{"id":1027,"date":"2008-06-23T06:48:06","date_gmt":"2008-06-23T11:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=1027"},"modified":"2022-01-02T07:37:32","modified_gmt":"2022-01-02T12:37:32","slug":"how-to-do-dc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/?p=1027","title":{"rendered":"How to Do D.C."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Eyegal and I have been in Washington, D.C. since Wednesday for a little getaway plus a friend&#8217;s wedding, and we&#8217;ve compiled a list of tips on how to &#8220;do D.C.&#8221; I&#8217;ll probably have more to say about my impressions of this wonderful city and the wedding later in the week, but since we&#8217;re traveling back today this will have to do for now:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For outdoor touring, pick the one day in the summer when the temperature tops out at a mere 75 degrees with only a trace of humidity and a few scattered clouds. Oh wait&#8211;that was last Thursday and probably won&#8217;t happen again anytime soon. But we couldn&#8217;t have &#8220;planned&#8221; our outdoor tour of the city any better.<\/li>\n<li>There are numerous tour buses and trolleys that you could use, but the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trolleytours.com\/Washington-DC\/\">Old Town Trolley<\/a> worked pretty well for us, plus it had the added advantage of being the only one that had a route that took us to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cathedral.org\/cathedral\/\">Washington National Cathedral.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Speaking of which, its Gothic architecture and sparkling stained glass are beautiful and inspiring and worth the trip, and did you know that Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan are buried together in the crypt (i.e., basement) there? I didn&#8217;t, and I bet most of my Alabama friends don&#8217;t either. And, for any NASA geeks out there, don&#8217;t forget to check out the moon rock in the middle of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cathedral.org\/cathedral\/discover\/spacewindow.shtml\">&#8220;Space Window.&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The World War II memorial wasn&#8217;t the eyesore that a lot of people had whined about, so spend some time there. We thought it was very nice and in keeping with the heart and character of &#8220;The Greatest Generation.&#8221; I can see why so many of my patients are excited about it after having taken one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.honorflight.net\/about.html\">&#8220;Honor Flights&#8221;<\/a> from Huntsville to visit it.<\/li>\n<li>Remember to silence your cell phone when you visit JFK&#8217;s grave at Arlington. Just ask Eyegal&#8211;oops.<\/li>\n<li>Also, if your camera battery is five years old, replace it NOW. Otherwise, you&#8217;ll burn it up when you&#8217;re taking all those pictures of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns.<\/li>\n<li>Go see the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archives.gov\/exhibits\/charters\/\">Charters of Freedom<\/a> at the National Archives no matter how long the line is. It moves pretty quickly, and it&#8217;s worth it to get a chance to eyeball The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. I&#8217;m feeling a little more invested in and proud of my country as a result. I had told the boys that I was going to D.C. to steal the Declaration of Independence and kidnap The President, a la Nicholas Cage in the <em>National Treasure<\/em> movies, but one look at that big burly security guard standing watch over the documents changed my mind. She looked awfully tough.<\/li>\n<li>If possible, see D.C. at night, especially The Capital Building. Many thanks to Nic and Diane who gave us the million dollar nighttime tour. We felt like VIP diplomats, what with the way he whipped that Honda Pilot around, stopping on a dime and hopping any curb to let us out and walk while he circled the block a few times.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re going to have lunch with a couple of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hipster_(contemporary_subculture)\">hipsters<\/a> (say, your newly-graduated William and Mary alum niece and her boyfriend) at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dosgringoscafe.com\/\">a vegan bistro located in an ethnically diverse central D.C. neighborhood<\/a>, then be sure to wear something besides a Nike polo and khaki shorts and try to hit the tanning booth a few times before you go. I&#8217;ve never felt so old&#8211;or white&#8211;in my life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There&#8217;s more&#8211;so much more&#8211;and that&#8217;s not even including the wedding (Maryland-born, WASPish groom marrying a Southern California, Japanese-Filipino bride).  There&#8217;s a community column in there somewhere, and perhaps you&#8217;ll see the bits and pieces of that come together over the next week or so.<\/p>\n<p>But first, there&#8217;s breakfast, BWI and the flight home to Huntsville. I know one thing for sure&#8211;D.C. is no longer that distant, disembodied &#8220;other&#8221; place that the pundits talk about so much on TV.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s &#8220;my town&#8221; too, and truth be told, always has been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eyegal and I have been in Washington, D.C. since Wednesday for a little getaway plus a friend&#8217;s wedding, and we&#8217;ve compiled a list of tips on how to &#8220;do D.C.&#8221; I&#8217;ll probably have more to say&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,49,20,92,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-history","category-huntsville","category-huntsville-times-community-columns","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9391,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1027\/revisions\/9391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ocularfusion.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}