comments I made, upon hearing a Metro train approach, was that it sounded like an MBTA train, only with less rattling.

In that same vein, what in blue blazes is going on with escalators in DC? I think we ran into at least two or three non-functional escalators every time we went out. It seemed like every time we went to a Metro station or Smithsonian, at least one of the escalators was bound to be out of service. I was beginning to worry that we might get stranded on one...

DC is really big on symbolism. Taking the guided tour, we heard that Lady Freedom on top of the Capitol was 19.5' tall, and that no other statue can be higher than that height. She also faces east so that the sun will never set on Freedom (I like that). There are 56 flags outside of Union Station, one for all 50 states, one for each of the five US territories (can you name all five?) and one for DC itself. There are thousands of little tidbits like these everywhere.

One day is not enough to see all the sights in the Museum of Natural History. It's definitely not enough to see the Air & Space, American History, and US Mint as well... If you want to take a tour of the Mint, or ascend the Washington Monument, get your tickets well in advance. They go fast. Take a tour of the White House, despite the insane amount of red tape and personal information they want ahead of time. It's really something to behold.

Words mean things, even in DC land. We took the kids to Six Flags in MD on Wednesday with the intention of breaking the trip up with one "fun" day. It was downright eerie walking right up to the signature roller coasters - I don't think we waited more than one rotation for any single ride we went on. While it was great to just hop on a ride - or stay on twice - it just seemed wrong not to have to wait 20 minutes for a roller coaster... As for words meaning things, one of the things that bothered me greatly at Six Flags was hearing that "Six Flags is a Smoke-Free park" which was immediately followed by a PSA telling smokers where they could light up...

Lastly, another thanks to Newbius for escorting us around the Pentagon. Not a lot of folks get the chance to venture inside of the seventh largest building in the world, let alone have lunch in the Courtyard with generals and dignitaries. TheBoy hasn't stopped talking about it - he loved the displays (and the guns - that's my boy!) and the tour and the planes and uniforms and everything else on display. The biggest thing that jumped out at me was how incredibly clean the Pentagon is - as I commented, upon seeing a large trash bin collecting office trash, "Wow, in the Pentagon even their trash is clean!".

Also major thanks to OldNFO for the personal tour of the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum. I'm pretty sure that was the highlight of my son's visit to DC, seeing the different war planes and learning about the difference between an Attack plane, a Fighter plane, and Bombers. It's truly amazing to see how far we've come in the short 100 years of powered flight; and also interesting to see the ground we've lost: the SR-71 Blackbird was designed in the 1960s and yet still holds all kinds of air speed records.

One final note: the reflecting pool on the mall was drained for cleaning while we were there. I took one look at it and quipped, "Wow, the economy is so bad they can't even keep the water turned on". While the comment drew chuckles, I'm afraid to think about how prescient that may turn out to be.

Sometimes I do think that we get exactly the government we deserve...

That is all.