October 4
Today's planned itinerary was to take us into Washington DC to see the sights and then to meet my cousin Guy at the end of his work day at the Department of Agriculture and go with him to his home in Wheaton, MD where his wife Hannah would get to meet us. That was the plan, at least.
Razelle didn't realize how long it would take us to travel from Baltimore to Washington, nor were the logistics of getting around in Washington clear to her. I had done the research and had failed to paint the full picture for her. So, as the day progressed, we found ourselves with less time to work with and progressively more adjustments to make to have the original plans come off somehow. Razelle had expressed a great interest in seeing Washington. Fulfilling her request was my noble intention.
Before we left Ralph's place I made several trips out to the van to bring in all the pieces of our baggage that we didn't want to lose while the van was left vulnerable all day in a metropolitan DC parking lot. We had the luxury of keeping it all in Ralph's house so we took advantage of that.
I set our GPS to take us to the Silver Springs, MD Metrorail station because there is a ticket agency near it where 1-day passes can be purchased. These passes cannot be purchased within the stations. It took us an hour to reach Silver Springs and when we got to the Metrorail station there, expecting everything to go smoothly, we found that a lot of construction was going on and there were no free parking lots. There were multistory parking garages, but the clearance at their entrances were too low for our van. We tried parking up the street at a lot in front of a pharmacy, but the sign said, "1 hour customer parking only." I returned to the ticket agency and sent Razelle in with instructions and money for the 1-day passes while I sat in the van beside the construction site. When she came out she told me they advised against 1-day passes so she didn't get them.
I could see that this Metrorail station was a bad choice, so I reprogrammed the GPS to take us farther away from the District to the White Flint Metrorail station in North Bethesda, MD. There were some open-air parking lots here, but they didn't look like we could use them. The multi-story parking garage entrance did have enough clearance so we pulled up to the gate. The woman at the gate had a terrible speech impediment; we strained to understand her instructions while still remaining sensitive to her disability. It eventually became clear that we had to buy two rechargeable magnetic cards that would have enough funds on them to cover the cost of our rides and still have enough left over on one of the cards to pay for parking when we returned.
Having parked the van, we headed for the station, but Razelle was hungry and didn't expect to find a place to eat along the National Mall once we got there. Across the boulevard we saw places to eat. Razelle settled on a bagel deli that looked just perfect. I had no appetite so I drank a couple of bottles of Snapple Pink Lemonade.
We then returned to the Metrorail station and finally were on our way into DC on the red line (the color was important to keep track of so we could get back to this station at the end of the day). After transferring to a blue line and riding two more stations we got off, took the escalator up and popped up out of the ground into a lovely warm sunlit fall day near the Smithsonian. As we looked around us we saw serious-looking government buildings, joggers on the paths in the National Mall, and the phallic spire of the Washington Monument poking skyward. To help Razelle orient herself I walked with her out toward the middle of the Mall so she could see the Capitol Building at the far end (the Lincoln Memorial and reflecting pool at the other end were obscured by the mound that the Washington Monument sits upon.
Razelle saw the distances and decided she couldn't walk toward the Lincoln Memorial and all the war memorials at that end. She said, "Just take me to see the Smithsonian Museum and that will be enough." She wasn't aware that the Smithsonian is actually more than a dozen museums spread out all along the Mall on both sides, and elsewhere around the District. She was getting more frustrated by the minute. Her knees hurt and her pain was increasing with each step. There were no benches to sit on and nubile joggers passing along the running paths only served to make her feel worse. She headed for the Smithsonian Castle with me in tow, but found that this was not a museum. She next went to the Hirshhorn Museum, where we found chairs to sit on in the outside courtyard. After she had rested a while we continued onward to the National Air and Space Museum. This was a museum that appealed to her very much. We went in and I left my driver's license with the concessionaire who gives out wheelchairs. Now we could relax and enjoy ourselves.
There is a lot to see in this museum. We paid to view a movie in the IMAX theater. In her wheelchair Razelle got VIP treatment. We took an elevator to the upper-level seats and an usher moved the velvet rope aside so Razelle and I could go in the exit and get comfortable. We watched "To Fly!" Razelle had to remove her 3D glasses to watch it because it was giving her motion sickness. I think the effect would have been more dramatic had we sat closer to the screen. I envied those who sat below us in the closer seats.
We toured most of the galleries and revisited a lot of history we ourselves had lived through. The space program began when we were impressionable children. The Wright brothers and Neil Armstrong and John Glenn were natives of Ohio, so the educational system where I grew up took pride in extolling the deeds of these "favorite sons." I also grew up near Cape Kennedy/Canaveral, and my father worked in the space industry so I followed all that very closely as a kid. Razelle, by the same token, worked for the Israel Air Force as a teacher, so all the aeronautics on display were systems she had taught about. Sikorsky helicopters were made in Connecticut near where she had lived so she took pride in that, too.
