PhotoVirginia.com Blog

After all this time, waiting and wondering if I would ever get to see Washington, DC and going up there last March with an attendant I had and having to turn around immediately and come home, I finally got to go last weekend (September 19th and 20th, 2008). 

 I was so impressed.  I got to see so much that I thought I would never see except on TV.  The Ronald Reagan National Airport was AWESOME!  I could have sat at the little park beside it and watched the planes for days.  I was amazed at how one would leave on one side, another come in on another side and a minute later they would do the same.  The planes were huge and I got some great pictures. 

We had 5 people that went…my friend, her daughter (who is my daughter’s best friend), my daughter, her boyfriend, and myself. 

It started off that we were supposed to tour the White House at 9am on Friday September 19th.  We didn’t get out of Roanoke until 3:30am and by the time we actually got into Washington it was 8:40am and I had let my friend drive into Washington and once we got there I was going to drive.  I got out of the car and my daughter’s boyfriend told me that my pants had ripped.  Well my jeans didn’t just rip, they shredded into pieces right at my butt.  Guess what?  There is no drive thru McDonald’s or Burger King or any place like that to go too and change my pants so we didn’t get to the White House for the tour.  I hope we can go back in maybe December and tour it then when the Christmas decorations are up. 

Anyway, we stayed at The Raddison in Crystal City and it was great.  They have the “Sleep Comfort” mattresses and if I ever get my room cleaned out and a bedroom back I want one of those.  That was the most comfortable mattress I have ever slept on in my life.  Besides staying at resorts on vacation,  The Raddison was the best place I have ever stayed.  I wish we had known more about Crystal City though.  When we got home we found out that Crystal City has an underground shopping mall that you can go too and we missed it.  That really sucked that we didn’t know it until we got home. 

We got to see all the monuments and familiarized ourselves with Washington a lot.  We went through some of the tunnels that were in the city itself and they were kind of scary to me.  Cars were flying past us and all I could think of was when Princess Diana got killed in that tunnel and how I could see why if the cars were flying around them like they were us. 

My daughter finally got to visit the Holocaust Museum and that was a real adventure for her.  She was sad after they came out of that. 

I did learn that I don’t think I would want to live in a huge city like DC.  The car horns blowing at every little thing and getting lost constantly would drive me crazy.  LOL  As long as I could find 14th Street I was Okay but if we got to far from that then I was totally lost.  We did one time on Friday night get lost and ended up in what I called the ghetto of Washington and it was a little scary but ya know, all in all, the people in DC were very friendly.  They do cater to the handicapped a lot I think and that was good.  I got to park close to the places we wanted to go and see where others were riding tour buses,  walking for blocks, which I could not have done. 

The one thing that blew my mind was when we finally got to the Lincoln Memorial and saw the Reflection Pool.  I can get cold chills just from thinking about it.  That was the highlight for me and my camera was clicking every few seconds.  I took over 800 photo’s on our 2 day trip and if you want to see some of them then click on the link at the bottom of this page on the right where it says Flickr Photo Gallery.  That is where I put the majority of my photo’s now. 

Be back later with more about my family reunion and going to the Medieval Faire and lots more good stuff.