I tried to do my best to prepare for my trip to Washington DC. I have been there a few times as a chaperone for school field trips, but this was my first time alone. In my previous visits I had not seen the White House or went up close to see the Lincoln Memorial, so those were things that I knew I wanted to fit in if possible.
As I was flying for my trip, I knew that I wasn’t going to be buying a bunch of books (like I did at GRIP) as I didn’t want to put my suitcase over the 50lb limit. I took some pictures of my genealogy book shelves in case I wasn’t sure if I owned a particular book or not.
I also took pictures of the music that my Great-Grandmother Inez Whittaker Larkin wrote and had copyrighted. I received a copy of it from the Library of Congress years ago, but I wanted to hold the original in my hands.
I flew out of Buffalo Sunday morning and arrived in DC around lunchtime. I had to figure out the Metro to get to the hotel and settle in. The Metro stop for my hotel has the longest escalator that I have ever seen! I had no idea that I was that low under ground! A second surprise is that cell service down there is just fine, but I can’t get it above the ground at work??
After a little while in the hotel, I decided to be bold and venture out to find the White House. The concierge gave me a map and I was off, back on the Metro!
As I was trying to find my way to the White House, I passed the Treasury. I put in my AirPods and started listening to Hamilton!
I made it over the White House and was disappointed for a few reasons. First, my view was blocked as the fence is under construction. Really? A Wall? SMH. The second disappointment was how many protesters were there. I’m sure that I am naive and that every President has protesters, but the quantity was shocking to me and made me very sad.
I saw many people on scooters and bicycles. I found one parked on a sidewalk and decided to try it. I just had to download the app, scan the QR code, and put in my payment. Then Scooter and I were off!
The scooter could go up to 11mph but I was nervous about falling off so when I came to crossing streets, I tended to get off and walk it. I thought that I was following the map to head towards the Library of Congress but I was going the wrong way and ended up at the National Archives.
I was excited to see NARA and knew enough from the webinars that I watched in preparation that for research you needed to go into this entrance and not the main one.
I then found the Washington Monument and followed the reflecting pool down to the Lincoln Memorial.
I found the sculpture garden and then started heading back towards the Metro to go back to the hotel.
As there were many people out and about, I was sometimes nervous to ride my scooter across intersections. As I was walking the scooter, I tripped in a pothole and skinned my knee really bad. So much for being graceful! I wasn’t even riding it when I fell!
