Last Days in Washington DC

Dateline: Washington D.C.
December 1 – 7, 2007

Well, we have only fourteen days left of our trip and we have spent this past week enjoying some of the “other” things to do in Washington, DC. We have been wandering the streets, popping in-and-out of locally owned businesses and eateries, enjoying the first snow of the season, and all of the different neighborhoods in the city. It is amazing what a small amount of snow can do to one city, and as you walk from one “district” (that is what they call a neighborhood here) to another, you can almost see their distinct internal personalities by talking with the people, looking at the buildings and businesses, and just the action on the streets. It was also quite humorous to listen to and read about all of the pissed off people who were inconvenienced by the snow and ice. They immediately blamed the bureaucrats (at all levels of government) for incompetence, who in turn, blamed the weather forecasters!! However, the Skins played Da’ Bears last night here (finally won a game), and they had 80,000 out at (RFK) Fed Ex Stadium freezing their butts off. As we have mentioned in previous blogs, the weather forecasters here are correct only about 50% of the time, so you have to take your weather forecast with a grain of salt, and be prepared for whatever. Because we walk everywhere or ride Metro, no big deal for us (of course we are used to much more snow and cold weather at home during the winter, so the couple of inches they got here is sort of “ho-hum.”)

Saturday, Carol went to Kennedy Center to buy and have personally autographed Caroline Kennedy’s new book. After being told that she couldn’t stay inside the building because it was closed until 10:00 a.m. she went outside to wait the eight minutes and watched the secret service interviewing the staff for the big gala on Sunday. Bush was attending the event and the S.S. preparations were EXTENSIVE! When the hour of 10:00 came the security guard told her she could come in and find her way to the gift shop. Well, guess what…our “it’s closed” luck stayed with us and she found out that Caroline Kennedy would not be signing books, but if she bought the books she could come back on Monday and the books “may or may not” be autographed. She took the chance, bought the books and got back on the train to come back to the apartment.

Saturday and Sunday we spent like most Washingtonians. We relaxed and watched football and read the nice, fat Sunday newspaper and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet of our apartment. Sunday evening we spent with Steve and Suzanne Swendiman and Joan and Larry Naake, with whom Carol used to work at the California State Association of Counties in Sacramento. It was wonderful to see everyone and catch up on old times. It was cold and rainy and Steve had a big fire roaring in his fire place, and the house was warm and cozy. It is great to enjoy an evening with intelligent people who actually live here, and have a good idea of what is happening on a day-to-day basis. Larry was the Executive Director of CSAC and came back to Washington DC to head up the National Association of Counties; Steve took Larry’s place at CSAC and then moved back to DC to be the Managing Director/CEO of the NACo Financial Services Center. Steve and Suzanne have a beautiful home out where many of the foreign dignitaries and our congress people live, and a kitchen to die for, which of course, sent Carol’s Steve into a state of lust! They gave us new ideas of things to do and see and we so enjoyed our time with them.

Monday found us back in Georgetown picking up our books from the Kennedy Center and yes they were autographed! Carol is JACKED! We really love Georgetown; there are so many things to do, to see and to experience. It is a great place to spend the afternoon just walking and that is what we did. We walked back to the Foggy Bottom Metro stop and made our way home against the evening commute.

Tuesday we just wandered around the “hub of power” in the downtown area. We hit the big Barnes and Noble downtown (Steve cranks through a book about every three days and we have a bag of them here now), and went to the Money Factory (otherwise known as the Bureau of Printing and Engraving) for their guided tour. It was all very, very cool. ALL OF THAT MONEY IN ONE PLACE! They print hundreds of millions of dollars every day of the year, and destroy about as much. Did you know the life-span of a one dollar bill is about 20 months? Did you know they only printed fourteen $100,000 bills and that they are ALL still in circulation? One man working there held up a stack of a million dollars and teased us with it through the window where they actually pack and ship the money out. We have very few pictures, because we were told if we even “Thought” about taking a picture inside of the building or the equipment, we would be escorted out of the building and “be dealt with accordingly” by the federal police, as well as losing our camera FOR EVER!

We did have a chance to get measured by a stack of money, we found out that Carol would be worth $1,537,800 and Steve is worth a whopping $1,794,100 give or take a couple of thousand! Also we saw a million dollars in $10.00 bills… kind of cool so check the photos on our Google Picasa photo album.