A sliced and polished piece of moon rock brought back from the surface of the moon was on prominent display in the museum. I wheeled Razelle up to this rock so she could touch it. I remarked that our round-the-world trip now included a trip to the moon as well. We posed "No-Evil" our stuffed toy monkey with this moon rock. The Japanese tourists enjoying the museum along with us found this to be endearingly amusing.
The museum closed at 5:30 PM and we were herded out at that time. Guy had finished work at 5:00 PM, but didn't mind letting us stay right up to closing time. I turned in the wheelchair and got my driver's license back. We met Guy on the street in front of the museum and walked with him to the nearest Metrorail station at L'Enfant Plaza. We waited with peak-hour crowds for a train that took us three stations to the Metro Center station so we could transfer to the red line. We caught that train and Razelle and I were able to sit, while Guy stood.
Along the way we had the chance to talk with Guy about all kinds of things, from his job to our genealogy. Guy spoke with Hannah on his cell phone about when we could be expected, but Hannah told him she'd be delayed because she was having the car serviced. The ride out to our station was sufficiently long that we had time to think of alternative plans because of the unavailability of their car. Guy and Hannah had a restaurant in mind near their home that served genuine Israeli cuisine. I got the address and programmed my GPS. Since we were going past the White Flint station on this line, we decided we'd get off there, pick up our van and drive ourselves to the restaurant to meet Guy there. It was a perfect plan, and that is what we did.
We met Guy at the Pita Hut. What a catchy name for an Israeli restaurant in the middle of Rockville, MD! It was the real deal, too, with an array of salads and a basket of pita and hummus and olive oil on the table to nibble on while we waited for Hannah so we could order. She called several times to let Guy know that the tire change was taking a lot longer than it was supposed to. She finally called to tell Guy to go ahead and order. Razelle ordered skewered meat and I had kebobs. For the hour we waited for Hannah in that restaurant we might as well have been in Israel. We soaked up the atmosphere while we listened to Israeli music in the background and heard Hebrew spoken among the staff. The only person in the room who couldn't speak Hebrew was our waitress.
Guy showed me material he had brought along that his great aunts in Arizona had sent him. These are the same nonagenarian sisters Razelle and I had met in Phoenix, and the same stories they had told us, word for word. I gave Guy some of my ideas about a restructured family circle, and reported to him how our visit to his great-aunt Belle and cousin Fred had gone in Columbia, SC. I also told him what I knew of the towns in Ukraine where our family may have come from. This is not definitive information, but a direction for further research.
Hannah was finally able to join us. She apologized profusely, but we told her it was not her fault. Guy handed her her food and she ate with us. We related some of our round-the-worldly experiences to her, and told her of our exploits with the van we'd been driving with all its foibles. I've always admired her gift of expression when she writes and I told her so. Razelle and Hannah talked about Hannah's job, which made for fascinating listening. I'm only sorry that we didn't have more time to spend with Hannah. We took Guy and Hannah out to see our illustrious "bordello-on-wheels" as Razelle calls our van. In the dark our mood lights looked really impressive, setting off the ceiling mirror the way they did.
We then got into our van and waved goodbye to Guy and Hannah. We still had the road back to Baltimore to traverse. All in all, what started out as a day that didn't meet our original expectations of doing Washington, DC justice turned into a day we really did enjoy. We had a good time touring the one museum we saw thoroughly, we got to ride the rails of Washington's train system and we got to spend time with Guy and some with Hannah, too. There's no point in dwelling on what could have been. It really couldn't have been or it would have been. Besides, we will be in Baltimore a few more days. We might have another chance to come back here. If we do, we will know how to do it better next time.
The road back to Baltimore was not illuminated by overhead lighting, so the headlights in my rearview mirror were especially annoying and fatiguing. I couldn't wait to finally reach my exit in Baltimore so I wouldn't have to endure those lights. But the exit I wanted was closed for construction at that time of night and we had to go several miles farther before we could get off onto a major city street and double back. We had a long way to drive on this thoroughfare, past a lot of commercial centers and gas stations. I made a mental note of the prices for gas and the names of the shopping outlets we passed. By the time we turned off the van at Ralph's my stamina had been spent. It wasn't long before I was in bed, asleep.
RAZELLE'S PHOTO FROM THIS DAY
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| Sculpture at Entrance to Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC |
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