Carrie and Courtney beat us to Dulles by about 6 hours, which gave them time to rent a car and tour the city WITHOUT us. Kathy almost didn't make it out of Atlanta due to weather (it was rough up there that day, believe me)but she and I both made it, and the girls came back to the airport and picked us up. We were all excited and hungry, so we used the GPS to find the closest place still open, and ended up at the Outback. Don't we look a little "high"? We were waaaay excited!_
We had a wonderful host family, the Rader's, who welcomed us into their home, gave us advice and directions, and went the extra mile. Randy Rader is a federal judge with an office overlooking the White House and gardens. He not only took us into the city, saving us the challenge of parking, he let us use his wonderful office as a base to leave our duds and return later to use the women's locker room and showers to primp before the reception. Judge Rader introduced us to the security staff and told them to "be nice" to us! Here he is pointing out landmarks to Carrie.
A different view of the WWII memorial. If it hadn't been so COLD, we would have done a lot more with our photojournaling.
I highly recommend putting the White House Visitor's Center, across the street from the White House, at the top of your tour list when you go to DC. It will give you the flavor of what the city is about, by introducing you to the main feature influencing everything else around it. The gift shop provides a fantastic collection of White House memories, facts, items, stories and photos. We had about 45 minutes, plan on about 2 hours to really savor it. I got my favorite souvenir there, a White House History volume featuring the Chefs and their domain. My only disappointment of the trip was not being allowed to tour the White House kitchen - I asked the aide who was our coordinator if I could peek into the kitchen; she informed SHE hadn't even been allowed in there. Rats.
There's never a dull moment with Carrie along! The four of us had so much fun, lots of laughs and entertaining moments. Even with the difference in ages - we decided we were a good match to travel together.
Did I mention it was COLD?? A bright and sunny 20 degrees with enough wind to catch your breath. My ears have never been so cold! That's me under the hat, and most of the time the scarf was tied over my ears, too.
A really great view of the Archives building. Another must-see.
The figures in the mural were life-size - an incredible piece of art, I could have spent a lot more time in this room.
Kathy put her camera on Museum mode, so she could take pictures. No flashes are allowed, to prevent damage to the marvelous collection of freedom manuscripts. Again, we would have loved to spend more time browsing this unique collection, but the Reception was awaiting.
Stay tuned for a LOT more, we have pictures galore! More posts coming up, in a few days.
I fly home to Wisconsin tomorrow, April 2. My 10-week saga is drawing to an end. I'm sad to leave Arizona, but looking forward to seeing my gang again. And my cat will definately be happy!
I hope she is still speaking to me...
No comments:
Post a Comment