Day 160 (Part 1) - Arlington National Cemetery & the Pentagon, DC

We packed a huge amount of sight-seeing in yesterday, probably too much for just one day but we had cracked through most of the key sites in Washington DC. The only big omission was Arlington National Cemetery which we decided to do this morning before heading to our next destination, Baltimore.

The cemetery was an easy 10 minute drive from our hotel, just over the other-side of the Potomac river.

We pulled into the cemetery and were directed by stewards into a multistory car park where we sat waiting for what seemed like ages (and was probably less than a minute) whilst the car in front of us carefully straightened themselves up again, and again and again after pulling into a space. Compared to the UK, the parking spaces in the US are huge, I guess they have to be for all the monster trucks that we see driving around yet it still amazes us how some people still manage to make a pigs ear out of parking. They should try parking in the UK!

After leaving the car park, we headed to the security line where we were greeted by a very large queue and two security guards with over inflated egos who must have thought they were herding sheep rather than humans today. We gritted our teeth and eventually passed into the building. We were in the visitors center. The cemetery is run by the National Parks service and we were pleased to see the familiar sight of a National Parks Ranger passing out maps and offering advice. We popped into the gift shop to pick up a stamp for our National Parks Passport, one of the final ones I think we're going to have on this trip and headed out into the cemetery. 

There is no driving around the cemetery. You can either walk or pay for one of the tours on electric trains. We decided to walk as we wanted some exercise and we wanted to explore on our own rather with a huge crowd of tourists. 

After a short walk, we reached our first stop, the John F. Kennedy grave site where we saw the eternal flame (a flame that is constantly lit although you can't see it very well in our photos below). It was strange to think how much of our trip had involved learning about the last few days of Kennedy's life from his trips to San Antonio and Fort Worth, to his final day in Dallas to now standing at his gravestone. We had driven down the road he was shot, walked along the pavement next to his motorcade and stood on the hill it was filmed but now we were standing next to the site of his final resting place and a monument to his memory. 

Unfortunately, we were not the only the only people to be visiting this grave, it is one of the most popular in the 624-acre cemetery and also one of the closest to get to from the visitors center. As a result, the poignant moment was lost among the hustle of tourists, many of whom were taking selfies.  

We continued walking through the cemetery which once we had moved away from the Kennedy memorial, turned out to be very quiet and empty of people. The majority of the gravestones were for military personal and it was interesting reading about the different ranks, roles, where they served and in a number of cases, just how young they were when they died. There were graves with a man on one side and his wife on another, sometimes even with a child added in too.   

We eventually reached the Memorial Amphitheater, the site of Memorial Day and Veterans Day ceremonies which has been visited by every American President except Woodrow Wilson (who had a stroke) since it was built in 1921 

Just the other side of the Amphitheater is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a monument dedicated to U.S. service members who have died without their remains being identified. We sat and watched the guard walking the mat and were surprised by the complete silence from the large crowd that was watching.

Our next stop was at a site that Lee really wanted to visit, the Space Shuttle Columbia Memorial and Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial both located next to one another. 

We headed back towards the visitors center stopping off at one slightly unusual memorial along the way, the Pan Am Flight 103 Memorial. This chimney looking structure is made of 270 blocks of red Scottish sandstone, each brick memorializes one of the 270 lives lost in the terrorist attack on the United States when Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed Dec. 21, 1988, over Lockerbie.

We left the cemetery feeling thoughtful. This is definitely a place to visit if are in Washington DC and whilst our choice to walk may have resulted in aching feet for a second day in a row, it gave us an opportunity to really take in the atmosphere and appreciate the calmness, stillness and thinking space this place provides.

Back on the road, there was one last stop off we wanted to make before hitting the road to Baltimore, we both wanted to see the Pentagon. We knew there was going to be no way we were going to be allowed a tour of any kind in the United States Department of Defense but we thought we might be able to get a look at the outside. 

We actually did better than we thought, we were able to go into the car park and take a brief look at the outside. We were both a little on edge, worried about what we could and could not do. I was pretty sure they wouldn't like us taking photos even on a Sunday when no one was working. Feeling shifty, looking guilty and concerned that just saying "we wanted to see the Pentagon" was not going to be a good enough excuse for being here, we left quickly. 

