Washington DC day 1

We took a road trip to Washington D.C. last week. Congress was in session and everyone was trying to figure out how to handle the economic situation. We, however, were tourists.

We spent the first morning trying to take a tour of the city's memorials. Apparently, there is a fabulous trolley tour that you can hop on and hop off of around the city for 35 bucks/person. We stood in line for at least half an hour. While Max and I hung out, Garrett went to Starbucks and returned. I downed a chai frappucino before we reached the front of the line. They assured us that taking a stroller on board wouldn't be a problem.

Yeah, right.

We went outside and stood in yet another line. We missed the first trolley because it was rather crowded, and we didn't think we could break down the stroller in time. Soon, another trolley arrived, but we weren't fast enough. People raced past us as we wrestled with the stroller and all of our baby stuff. The trolley was full and we were left standing on the sidewalk with our useless tickets and time wasted.

Garrett said, "I knew this wasn't going to work."

That did it.

"You did, huh?" I snapped, "Well, you should have said something earlier."

My husband isn't one to complain much, so I should have just ignored it. I'm sure he'd already ignored several of my snide remarks by that point.

Even so, I took off with Max and the stroller, and Garrett must have thought I was crazy. I marched us right up to the line we'd stood in for so long and started selling our tickets. Guess what? No Americans carry cash these days. I'd reached a mother and daughter visiting from Italy before I was able to sell the tickets. I'm sure everyone thought I was some sort of lunatic ticket scalper using my baby as an angle.

Still, the morning wasn't a complete waste. Check out who we met in Union Station:



After fortifying ourselves with lunch, we hopped on the Metro again and headed toward the Mall. Garrett had downloaded an app to our iPhones that located all the station stops and told us how to get there with GPS technology. It was cool and helpful. After a stressful morning, we finally arrived.

We saw where Forrest Gump ran into the Reflecting Pool.
We saw the Lincoln Memorial.
We saw the Vietnam Wall.
We saw the WWII Memorial.
We saw the Washington Monument.

We saw other memorials as well. D.C. really is a beautiful city. A line from America the Beautiful kept playing through my head as we walked around: "Thine alabaster cities gleam...."