Our first day in Washington for many years and we are headed into town. If it’s cool and cloudy, we will visit a museum, if it is sunny, we’ll tour all the monuments. We had the directions for the trains and buses: take the 81 bus to the Greenbelt station but, since it is being repaired, take the shuttle to the College Park station and get on the Metro. Got it? Yep, we can get to the Metro - but then our problems began. Buying a ticket on the little machines. Hmm. Luckily there was a woman there to help us all. Then we got to the turnstiles and I got through fine. When Gary put his little card into the turnstile, some woman exited through before he could enter through. And she didn’t speak English. Confusion - we thought she had taken his fare and now he would have to pay again. But, again the helpful woman was there and straightened us all out.
We had an absolutely marvelous day in DC, walking around and seeing all the monuments and memorials on the Mall. I’ve been her at least 8 times and Gary has been here multiple times and I still thrill to see the monuments. And, we toured them all along with 50,000 of our nearest and dearest friends. Here’s the new WWII Memorial. Everyone likes to find their own state.
We hadn’t seen the Martin Luther King monument until today.
The Korean War Monument is almost ghostlike in its depiction of the soldiers in a war that has never been declared a war.
We had hoped to see at least a few cherry blossoms but, we were too late. But the Jefferson Monument is beautiful anyway.
We met an older gentleman, about 90, who used a walker to get around. He wanted a bench with arms so he could use them to help himself up but all he found were these.
Nice benches but he couldn’t sit down because he’d never be able to get back up.
Here are two parts of the Vietnamese War Memorial - one for men and one for women.
And then it was time to head home - I think that’s our train coming into the station.
So, who thinks that politeness had died and that courtesy has gone by the wayside? Today we saw two great examples of kindness to strangers. When we were on the Metro on our way back to camp, every seat was filled when two women with a stroller and a child got on. 3 men in the front immediately got up and offered their seats and stood the whole way back.
The second example: I looked down on the sidewalk and saw $6.00 there, a $1.00 and a $5.00. I told Gary who was closer to reach down and get them which he did - and there was no one around who could have lost these. Sweet. A minute later a young man caught up with us and asked if the $5.00 he had just picked up was ours. Nope, it was not. We all looked around to see who might have dropped this money but no one was around. So - we are $6.00 richer and he is $5.00 richer.
On the other had I was terribly embarrassed by the lack of toilet paper in our public facilities - especially when we have so many foreign tourists in Washington DC. Luckily I’m getting over a small cold and had lots of Kleenex with me. But the line of older Japanese ladies who came in after me - well, to have no toilet paper there was embarrassing. The sign on the entry apologized for the facilities and told us all that the next bathroom was up at the White House VC - about 2 blocks away.
Strangely, I’ve just had an e-mail from a friend who is traveling in Europe now and she tells me that the bathrooms cost money there. Hmmm. Ours are free but lack toilet paper, theirs cost money but might be fully supplied.
OK, we’ve had the Monumental part of the day, now for the Misadventure of the day: getting back to the campground. Getting on the Metro was fine - Gary got through the turnstile fast - no one could steal his fare this time. Quiet subway ride back to the bus station. We got off at the College Park station since the last station on the line, the Greenbelt, was being repaired. We looked for the shuttle bus to take us to the Greenbelt, got on and rode the 15 minutes, getting there well in time for the 6:55 bus to take us back to the campground - the last one of the day. When we got off, one of the bus drivers told us that the 6:55 bus did not stop here but he could get us back to the College Park stop - possibly in time to get on the 6:55 bus from there. And we took a 15 minute shuttle back to College Park station. When we got there we found out that the 6:55 bus really did leave from the Greenbelt station and got a shuttle ride back to this station. This is the 3rd time that we have ridden the shuttle between these two stops. BUT - and you know what I’m going to say now - it was 7:20 and that 6:55 bus had long gone. Hmmm. Now what. Well there are lots of taxis there and we could take one of those. Let’s see: $4.00 for the first minute and the ticker keeps going higher from there. Or - we could walk. Gary checked his app for hiking and - voila - it was only 2.4 miles.
It’s not dark, we ‘love’ to walk, we’ve got a Smartphone with maps and we were off. Back before dark and two tired tourists. We’ll sleep well tonight.
It’s a Sunday when the schedule normally changes, the last stop on the line is under repair so this caused more changes, the bus driver didn’t know what he was saying - all combined to give us a mis-adventurous ending to our day.
‘At my age, ‘getting lucky’ means finding my car in the parking lot.’
Anonymous
No comments:
Post a Comment