Our journey out of Washington was similar to the journey in just without the pouring rain and black sky but we didn't mind as we had had an awesome time and were now looking forward to our next destination, Baltimore. 

Lee Special - A Trip to the Gas Station

On our trip, we filled up with petrol (gas) over 80 times, so we got the hang of the various idiosyncrasies of US gas stations. Here are just a few things we learnt or noticed:

Pocnozopam

A lot of places allow you to pay at the pump, but more often than not I went and pre-paid inside the gas station. This was partly because we'd be heading inside to use the restroom and/or fill up with coffee anyway, and partly due to Zipcode Anxiety. This is a condition whereby UK residents don't know what to do when prompted for a 5-digit postal (zip) code when paying with a credit card at the pump. We have had rental cars in the US many times before, and this always stumped me.

However, at some point during the road-trip we found out a remedy for Zipcode Anxiety. This is known as the UK Postal Code Numerics Only Zero Padding Manoeuvre - or Pocnozopam. It goes like this:

• take your UK postcode (RG22 4XD)
• remove all non-numerics (224)
• add zeros onto the end until you arrive at 5 digit (22400)
• use this as the zip code

This worked like a treat. 22400 isn't even a valid US zipcode, so some magic must be going on behind the scenes when processing a foreign card. Neat!

Enjoy this handy tip - and let me know if you've successfully used Pocnozopam on your travels - or simply just knew about it all along!

Pump Jockeys

In the vast majority of the states, you pump your own gas. We had been alerted to the fact that, when we reached Oregon, we should stay in our car and let an attendant - or pump jockey - do this for us, as self-service gas is banned by state law. Lo and behold: upon arriving at a gas station in Oregon I was about to get out of Fin when I was startled to find a guy waiting at the driver's window. He did the business, swiped my card, and I was off on the road again.

Apparently New Jersey has pump jockeys too, but I don't think we had to fill up in NJ.

This is another example of state laws giving the impression that the United States are a collection of autonomous countries rather than states. Why one state would deem self-service gas dangerous and the one next door not is baffling.

Hands-free Pumping

A common feature of US gas pumps is a small clip that allows you to wedge the pump lever open and thus lets you let go of the pump. The pump still has the automatic cut-off that we're used to in the UK.

Although this is very marginally controversial, due to a small number of cases where this has caused a fire, I think this is a great idea and would love to see it introduced back in the UK. In a distant corner of my memory, I swear I've seen one of these clips in the UK, but can't remember when or where.

Price Variations

Over the course of the road trip, average gas prices varied by only about 5%, but we saw a massive variation in the price we paid as we headed around the country. Generally-speaking, the further West you travelled, the more expensive gas became. There is also supposed to be a bit of a spike as you hit the North-East, but we didn't really experience that.

I put together a little graph of the prices we paid at the pump:

You can see that the difference between the least and most we paid was $2.00 - this is an 84% difference! But just to put things in perspective, you can see how much we have to pay back in the UK, so quit moaning Californians :)

Estimating the Pre-Pay

As previously discussed, most of the time we pre-paid for fuel and I got quite good at estimating how much to pay. A glance at Fin's fuel gauge and another one up at the price board and I quickly came to a value between $30 and $50.

Only a couple of times did I over-estimate. The first of these I went back to the till to ask about a refund, and was told that it would automatically be credited back onto my card. Making a note of this, I checked on my next statement and this all worked as promised, so no problems there.

Services

We saw very, very few equivalents of what we would call motorway services - areas with not only gas stations but also fast food outlets, shops, local information and public toilets - in the US. Because of this, it seemed, most gas stations didn't give two hoots if you popped in just to use the toilets. After being a bit sheepish doing this the first time, we soon became more brazen.

Having said this, most of the times we did use the loos we also picked up snacks or drinks - just to make sure it wasn't long until Sam needed to make another emergency gas station stop!

