NORTH AMERICA TRIP FOR DEN & KEITH, ANG & IAN

May 10th-13th

Washington DC is not actually in any state. It is a federally governed district called the District of Columbia (DC), created to serve as the capital of the United States. For those of you who know Australia, it’s a bit like Canberra, the Australian capital which is located entirely within the Australian Capital Territory or ACT and not in any state.

The city sits on the edge of the Potomac River, bordered by the states of Maryland and Virginia. It has some incredible monuments and buildings including for example the Capitol Building, the White House of course the Lincoln Memorial. It’s also home to a number of famous museums and the renowned Arlington National Military Cemetery that we were going to check out.

The drive from Philadelphia to Washington took about 2.5 hours and we checked into the ‘boujee’ Hampton Inn and Suites, Arlington, around 2pm. As we were driving to the hotel we actually went past the Pentagon building, clear as anything, and closer than you would think, which was a very, very cool surprise.

As we still had the car until tomorrow, we decided to use it to drive into the city and find a restaurant for dinner. One thing that became apparent is Washington was not exactly Tulsa in terms of parking space! It was very congested and there wasn’t much about but we managed to find somewhere and then after a little walk round we found a nice grill for a slap up meal.

We had three full days in Washington so as with New York we’ll split it one day at a time.

Day 1

The next morning after a great ‘boujee’ hotel breakfast, we headed off to the Ronald Reagan airport to drop the hire car back. From there, we caught the metro tube to Arlington Cemetery.

Arlington ‘National’ Cemetery is an active military cemetery that covers nearly 650 acres, so basically it’s very big. Established in 1864, it holds the graves of over 400,000 military personnel and their dependents. The land was originally the confiscated plantation of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. He was the guy who led the Southern States (the confederates) against Abraham Lincoln’s Union of States in the American civil war.

After going through the usual security protocols we caught the trolly bus which drops you off at various places in the cemetery. The first thing you notice when going round are the hundreds or rather thousands of identical white gravestones from all the fallen soldiers, it’s an amazing sight and they just go on and on as far as you can see. We stopped at Arlington house, which was Robert E Lee’s house when he lived on the plantation, so there was lots of stuff about him and his family in there. Then we walked down to John F Kennedy’s grave which has the eternal flame burning. He is buried next to his wife, Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis and two of their infant children, Arabella & Patrick. JFKs brother Bobby is also buried nearby. It was very busy around the area with lots of people coming to see JFK’s grave.

From there we headed up to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is a memorial to unidentified American service members and acts as a symbolic grave for all U.S war dead whose remains were never recovered. The tomb is continuously protected by soldiers from the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment who maintain a 24 hour, 365 day vigil regardless of weather. We watched a changing of the guard which revolves around the number 21, such as taking 21 steps and then pausing for 21 seconds. This symbolises the 21 gun salute, the highest military honour. As an added bonus, the Defence minister of Korea and his rather large entourage happened to be visiting to lay a reef at the tomb. The ceremony was very slick and observed with impeccable silence by those watching.

Just across the road from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier there are two memorials dedicated to the two space shuttle missions that ended in disaster. The first memorial is for Challenger that exploded on January 28th, 1986, killing all seven crew and the second was for Columbia that disintegrated on re- entry on February 1st 2003, also killing all seven crew members.

After that and what seemed like a long day, we caught the metro tube back to Arlington and had a coffee in the town close to the hotel. Dinner was a Thai meal that was fab, followed by an ice cream and then back at the hotel we were pleasantly surprised to see a 10ft long shuffle board game in the breakfast/bar area, so we had a laugh playing a few ‘competitive’ girls v boys games of that.

Day 2

Today was Angela’s birthday, so after opening her sackful of cards and mountains of presents we headed down for a ‘boujee’ birthday breakfast. Also, she didn’t know but we had booked Gordon Ramsey’s Hells Kitchen restaurant for the evening.

But we can’t stop the sightseeing, even for Angela’s birthday and today we were visiting the city centre to check out some of the key sites. After catching the metro tube we headed over to the big bus tour stop. This was after some nause, selling tickets for the competing trolly bus tour, tried to rip us off by charging a ridiculous amount for a two day pass. He had no chance though against such experienced bus tour patrons.

The big bus tour also had two loops, a red and a blue, so that was a bonus. The key thing was to catch and stay on the right bus, which was not as easy as it sounds as they sometimes arbitrarily, well it seemed that way to us, changed the bus colour identifier on the front windscreen.

We hopped off at the Washington Monument which is a 555- foot marble, granite and blue stone obelisk, located on the National Mall. It was built to honour the nation’s first president, George Washington and it’s the world’s tallest stone structure. It’s pretty impressive to be fair and it looked even better in the glorious sunshine. You can go up it to an observation deck but we thought we’d pass on that as the tickets are first come, first served and on a timed entry. Plus, after our trip to New York, we were all a bit ‘towered out’.

