My daughter and have been to many Girl's Week-ends. The trip to Washington D.C. was one of our more enjoyable get-aways.
When my daughter was around 12 years old, we started our own Girl’s Tradition. Each summer the two of us would take a week-end trip. Somewhere close enough to drive and somewhere we’d never been before. It is a tradition that we’ve enjoyed and continued now for 25 years. Each trip is an adventure unlike any of the others, except for the fact that we are lost much the time and laugh deliriously at how far off track we have gotten. These ‘scenic routes’, as we like to call them, delay our arrival but increase our enjoyment. In more recent years, GPS and smartphones have helped keep us on the right road but may have decreased a bit of our laughter along the way.
The summer of 1995 our trip was especially memorable because my daughter, Heather, had had her Michigan driver’s license for a total of three months. She was anxious to share the driving, much to my despair, as we headed toward Washington D.C. I have to admit that she did quite well and got us no more lost then I did when I was behind the wheel, so all was well as we arrived at the Days Inn with daylight to spare.
We had completed plenty of research and had written to our congressmen for passes to places that we particularly didn’t want to miss. The original plan was to meet up with other family members while we were there so we had extra passes to the White House, the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the Federal Mint, etc. Unfortunately plans fell through for our loved ones, so my daughter and I were on our own for the week-end. On the up-side, we had plenty of free passes. In our search for information as to how best to explore the area we learned that the Metro-Rail was the preferred way to get around the city.
I felt extremely organized as I stepped to the counter to check in and receive our room key. Organized, I may have been but as I had never ridden a subway before, I was pretty nervous about where we caught it, how we got on, and how did we know where it was taking us. As my mother always told me, when in doubt, ask. So I told the young lady behind the counter that we were from Michigan and would need some Metro-Rail instructions if we were going to be able to find our way around. She gave me a smile, handed me a small brochure and declared that everything I needed to know was right there in print. Ok, I thought, easy peasy, we’ll figure this out in a flash.
Once settled in our room, I unfolded a rather long Metro-Rail Map. There were lines of different colors, showing different starting and stopping points. This map went with us to the motel dining room that evening where we refueled our bodies. It was open in my lap as we watched TV in our room later. I studied it well into the night, turning it this way and that, but no matter how long I stared at it, it made absolutely no sense to me. It was like trying to read a book in a foreign language. When I finally fell into a restless sleep, I knew no more about how to use the Metro-Rail than I did when we first walked up to the motel counter seeking information.
The next morning we headed to the dining room for the free continental breakfast offered by Days Inn determined to figure out this situation. We wanted our first destination to be the White House but of course, didn’t know how to get there. The restaurant was busy with people rushing here and there when suddenly we heard someone announce that the shuttle was out front if anyone wanted to go to the Metro-Rail. Yes, yes, yes, we both thought. We’ll get that far and then ask for help.
We climbed aboard the shuttle and settled into our seats across from a young couple with cameras around their necks and bottled water in their hands. Trying to be polite I asked if this was their first time in D.C. They explained that they had been in D.C. for five days. This was their last day and their last chance to tour the White House. Each day they’d stood in line for hours only to be turned away for one reason or another. Disappointment was written all over their faces as the light bulb went off above my head.
I pulled our White House passes from my purse and explained to the couple that the passes would get us to the front of the line. We would be more than happy to share with them if they would give us a lesson on riding the subway. They were happy with our win/win solution and as soon as we arrived at the Metro-Rail, they showed us the banks of machines for purchasing tickets and walked us through the turn-styles where our newly purchases tickets were scanned. As we waited for our train, the husband explained the different colored lines and how to get from place to place with ease. Suddenly it became crystal clear and I was confident that the rest of our travels around our nation’s capital would be a piece of cake.
The young man and woman rode with us on the subway and then followed us to the very short line for visitors with passes to the White House. In no time at all the four of us were inside listening to our special secret service agent explain the different rooms. He was quick to explain that this is the house of the people of the United States and that it should never be closed to the public. To me the most impressive room was the dining room with its long table, polished to a shine allowing you to see your reflection. In telling of the history of this room, the agent talked about staff moving all furniture out, covering the floor with large canvas coverings like the ones a house painter might use, so that President Carter’s daughter, Amy could bring her pony inside to ride when it was too cold for her outdoors. The idea of those beautiful hardwood floors being clomped on by a pony for the entertainment of a young girl was almost more that I could comprehend. To this day, I wonder if the agent must have been ‘pulling our leg’. As we left the dining room he further told us that the tours of the morning before were not able to walk through that room because President Clinton was having his breakfast at the dining room table. Picturing a lone man sitting at that enormous table having eggs and toast while hundreds of people strolled by on the other side of the wall was pretty astonishing to me.