Updated with Video

Day 158 & 159 - Washington DC

We arrived in DC under very dark skies which soon delivered their soggy payload onto the backed-up rush hour traffic that we had found ourselves part of. With Sam navigating, we painfully weaved our way to our hotel for the next two nights: Hotel Hive.

This was a hotel I was really looking forward to staying in. It was a little pricey compared to some of the others that Sam had found, and I had to convince Sam that it was worth the extra spend.

And oh lordy, it was!

At time of writing, it is justifiably rated 2nd of the 148 DC hotels on TripAdvisor. We managed to bag one of the best rooms in the hotel - a hexagon-themed room at the very apex of the hotel. Being a self-styled "micro-hotel" the rooms were small but very functional and superbly finished. You'll see the room in the video. Some people might feel a little exposed being surrounded by so much glass, but laying on the bed and seeing the outside in almost every direction was really fun.

We knew parking would be a problem in DC, but front desk managed to sort us out with a parking spot in an attended multi-story car park just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel, which was ideal.

After dumping our stuff in the room, we decided we'd stay in the hotel this evening and start exploring properly tomorrow. The bar, equally cosy, was packed, but we managed to squeeze in at the bar for a few beers and a homemade pizza. This is just what we needed after the arduous journey in.

The next day we awoke to glorious sunshine. Aware that we only had one full day to explore the nation's capital, we set off on foot towards the National Mall. Sorry, Sam, not a shopping mall - rather a long, thin landscaped park that contains many of the iconic locations of Washington DC.

There were a lot of people out and about. Many of these were formed of large groups - either school kids or Asian tourists. This made it somewhat tricky to navigate the Mall, and our planned route around the sights had to make several detours to get to our next stop before the kids or tourists descended.

Our first stop (via a coffee shop to avoid Sam's quickly approach caffeine deprivation meltdown) was the Lincoln Memorial, followed by the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the Three Servicemen Statue,  the Vietnam Women's Memorial the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a circuit of the Reflecting Pool, the DC War Memorial and the World War II Memorial. We didn't have time to head over to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, so had to admire it from afar.

I had been to DC with work before, and I was looking forward to taking Sam up to the top of the Washington Monument as I has really enjoyed that before. We arrived at the Monument and much to my horror it was all fenced off with signs saying it was "Closed Indefinitely for Repairs". I was gutted! Apparently the Monument has been plagued with issues ever since a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in 2011.

Sam vented her frustration in a strange manner: visiting one of the public restrooms and accidentally dropping our only map of the Mall down the toilet. Things were not going well.

After discarding our soggy map, we used our phone to guide us to our next stop, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. We have been pretty picky when it comes to visiting museums on this trip, but this museum was very impressive indeed. It was free too! There didn't seem to be much continuity in the various exhibits - it felt like a whole load of separately-curated exhibits thrown into one building - but this place was well worth the visit all the same.

We then headed away from the Mall and towards the White House. We had already checked on Trump's schedule and he was due to leave the White House around the time we were there. As we approached, many of the roads were cordoned off and big crowds had gathered, so we knew we hadn't missed him.

I'm not really sure why I was so keen to see him board his chopper and leave, but as the Marine One lifted off and flew directly over us, I made sure I gave the 45th President of the United States a cheery wave and a friendly salutation*.

Once he had gone, the roads were opened up and we were free to get a bit of a closer look at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. By now our feet were aching and our mouths were dry so we headed to DC's oldest bar and restaurant, Old Ebbitt Grill. After enjoying a couple of beers and some chicken wings - of course - we continued our exploring.

Time was against us, so we jumped in an Uber towards our last two stops of the day. We wandered around the impressive Union Station for a bit before making our way to the US Capitol. We had seen a number of State Capitols on this trip, so we couldn't visit DC without ticking off the most important of them all.

This end of the Mall is a good 50-minute walk back to the hotel, and there was no way our feet would have let us do this, so it was back in an Uber. After a quick freshen up, we headed to the rooftop bar at the hotel which was very cool indeed. After a couple of beers in the evening twilight, we were both ready for food.

Acting on the recommendation of our driver earlier, we headed to 14th & U. This area had a lot of violent history during the aftermath of MLK's assassination, but was now a bustling area of culture and nightlife. We had both been craving sushi for a while, and despite it maybe being a bit of a strange choice for DC, we headed to Toku Japanese and Asian Cuisine.