Next up we headed over to Abraham Lincoln’s memorial. The memorial gets over seven million visitors a year and was built to honour the 16th U.S. President. It was completed in 1922 and features a towering 19-foot marble statue of Lincoln sat on a chair. Some more pub quiz knowledge, the memorial also serves as a famous place for civil rights, mainly because Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech on the memorial steps. Anyway, the place is spectacular as you can imagine and well worth the visit.

A quick check on Apple Maps told us we were only around a 20 min walk to the White House, so we set off. On route we became very aware of lots of police cars, sirens and helicopters, plus a number of roads had begun to get closed. One of the locals said that President Trump was leaving for his China trip today which was what all the fuss was about. The nearer we got to the White House the more we began to realise that you couldn’t actually get very close to it at all, from any direction, as all the roads leading to it had armed soldiers posted with barriers. We managed to find a spot to the North, looking through a fence, where you could get a reasonable photo (complete with secret service members on the roof) so at least we got to see it. There were a few signs about saying that they were doing landscaping work and upgrades to the gardens which was probably something to do with the 250 year Independence celebrations coming up on July 4th this year.

We caught the metro tube back to Arlington, had another coffee in the town, at the same place as yesterday because it was good and then went back to the hotel to get ready for Angela’s birthday dinner.

Gordon Ramsey’s Hells kitchen is located in the bustling wharf area of Washington which is a premier, mile-long waterfront area down on the Potomac River. It has loads of restaurants, shops, bars, hotels and entertainment areas and overlooks a large marina full of nice expensive boats, lovely.

The restaurant is very ‘boujee’ inside and includes an open kitchen which we passed as we were shown to a lovely table by the window so we could watch the sunset. The food was great, along with the sunset and we had a great time celebrating Ang’s birthday.

After dinner we caught an Uber back to the hotel and finished the evening off with a few more very competitive games of shuffle board.

Day 3

More city sights were on the agenda today after breakfast. We were still blessed with great sunny weather as we arrived at our first stop, the National WW2 Memorial.

The memorial is located between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial, and honours the 16 Million Americans who served and the 400,000 who died in WW2. The centre piece is the beautiful Rainbow Pool, complete with multiple fountains and has a 43 foot arch at each end. The arches represent the two main battles in WW2, one for the battle for the pacific with Japan and the other for battle for Europe against Nazi Germany. There is also a Freedom Wall with 4,042 gold stars, each representing 100 American soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict, totalling over 400,000. Lastly, there are 56 stone pillars that represent the 48 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the territories at the time of the war.

The sunshine probably helped but the memorial was certainly a very busy place with lots of tourists and even a few school trips that were visiting.

Our next stop was the stunning Capitol Building where the US congress meets, which is a little bit similar to the Houses of Parliament in the UK. The building has undergone several expansions since construction first began in 1800 and has since become a symbol of American democracy. The centre piece is a massive cast-iron dome weighing 4500 tons (a bit like St Paul’s Cathedral, but smaller). Basically it’s the place where all USA presidents get inaugurated and sworn in when they get elected. It’s a very nice looking building, made out of a mixture of sandstone and limestone that makes it look bright white in the sunshine.

President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and Confederate (the Southern states) supporter. He was shot in the back of the head at Ford’s Theatre in, yes you guessed it, Washington, D.C. It just happened to be at stop number 1 of the bus tour route, so we got off there and had a quick look. After he was shot, the unconscious president was carried across the Street to the Petersen Boarding House before he died at 7:22 a.m. the following morning, April 15, becoming the first US President to be assassinated. There were lots of crowds at both places showing just how popular an attraction it is to visit.

The other thing worth mentioning is the chair he was sat in at the Theatre when he was shot, is now permanently on display at the Henry ford Museum in Detroit and we saw it when we were there a few weeks ago, pretty cool eh.

We caught the metro tube back to Arlington, had our usual coffee at the usual place and then went back to the hotel. In the evening, the hotel had arranged a ‘social event” with free food, beer and wine, pretty good eh. We headed to that and we have to say it was very good with quite a lot to eat including some excellent French onion soup and after dinner we played our last session of shuffle board. It’s worth mentioning that there was a lot of military personnel staying at the hotel, so It’s obviously a popular spot for them to stay and it has to be said they were all very pleasant and polite. The only downside was having to respond to the continuous saluting each time they walked past (ha, ha).

We were checking out on the morning and heading to Florida. It’s time to really start slowing things down as we head towards the last phase of the holiday.