Anyone who has ever watched a news story coming from that other Washington has probably heard the term "Inside the Beltway." Well, Pop's got a thick locater guide that lists every Hampton Inn in the country and the directions how to find it. Thanks to the guidebook, we found one right inside the Beltway.
I had never been to Washington, D.C., but Pop had. As a matter of fact, it was at the National Naval Medical Center, in Bethesda, where my parents met. They were both patients there for many months, in the burn wards, recovering from burns they suffered during World War II. Pop was in the Navy; Mom was a Marine.
The temperature was warm, 88 degrees and humid, as we started our tourist trip through the capital.
I have a cousin, David Rapple, who is a National Park Ranger stationed in the National Parkland that makes up much of the District of Columbia. The national monuments and the federal buildings are all on what is considered national parkland.
All we had to do, he suggested, was drive into the District of Columbia and find Union Train Station, in front of which we could catch a Tourmobile tour bus. This bus service runs along The Mall, around the many monuments, across the Potomac River and through the Arlington National Cemetery and offers on and off loading at each stop for the purchase of only one ticket. The Tourmobile also is the only tour service recommended by the park department and is the only one allowed to stop at the various monuments.
After a number of wrong turns, in spite of having picked up three maps, we found Union Station. All the parking was full except for that on the roof. We then found that, because of construction, all the elevators were shut down and to reach the ground level we had to take three very scary, with a lot of open exposure over the side, escalators. On crutches, it was quite a ride.
We caught the Tourmobile and rode it past and through scenery I had seen previously only in pictures. When you're actually there, the scale of the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial or the Lincoln Memorial is something to behold. There were also many buses full of school children on field trips who were experiencing the same discoveries I was.
As we rode through Washington, we noticed that most flags were flying at half mast. When we inquired as to why, we were told that this was National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Week, honoring law officers who had died in the line of duty. There were also many police officers from all around the country present in town, and a number of them brought horses, for use in parades, with them.
We got off the Tourmobile at the Korean War Veterans Memorial and met my cousin. He had an electric "golf cart" in which he gave us a ride to the comparatively new National World War II Memorial, which Pop especially wanted to see.
My cousin then slipped into informative Park Ranger mode and explained various points of interest about the imposing structure. One of which was that the fountain height in the pool, separating the Atlantic and Pacific ends of the monument, was computer controlled depending on the wind velocity.
Also, when the memorial was under construction, the workers, without permission, had carved into the stone in an out-of-the-way location the words "Kilroy was here" along with the familiar face peering over a fence. When the controlling officials found out about the carved graffiti, they were delighted and insisted the lettering be painted in to match the rest of the lettering on the monument.
I particularly wanted to see the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. David parked the electric cart above the memorial, and as we walked down to the two triangular black reflective granite walls that contain the names of more than 58,000 men and women who perished, or are missing, my emotions took hold of me.
All along the base of the walls people have left notes and personal memorials, the park department also makes paper available to do name rubbings.
"Are there any particular names," David asked, "that you'd like to see?"
"No," I replied, "reading friends' names would only make me worse."
I simply put my hand on the wall, bowed my head and, with tears streaming down my face, prayed that this war in Iraq, as senseless as that one years ago in Asia, would soon end.
Over 2 million visitors come to the site each year, more than any other memorial in the city.
AT DINNER THAT NIGHT, I was so dehydrated that I drank four A&W-sized mugs of iced sweet tea in quick succession. I hadn't had anything else to drink all day.
The next morning as we prepared ourselves to resume our Lap of America, instead of partaking of the free continental breakfast we headed right out onto the Interstate. Two buses of schoolchildren were also taking advantage of the free breakfast and, well, it was just easier to get breakfast farther on down the road.
We stopped at the first Cracker Barrel restaurant we came to in Virginia. Cracker Barrel is a chain of more than 550 folksy restaurant/gift shops, located primarily at Interstate interchanges, in 41 states across the country, but primarily in the South and East. They're very big on nostalgia and interesting country artifacts hanging on the walls.
They also have for sale of all kinds of "country"-type games, recordings and "art" - think of varnished pine plaques with down-home Burma Shave sayings.
But they do serve country cooking, even if it is on a mass serving scale, and "Country Cookin' makes you Good Lookin'." We stopped for eggs, sausage, grits, biscuits and gravy, and coffee.
As we left Washington and started through the South, the Interstate off-ramps had names of towns I recognized from history classes as sites of battles in primarily the Civil War. It was only 476 miles to our next stop in Spartanburg, S.C. We're about halfway around on our Lap of America now. Once again, we'd be stopping to see old friends.
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