GPS saves Lives

Well maybe not lives, but marriages for sure. Washington is a hive, the basic layout of the main grid is sensational, streets running east-west are Lettered (A-W) and streets running north-south are numbered (1-22), plus there are many diagonal streets named for states of the union, like Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New York Avenues. But the rest of the pace is a maze of one-way streets, curving expressways and cryptic exits that go in unexpected directions. GPS is a MUST.

The Mall is the central focus of the city and it's bordered by Constitution and Independence Avenues of course. It's bookended by the Capitol at one end and the Lincoln Memorial at the other with the Washington Monument in the middle. The Malls patchy early-Spring grass is lined with the various Smithsonian Institutes, museums to die for, Natural History, Art, American History and of course the famous Air and Space Museum. James Smithson, a Brit and scientist, bequeathed his wealth in 1826 to the USA and no one really knows why, but his money was placed in trust by the US government and used to build a mighty repository of the worlds knowledge in the US capital.

The most amazing stuff is in the Smithsonian, the original Wright Bros flier, Dorothy's actual Ruby Slippers, the hat Honest Abe Lincoln was wearing the night he was assassinated, the actual Apollo 11 command module and the space suits Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon in, the original Kermit the Frog muppet, the gloves Ali used against Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle, the X1 rocket plane that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in... man the list is endless, a wish-list of awesome 20th century bric-a-brac. We were very lucky today... we saw all of the above. My plan was to simply go to the Air and Space Museum, a goal from early childhood, and lo-and-behold they're also showing a best of American history on the upper level. So we rubbed shoulders with Chuck, Gus and Buzz in the main halls and then got to see Judy's shoes, an R2 unit and his nerdy friend 3PO (who's the nerd?-Ed), Ali's jaw breakers... and the list goes on. It was a cool day.

Actually I'm getting a little ahead of myself, can you tell I'm a little giddy? Might be the beer... the day started in great style, no clouds, 20 degrees and short sleeves. The plan was to 'museum' today as it's Friday and hopefully there would be smaller crowds, then tomorrow we would stalk the various monuments in the open. Jumped in the car and headed west over the Potomac trying to find the Iwo Jima monument. I couldn't work out how to ask the GPS for directions and so screwed up our approach, to be fair I only made one wrong turn and I was flying pretty blind. Jo worked out the Magellan and got us on the right track, fate delivering us the perfect parking space within walking distance of a classic WW2 image.

From the monument to US Marines we walked to Arlington National Cemetary, also known as the Field of Stone. The cherry blossoms have just bloomed so the gardens are particularly pretty, but the stones just went on forever, no photos or movies can ever do it justice... The tulips were also out at the Netherlands Clarion, a present from the Dutch to the US after WW2, and the kids enjoyed some mucking around in the gardens. From there we tried to hit the Pentagon and only succeeded in skirting the car park, man this place is a fricken maze, damn the political labyrinth it's actually hard to find you're way around.

Anyway, we had lunch at the Spy Cafe and had MI-5 and Langley dogs before returning to our hotel and hitting the pool. Tomorrow we're booked on a bike tour of the DC sites, hopefully the kids can hack the 3 hour ride we have in store. No photos uploaded yet, far to tired to be bothered sorry.

Andy, out.