The sushi was good, reasonably priced, and sitting at the sushi bar was quite chilled. After our fill of fish, sake and Saporro, we headed onto the bustling, noisy streets.

Earlier in the trip, we had a good mix of camping in the great outdoors and then hitting the cities. After a couple of nights in one, we'd be longing for the other. This was the case in both directions: camping to city, and city to camping. As we've headed to the North East - partly due to the weather and partly due to the lack of large, federally-protected wildernesses - our camping/city spilt has leaned heavily towards the latter. Seeing these great towns and cities has been superb, but we have started to feel a bit jaded by them. Rather than making a fire and kicking back with a tinny listening to the wildlife and wondering whether a bear would finally have us for dinner, we found ourselves spending more and more time in the company of more human wildlife which was somehow less appealing.

Tonight was a case in point. After one drink in a bustling bar, we got the first available Uber and skipped past the hotel bar and straight to our room. Trying to do DC in one day is not something I'd recommend, but we gave it a good shot. Of course there was a lot of stuff we missed. We will be back at some stage (when the Washington Monument is open again) and for more than one full day this time. And when we do, I'll be canvassing Sam for a stay at Hotel Hive :)

* maybe

Day 158 - Cape May Ferry and Lewes, DE

The weather was beautiful in Atlantic City, we didn't realise just how lucky we had been until we woke up this morning. It was grey outside, the rain was just starting to come down and it was cold enough for us to pack away our shorts and dig out the jeans and jumpers again. 

We met a fellow English lady vacationing in Atlantic City who now lived in New Jersey and often did the drive to and from Atlantic City to get in some adult time without the kids. When we told her we were headed to Washington DC, she told us not to take the Interstate which is notoriously busy and slow and instead take the Cape May Ferry over to Delaware and take the back roads for as long as we go until we were close enough to the city to jump on the interstate again. 

We decided to follow her advice so we packed up, checked out and headed in Fin down the Garden State Parkway until we reached Mile Marker 0 and Cape May. 

We arrived a little earlier for the ferry so we decided to check out the town of Cape May and the beach. Cape May is a seaside resort located right at the top of the tip of southern New Jersey’s Cape May Peninsula. Opposite the beach were huge grand Victorian houses, many of them converted into B&Bs or museums but a number looked like they were still privately owned and lived in. When we walked onto the beach itself, we realised that had we arrived a couple of months earlier, we would probably be walking onto a packed beach. The sand was soft, clean and seemed to go on for miles, there were really good facilities with toilets, showers, and picnic areas. Whilst we didn't get to see the beach in its full glory on a sunny day, we were the only people there and it was nice to have it all to ourselves. 

We headed back on the road and towards the ferry terminal located just 10 minutes away. We didn't have a reservation but as it was the off season, we were able to just show up, pay for a ticket and jump on the next ferry.  

The trip took around 80 minutes and cost $28 for a one way ticket. We had been told that it was a great ferry route for spotting whales and dolphins so despite the slight drizzle, we sat out on the deck for the entire journey looking out to see trying to spot a fin in the water. We didn't see a dolphin or a whale but we did have fun watching the birds going crazy behind the boat and then flying with us all the way over to Lewes in Delaware.

We arrived in Delaware, the second smallest state in the USA! Once off the ferry, we decided to drive around Lewes, this was our only planned stop in Delaware so we needed to make the most of the time we had. 

Compared to New Jersey, it felt like we had gone back in time. Lewes doesn't have the huge houses, the glamour or the money that we felt was in New Jersey but it did feel more like a historic local town rather than a tourist hotspot. 

We didn't want to arrive into Washington DC in the dark so we decided it was time to make some tracks. The advice we were given about taking the Cape May ferry was really good, the drive from Lewes to Washington DC was mainly down quiet country roads. We had a lot of interesting farms and villages to look at along the way making the drive seem a lot shorter than it actually was. 

We eventually headed over the border into Maryland where we had no choice but to pick up the Interstate into Washington DC and our destination for the next two nights.