HEY GEORGE, WHAT'S UP?

We recently traveled to Washington, D.C for Will to cover a Clemson game. I had never been and Will had only been once as a child. Due to some car sickness issues, we almost missed our flight out of Atlanta. Will and I running through the airport while people stared was pretty funny. Before we reached the actual inside of the airport, I told Will that we needed to run from the parking lot to the terminal. I took off at full speed. He walked. We still ended up at the door at the same time. He thought that was hilarious.

Once we arrived in Washington, we headed for the baggage area only to discover that one of our bags didn’t make it. This particular bag has been lost a total of three times over various flights. I am never using it again. Long story short, it arrived two hours later on another plane. While we waited, we ate lunch at the airport. It actually wasn’t too bad…the food, I mean. Dealing with the baggage claim lady…very bad.

We got a rental car and promptly got lost as soon as we left the airport. (Daddy, If you are reading this, skip this paragraph and jump ahead to the next one.) Traffic was horrible and we were lost for a while. I ended up seeing a little sign directing us to the interstate and I was like, “Go! Turn now! Now! Now!” So, we cut off a few lanes of traffic and hit the on-ramp on two wheels. I started singing, “Just the good ole boys, never meaning no harm….”

Saturday was game day so while Will worked, I got out a little, but was too chicken to get too far away from the hotel. I still enjoyed it though.

Sunday morning we decided that we were going to take one of those trolley tours in DC because it takes you to the different points of interest and you don’t have to worry about getting lost. We were actually really excited about it.

We were told that we had to drive to the subway station and take a train to Union Station. Why do they keep those waiting areas in the subway so dark? That’s what I want to know. I know it is underground, but why can’t they turn some lights on in there?

We reached Union Station and inside was a transportation center and a big mall with every store imaginable. We headed to the ticket counter to buy a ticket for the tour and a lovely lady says, “Oh, we aren’t doing tours today.” We told her that the brochure clearly stated that the tours run daily and she just repeated that they weren’t doing them that day. Deep breaths and counting to 10…

By the time we ate lunch, we had been in Union Station for over an hour and still had not seen any of DC. We decided to head out on foot which is scary considering how often we get lost. It was freezing and the wind was blowing 100 miles and hour and the sun was blinding. We didn’t have our sunglasses with us and neither one of us had a hat. The wind was just whipping around our faces and my hair was like a mini-tornado swirling around my head.

Back into Union Station for hats and sunglasses…Will found a Steelers hat right away. I looked like a dork in every hat that I tried on, but I finally decided that I would rather look like a dork than freeze so I selected one. By this time, we had been inside Union Station for over 2 hours and still had not seen DC.

We headed out wearing our new accessories and just started walking toward the Capitol. We took lots of pictures and it felt strange to be there. We walked around the National Mall which has all the famous landmarks of DC in a rectangle. I must admit that when I saw the sign directing people to the National Mall, I thought it was a real mall. Ha! We had dinner with a friend the night we arrived in Washington. He asked what I was going to do Saturday while Will worked and I told him that I saw a sign for a national mall I might check out. He was nice enough not to give me a hard time, although I truly deserved it.

We walked A LOT. We walked through the space museum which was pretty neat. We went into The Smithsonian and it was a lot smaller than I expected. Will found a Steelers helmet from one of the Super Bowl games or something like that and was more thrilled over it than anything he saw in Washington.

There was a security guard standing still in the middle of The Smithsonian just kind of watching everyone and I was curious to know if he got bored doing that job, so much to Will’s embarrassment, I walked up and asked him. They think we talk funny, even though they are the ones that talk funny, so I am sure to him it sounded like, “D’ya git bored standin’ in hur al’ dae?’ He laughed and said that it wasn’t too bad and that he had read all the descriptions under the displays over and over. Then, I asked him if the guards switch out periodically to give each other a break. He said they didn’t and I told Will later that he probably thought I was trying to figure out the guard schedule so we could rob the place!