When our tour ended our heads were filled with interesting tid-bits of history regarding various presidents and first ladies. As we blinked in the bright sunshine once again, we scanned the crowd around us for the young couple who helped us find our way but they had been swallowed up by the sea of people and we never saw them again. We were sure happy to have met them though because the short lesson they gave us was invaluable to us as we roamed the city the next few days.
Our next visit was to the Smithsonian and naturally we were lost. Stopping the first person we met along the sidewalk we asked for directions to the Smithsonian. “Which one do you want to go to,” was the reply we received. There’s more than one? How did I not know that? Seeing my confusion the middle-aged man told us we were only a couple of blocks away from the air and space museum and that would be a good place for us to start.
And it was a wonderful place to start. The Smithsonian (more than one) entertained us for an entire day and into the evening. Even then we didn’t see everything but weariness convinced us to return to our room to rest up for the next day of exploration and adventure.
That evening, after a quick rest, we signed up for a night time bus tour of selected Washington monuments. The first thing that struck me was how close together everything was. I had always envisioned each statue/monument displayed alone with lots of walking to get to the next one. Happily this was not the case. The most impressive, to me, was the Lincoln Memorial, which is so much larger than I imagined and the Vietnam Wall. Seen at night with lights reflecting on its surface, the wall seemed to go on for an eternity. Having a husband who served and lost friends in Vietnam, the Wall was overwhelming in its beauty, bringing hot tears to the eyes of many who stood in front of this silent structure with no many names of young men and women engraved on its surface.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has always fascinated me and at one time I dreamed of being the first female FBI agent. So naturally the J. Edgar Hoover Building would be near the top of my must-see list. Again with passes in hand, we were ushered to the front of the line.
After walking through a metal detector at the entrance we stopped to give our names to the receptionist. She consulted a rather long list and then asked me to please repeat my name. Once again she slowly and deliberately moved her forefinger down the list. When she came to the end, her welcoming demeanor made a slight change as she sternly asked us to ‘Step back outdoors’.
Not one to cause a ruckus in the FBI building, I didn’t question the reason for this odd request. We simply made our exit, wondering if we were in some sort of trouble. Would agents come swarming from all directions to escort us into a small room for questing? My imagination began to run wild as we watched through the large front window. Several ‘suits’ were gathered around the woman’s desk and then it appeared that others in the waiting area were being called up to the desk one by one and questioned. What was going on? What did we do?
By the time I’d almost worked myself up into a frenzy of nerves, a smiling young agent came to the door and invited us back inside. Evidently our name had been checked off signifying that we had already arrived. It was a simple mix up between our name and a similar one that was already there in the waiting area. Once it was determined who was who, we received a very interesting tour. We saw labs where evidence is tested, the shooting range where the agents practiced and rooms of confiscated evidence. I left even more impressed with the agency than I was before the tour.
When the day came that we had to return to Michigan, it seemed out visit had been too short but it was filled with activity. We were both happy that we were able to visit our nation’s capital, view the beautiful monuments, learn some interesting history and make more memories for mother and daughter to share in the future.
I can't imagine seeing Washington DC in a weekend, but you sure did well and had quite an adventure that you have shared with us in a very interesting and entertaining way.
I have been to Washington DC several times, but did not see the FBI building or some of the other places you describe like the White House. The last time I drove in the city, it was a lot of detour traffic because Metrorail was being built. I found in my travels, that fellow travelers were often very helpful in navigating transportation, housing and sights to see. One of the most pleasant things about travel is the people you meet.
Her grandma always said she had “the blessing”, and to always use it for good, but sometimes there is shame in fame if a person can’t handle it. Don’t let the Boo Hag ride ya
Jack Brennan is hired by a group of ultra rich English aristocrats to kidnap four top IRA terrorists. The contract is time limited but do the financial rewards justify the risk?
When my daughter was around 12 years old, we started our own Girl’s Tradition. Each summer the two of us would take a week-end trip. Somewhere close enough to drive and somewhere we’d never been before. It is a tradition that we’ve enjoyed and continued now for 25 years. Each trip is an adventure unlike any of the others, except for the fact that we are lost much the time and laugh deliriously at how far off track we have gotten. These ‘scenic routes’, as we like to call them, delay our arrival but increase our enjoyment. In more recent years, GPS and smartphones have helped keep us on the right road but may have decreased a bit of our laughter along the way.