We also made it to the Jefferson Memorial. It was our last monument to check out, and we braved almost hurricane- force winds to get there (Steve estimated 50 – 60 mph), and it was crystal clear and ICY, ICY cold. Steve was even wearing gloves, which if you know him, happens about once a century. We took some great pictures of the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin (the infamous site of Senator Wilbur Mills’ famous swimming adventures). If you don’t know what we are talking about check out http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911535,00.html for the skinny (those of you who know about it, please excuse the pun!)


The winds were howling across the water and wouldn’t you know it, the next day they found a body in the Tidal Basin, right where we had been shooting pictures. The Jefferson Memorial is just that, a memorial to his life. We have included some pictures so check ‘em out.

We walked from there down the mall back towards our apartment and searched out the studios of NPR (Steve calls it National Communist Radio)! The people inside were really cool to us (NO Gestapo Police behavior here!) because we are card-carrying life members, and we took some pictures of Carol at Studio 3A in Washington, DC. It’s fun to do the tourist thing. They gave us two NPR stickers to put on the computer and the car! Carol is excited she got to be a part of National Communist Radio (we are listening to NPR right now on the computer as we write this blog). For those of you who know Steve, you know he is a giant liberal at heart, but he just likes to get his “conservative views” some equal air-time in between Carol’s liberalist thoughts!!!

Steve DID get even with the Gestapo though. Remember the “photographing the security barrier” incident of last week or so? Well, take heart, we have pictures and no one noticed Steve taking them (even Carol didn’t know he had taken them), so here for your pleasure, we give you the pictures that almost got Steve arrested!! Pretty intimidating aren’t they? You NEVER tell Steve he “Can’t do something….” It just whets his appetite to be bad!!


Wednesday was the first snow day in Washington DC. In Pollock Pines, the amount of snow that fell would have been a complete disappointment for the kids because the schools would have still be open and we don’t think the plows would have come out. But here in Washington DC, they closed most of the schools and there were tons of accidents, the Metro was completely off schedule and the AAA was calling for people’s heads because of all of the problems.

We decided to go to the Library of Congress and get serious about the genealogy project on our family. Anne Marie and Anne Cain eat your hearts out!! This library is FABULOUS!! Although the research is extremely tedious and many of the records are piecemeal and fragmented (especially the 18th and 19th century stuff), Steve has found so much about his family and Carol kept up her research and traced her family back to King Edward II. Now she has to prove it. The Library of Congress is a wonderful place to spend a winter day – or any day for that matter (and the evenings too as the place is open until 9:30 p.m. most nights!!); there are so many research sources and so little time. We had the opportunity to take a seminar that provides links and secrets to genealogy research from of the staff research librarians. It was invaluable and we feel like we have just touched the tip of the iceberg. There are just TONS of documents and data bases available, and all of this is absolutely FREE! All you have to do is spend 15 minutes obtaining a “Researcher’s Reader Card.” We are pretty sure we will be coming back next year and spend a week or so actually looking at all of the source documents that we are sure we are going to need. We have been in there so much most of the cops know us now, so when we walk up to the “Researcher’s ONLY” (kinda cool, eh?) entrance at the back of the building, they let us right in and are very friendly with us….

We spent Thursday enjoying the Library of Congress again and Steve brought his camera and managed to get some really great pictures of the giant central reading room. On the tour they told us (as usual) NO PHOTOGRAPHS!!, but the research librarian gave Steve a tip on how to get the shots on the sly, as he always does. The photos are of the central reading and research room of the Thomas Jefferson Building, which is just too beautiful to describe with words. Take a look at these pictures and see what we mean when we say we could spend a month in the library and not even dent the number of books this library has. It is a researcher’s dream. Carol has decided to have her ashes spread in the reading room when she goes to the great library in the sky!!! Now THAT will be a challenge for Steve!

We were going to wander over and watch the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony on the Ellipse, but we decided all of the people and security would just be another downer for us, so we decided to catch the highlight films on T.V., and then go over some other night before we leave after dark and shoot some photos of the tree, so this will be coming with the final blog for the trip.

As much as we hate to say it, our vacation trip is coming to a close. We have accumulated a TON of stuff over the past two months – much too much to carry home on the airplane when we leave New York next week. So, we spent Friday packing up and getting everything down to the local UPS store to have it all shipped home. What a job! However, Friday dawned real cold and drizzly (the weather forecasters stated Thursday night that it would be warming and cloudy – go figure) so it turned out to be a good day to pack and ship!

Just so you know, the hot story today is the CIA destroying films of interrogations of detainees. We smell a long drawn out investigation and Steve is hearing shades of "I am not a crook!!" We'll let you know what we hear on the streets of DC!

Until the next blog we remain…..