Rising above it all
Monday, July 9 (Day 14) The mild weather we enjoyed in the early days of our vacation is now a distant memory. We started the day in Washington, D.C., where it was easily in the mid- to upper-90s by early afternoon. Because I waited too long to reserve tour tickets for the Washington Monument and could only book them over the Internet for this morning at 10 a.m., we had to begin our day early to arrive at the scheduled time.
I got up around 7 a.m., and we were out the door by 8:30 for a half-hour walk to the Washington Monument. There should have been some excitement over getting to go to the top of the tallest structure in D.C., but Roni was in a poor mood because she hadn't slept well, and Ben generally hasn't been enthusiastic about much of anything that we have done until after the fact, so I was doing my best to keep the troops pumped up. I had been inside the monument 30 years ago and knew the view from 500 feet up was worth the trip. I think we were all feeling a bit wiped out from two days of strenuous walking in the heat, and because we had already seen the monument twice from the outside and photographed it from a dozen different angles, there wasn't much new to seeing it a third time.
When we arrived at the ticket kiosk at 9 a.m., the line already was very long. Fortunately we just had to go to will call and show the ranger our reservation confirmation number and we got our tickets without delay. We made our way to the base of the monument where the 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. groups were already seated on benches to await their turn in the monument. It turned out that one of the elevators in the monument had suffered mechanical problems that put the tours behind schedule. Our group went in about 15 minutes late. Once inside, it was the familiar drill of security screenings, only this time we had to empty our pockets of all objects. No consistency whatsoever between attractions.
After the screenings, we went up in a group of about a dozen for the elevator ride to the top. When they let us off, we could view the lay of the land from all four compass points and take our photos for as long as we wished. I got some great shots of the Lincoln Memorial to the west, but the Capitol on the east side was shrouded in haze. Too much heat.
After checking out the view for a while, we visited the gift shop before returning to street level. The tour had taken a little longer than expected, leaving us about 45 minutes before our noon checkout time at the hotel. Rather than face the heat again walking back, we decided to take advantage of the Circulator bus. After picking up some snacks at one of the refreshment stands, we picked up the bus and got back to the hotel around 11:30. We had gathered together most of our belongings the night before, so it was a simple matter of carting the suitcases out to the car, which was still sitting in its space in the parking garage. It took some major reconfiguring of the luggage to get it all to fit in the trunk again. We once again have a massive garbage bag filled with dirty clothes. Our suitcases are half empty, but there are bags of souvenirs looking for a home inside them. We'll need to get it all figured out before Wednesday morning.
It had been nearly three days since I'd last driven the Taurus. It had brought us in to town with less than a couple gallons in the tank, and now the gauge was warning me that it had about 41 miles left before empty. No problem, I thought, we'd be well out of downtown and into the gas-rich suburbs before then.
We didn't take a direct route out of town, however. First we detoured by the Tidal Basin to get a peek at the Jefferson Memorial. We took some photos of it from across the basin, but agreed not to stop for a closer look inside because we'd spent all morning on the mall and wanted to move along. Our second stop was Arlington National Cemetery, which apart from giving us another look at a very famous landmark also took us into Virginia.We visited the gift shop and took a short walk through the Women's Memorial, bathing in our own sweat. For the effort we'd put in we could have hiked up to the JFK eternal flame or the Tomb of the Unknowns. The best way to see those was by bus, but we didn't want to spend that long on yet another tour. We looked at the fields of headstones for a few moments and then got back in the car.
I was becoming concerned because the gas gauge was falling rapidly toward empty.It was telling me I had just 20 miles of fuel remaining when I knew we hadn't driven anywhere near 21 miles from the hotel. We still had to conquer the downtown streets and there wasn't a gas station in sight. We drove past the front of the White House for another fleeting glimpse and tried to find I-395 to take us toward Delaware. It seemed that every street I drove down was under construction or a one-way road. I missed the ramp to the freeway and had to loop around through the traffic maze a second time, growing more frantic as the fuel level dipped dangerously close to empty.
At last I found the ramp and we drove southbound, which Roni said would take us to the connecting highway we needed to get to Delaware. I was less concerned about that than I was with finding a gas station, fearful that at any moment the car would sputter out in the middle of a freeway. It didn't, fortunately, and eventually I found a Sunoco station where I put in just $40 worth of fuel, figuring we wouldn't need much more than that to sustain us until we dropped the car off at the rental return. Roni paid extra to Budget for the privilege of being able to bring the car back without a full tank. I'm not sure that's really a benefit to us as they will charge us for the gas we used regardless, but that's what she paid for.
Of course we chose the wrong direction when finding the interstate, but before we realized our mistake and that we were headed away from Delaware, we were crossing into Alexandria, Va. This was a bit more of Virginia than I desired to see today. We turned the car around and continued back to Highway 50.
We passed through Annapolis, Md., and Dover, Del., without ever seeing the state capitols. But we did find the Dover Downs racetrack where NASCAR holds two races each summer. We got pictures of the outside. We ate lunch at a McDonald's outside of Annapolis.
It was 7:30 when we arrived at out hotel in Thorofare, N.J. The Best Western West Depford Inn is located about 24 miles east of Philadelphia and 10 miles west of my grandparents' house in Sewell. We chose it because it is convenient to the Philadelphia airport. We are in Room 117. We had dinner at the attached 501 Bar & Grill. A bit pricey, but OK food. I spent the rest of the evening sorting out souvenirs and packing them neatly into a suitcase so we'll be ready for the trip to the airport Wednesday.