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Hello from our Nation’s Capital

We are back in the place that holds great memories.  First and foremost, its where Sarah and I met over 40 years ago.  Then, it’s where I lived from 2^nd grade thru the start of 10^th grade.  Finally, it’s where we, as a family, were stationed (Andrews AFB) for 3 years.  By the way, we were rewarded for surviving 3 years at AAFB by getting to spend the next 5 in Hawaii so I guess I should not complain too much.

While Sarah and I are quite familiar with the area, my SIL Susie has only been here once and that was for a quick 2-day visit.  My brother Steve also grew up here but he left in 1974 to head to Florida so it was an Old Home Visit for him as well.

Normally, we would just get in the car and start driving around.  But for those of you who have been to D.C. you know that not only is the driving difficult but finding parking, where you want it, is just about impossible.  So, we opted for driving to the New Carrolton train station and catching the light rail into D.C.  Must easier and so much less stress.  Oh, this particular train station holds great memories for my family.  When we were stationed at Andrews, it seemed that every time we were coming back from the D.C. airport we always ended up at New Carrolton before finding our way home.  Ah, the memories.

Once in the city, we took a 6-hour guided tour.  There were only 17 folks in our group and our tour guide was not only quite funny, but he was also very knowledgeable about D.C. and its history.  As you can guess, he and I traded trivia questions for the full 6 hours.  He stumped me once (what was MLK’s original name) and I stumped him once, (if President Biden is the 46^th president, why have only 45 people been president?  Why is the number system off by one).  So that means that twice on this trip we’ve met up with a person whose knowledge of history was truly amazing.  Makes the entire trip worthwhile already.

The tour took us all over the historic parts of the city concentrating on Memorials and Govt Bldgs.  We had lots of time to walk around and even got to take a 45 minute boat ride on the Potomac River.  It was a bright sunshiny day, but it was also windy and quite cold so we did our walking, took our pictures, and got back on our bus as fast as we could.  Sarah took most of the pictures that day while I concentrated on taking selfies at each location.  I tried to identify each photo with its location so if you did not know what you were looking at, you would. 

A couple of other highlights were while at the WWII Memorial Sarah looked up the name of a few relatives who fought in the war.  We got pictures of that.  At the Navy Memorial, she took a picture of the plaque for the USS Cleveland where her uncle served.  At the U.S. Capitol there are some pictures of the front lawn and the area just outside of the bldg.  That’s where Sarah and I were posted during President Regan’s first Inauguration.  I was an Usher, and she was Crowd Control and yes, that’s how we met.  Most of the Cherry Blossoms were gone but we found a few trees to take pictures of. 

Well, that about covers that day.  It was awesome getting back to visit places that are so filled with memories for us.  Today, we plan to go on a “Visit the old house” tour.  We will be starting in Dale City, VA where Sarah and I first lived when we got married.  Then we will go to Ft Meyer, VA where we both lived in the dorms when we met.  From there it is into Maryland to visit the places I lived in when I was much younger, Rockville, Greenbelt, and Bowie.  For dinner we are meeting up with a very dear friend.  Then tomorrow, it is off to Philly and a meeting with another dear friend.  In fact, it seems that between us and my brother we will be meeting up with dear friends from now until we leave Cleveland.  It makes the travel even more fun.

Well, enjoy the pictures and please post comments.

TTFN