Road Warrior Momma: Washington D.C. 2016

Mini Road Trip – Days 2-4

Chattanooga, TN – Bethesda, MD

610 miles/10 hours

Sorry for the laptop charger debacle. And now…trying to catch upJ! I’ve also managed to lose my phone charge. Yikes.

The drive across Virginia, which is truly a very large state, was long. And boring. I listened to a dreadful book the whole time. I cannot reveal the title, because I’d feel bad, but ugh. About 20 miles from Bethesda, around Fairfax, we hit a wall of traffic. There was a bad accident and it wasn’t fun. When we got to the hotel, around 7 PM, there were no more connecting rooms. Hotel was booked solid with families for a soccer tournament. The pool was not an option, as it looked like a party going on there. We met Uncle Lance for dinner, but didn’t have a reservation. Big mistake, as we had to wait two hours for a table (and faced similar wait times everywhere we went). We lost two kids to the Sandman by the time the food hit the table.

For our second day in DC, we went to Great Falls, which is a national park. I believe the correct park name is the B & O Canal National Park. I will spare you the description of why this is so, but it is very pretty and we took a little hike. It was also very, very hot. We wanted to go into DC, to see a couple of monuments since a few of the kids really don’t remember our previous visits to the Mall. But Uncle Lance had warned us that Rolling Thunder was in town, which is a convention (for lack of a better work) that brings 10,000 motorcyclists to the district to remember our fallen veterans. Traffic was a nightmare. We couldn’t get over the bridges into DC, and ended up at National Airport, where we parked and watched the planes fly in for landings. The kids thought that was really cool, but it made me extremely nervous!

Heading north on the GW Parkway, back to the hotel, the traffic was better and we did manage to sneak into DC. We stopped at the Jefferson Memorial. By the time we finished there, the crowds and motorcycles seemed to have doubled and I was nervous that we’d get stuck in the city. Later, I’d see in the news that Trump was speaking on the mall, which explains some of the helicopters above.

Back at the hotel, I met up with one of my blogging friends, Kristi Campbell, and her son. We tried to swim in the pool, but the rain chased us away – so we hung out in the hotel and visited for about an hour and a half. It was fun, but way too short. After that, we went out to dinner with Uncle Lance again and really had a very nice night.

For our last day, we headed up to Baltimore. We drove by Rich’s old house and our former home in Ellicott City. We also stopped to see his grandparents’ graves. Then we headed to Camden Yards to watch the O’s play my Red Sox. It was the first MLB game for Barrett and Camden. We had a lot of fun – it was a great way to spend Memorial Day. And, the Red Sox won!!!!!

Early dinner and early to bed – heading to Delaware next.