After walking around a while, we decided to head to the Washington Monument. It looked a lot closer to us than it was! We walked and walked and walked. We finally made it and JUST when we got there the guards were locking it up and said no one else could go in. We were soooo disappointed. We took a lot of pictures of the outside of it, but I still don’t know what is in there. Someone that’s been, e-mail me and tell me what I missed.

We continued on to the Lincoln Memorial and the WWII Memorial. It was moving to see the flowers they put out for the veterans and to read the words of Truman about the war. Will’s Dad, who passed away last October, served in that war.

The whole time we were walking from the WWII Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial we kept re-enacting the scene in Forest Gump where Jenny is running through the water to meet Forest after he gives that speech. Of course, we didn’t get in the actual water, but you get the picture. We also kept seeing who could do the best imitation of Forest telling Jenny that he was glad they were together in their nation’s capitol. I think Will won. The only impression I can do is Cher. Wow, this got off topic fast.

Ok, so once we reached the Lincoln Memorial we took lots of pictures and headed out. Now, we were both under the impression that you must drive to get to the White House. We asked a ranger, out of curiosity, how close we were to it and he was like, oh, it’s just about 8 blocks over! I asked him what time the tours stopped for it and he must have thought I was the dumbest person because he told me that it takes months to get background clearance to tour the White House and they don’t just let anyone in. Well, excuuuusse me!

After a lot more walking, we made it to the White House. I don’t know what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. It looks so huge and magnificent on TV. In actuality, it’s just off on the corner of a side street and isn’t that big. I was amazed that we could just walk up to its gate. There were some cops that looked like kids standing on the street watching us. I am sure there were a million cameras on us, but still. We did see a car come in that had to get searched by a dog before it could come through. I think I enjoyed that more than seeing the White House itself.

We stood out there behind the fence and looked through the bars with all the other people. We probably looked like animals in a zoo. We made jokes about yelling things through the fence such as, “George, we are here! I hope you have something good for supper!”

It was getting dark so we decided to head back. We started walking and this secret service type popped through the fence and I figured he was a good a person as any to ask for directions. He told me that he didn’t know how to get back to Union Station but that he could tell me how to get to another subway center. I told him, no thanks. Will was like, “What in the world did you do that for? Why didn’t you take the directions?” I, being a small town girl and proud of it, didn’t know that you could just go through any subway center to get back to your car!

We ended up getting directions from a restaurant employee. The funny thing is that the restaurant was some fancy, smancy place and when we went to ask the guy who was wearing this fancy uniform get-up, Will tripped over a brick. So, the guy’s eyes got real big like he was scared of us. After he gave us directions, a man in a 3-piece suit walked out of the restaurant and went up to one of the workers and said all serious-like, “Taxi”. Well, I guess he was someone important because they started blowing whistles and calling taxi’s left and right. Will was like, that’s what we should have done. Instead of tripping over a brick and asking for subway directions, we should have walked up there like we owned the place and said, “Taxi”.

We got up at 4:30 the next morning to head to Reagan Airport. Did we get lost on the way to the airport? Of course we did!!!

We made it eventually, and as our carry-on bags were being x-rayed by security, one of them yelled out, “We got a CD-960 (or something similar) over here!” (This was after Will set off the alarm because he forgot his cell phone was in his pocket.) I was just standing there in shock and her supervisor came over and took my bag and asked me if it was mine. I could not figure out what in the world they thought I had in there. She dug through it and then held a bottle of water up to my face and gave me a speech on how many ounces of liquid I am allowed to have and threw the bottle of water in the trash like it was diseased. I knew about the new rule but I was half asleep and forgot I even had the water in there. Good grief…

It was a pretty uneventful flight except that the pilot had to circle the airport several times because too many planes were trying to land at once. That turning feeling in a plane is not my idea of fun.

All in all, it was a decent trip. Clemson is supposed to play them again year after next. Maybe I should put in for a background clearance now so we can go inside the White House next time. If Hilary gets elected (very scary thought), would it be rude of me to ask her to sing the chorus to “Stand by Your Man”?