Well, here I am about a week after my trip out east. Gotta love that we come back and it’s pretty much midterm time. I’ve got a paper and a presentation due Friday and I just found out I have a test Thursday. It’s gonna be a rough 3 days for sure. I really wanted to get an update out tonight though, so here it goes.
I’ll start with a rundown of my trip. Amanda, John, and I took off at about 1PM on Friday. The plan was to drive straight to Washington, DC. 3 people, 20 hours, 1200 miles, one shot! I was pumped up as hell. Things got off to a good start, we made it across WI fairly quickly and without getting pulled over by the assholes they call a police force. A little kink in our plans soon followed though. Instead of driving around Chicago, we missed an exit and headed right through downtown. It was cool to see the Sears Tower along with the rest of the downtown area all lit up at night. Amanda was driving so John and I were free to gawk at the sights. We made it through with relative ease and, surprisingly, without seeing much for traffic. On the other side of the city, we soon ran into our first toll road. Being that it was the first time any one of us had seen or used a toll, we all jumped up in excitement and started snapping pictures. Little did we know that we would grow to hate tolls later down the road. That about wrapped up IL.
On to IN which also meant it was my turn to drive. By now it was about 9:30PM. I marched right across IN and into OH. By this time we were all getting kind of tired. We still pushed on though. After a short pit stop, John took over the wheel sometime after 1AM and I settled into the back seat for a nap. Of course John and Amanda were now wide awake and John decided to play a little game with me. I had to “rate” his CD.
Before I go on, there’s something you need to know about John. He has the oddest taste in music. This kid listens to everything from J-pop (Japanese Pop), to classical, to pop and rock. Oh and he doesn’t care what he burns on to a CD. So you’ll be listening to this Led Zepplin song, and it’s followed up with Britney Spears, and then a classical song comes on.
Well the thing kicks off with Andrew WK. I fucking hate that band. So much for a good rating. Next were a few radio rock type songs I actually like. Then came the hammer. Michael Jackson! Yep, the King of Pop just dropped the CD into negative rating territory real quick. I believe my words were something like “After this, no song could have any redeeming quality whatsoever!” With that I dozed off as we rode into PA. John put in an extra long shift and drove until sunrise. It was amazing to see the sun come up over the rolling mountains of PA. I really like that area of the country. It’s too bad none of our pictures turned out from the car.
Finally about 7, we stopped outside MD to get some food. One thing I have to say is TRUCK STOPS RULE! They have everything, it’s really cheap, and they’re always open. Truck stops became one of our best friends on the road. Well finally about 8, we rolled into Washington DC. Amanda was driving and I was trying to navigate us to our hotel. This is about the time I learned DC streets are just plain messed. There’s the normal grid, but then you’ve got all these angled streets that cross back and forth. Then you throw in a mess of interstates and highways.
So yeah, we got lost… a few times.
About an hour later, we found our way to our hotel. Let’s just say it wasn’t our picture of inviting. It was not “within walking distance of all the attractions” as the description had said and it more or less looked like shit. Just think of one of those murder movies where the killer stays in some cheap motel and stashes the body in the closet. Needless to say, we cancelled our reservations and booked a nicer place.
After getting lost yet again, we rolled up to a ritzy looking joint called Washington Plaza. It had marble floors with a lot of gold trim. Fancy! We were pretty amazed with it after seeing where we had first picked out. It had an outdoor swimming pool and a really nice looking bar (although the pool was closed). Unfortunately, our room didn’t live up to the expectations the lobby had given us. Nonetheless, we took advantage of the showers and beds. Everyone showered and took quick naps before we set out on the town.
Reenergized, we took off. After some quick photo opps at some cool looking things, we headed for the White House. There was a big black fence you could walk up to, but it was quite a ways off from the actual building. There were also security guards every few hundred feet. It was cool to check things out up close, but I’m not the biggest fan of politics or history. At least I can say I’d been there and seen it. We kept on our feet and saw a few other cool buildings that I can’t remember right now. Then we headed for the Washington Monument which you can see from just about anywhere in town. I quite often used it as a directonal tool when navigating. Props to whoever designed it! My memory is a little fuzzy at this point. I know we spent the rest of the afternoon hitting all the notable monuments and sights like the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR memorial, the Vietnam wall, the Korean wall, the Lincoln monument, and a few other places.
At about 6 we headed back to our room. It was getting dark and we were hungry. I wish we would’ve seen more, but we were so tired and hungry. I probably would’ve forgotten most of it anyway. After another quick nap in the hotel, we set out for a cool restaurant we found in one of our many brochures. They were supposed to be a bar and grill type place with a cool atmosphere. After walking several blocks, we never found it and ended up hitting Fudruckers instead. By this time it was about 8:30PM and we were ready for bed. The walk back was painful. I think we had walked about 10 miles just that afternoon and we were all on only a few hours of sleep. We found ourselves in bed by 9:30PM with plans of taking off for Atlantic City in the morning.
We woke well rested and sore from the day before. After a quick buzz by the capitol building, we headed towards Arlington National Cemetary. John, not being the best navigator drove us about 15 miles out of the way and in the wrong direction. So I gave up driving duties to Amanda and navigated us to Arlington. I wasn’t really excited about seeing the place, but I thought checking out JFK’s grave, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and a few other things might be interesting. The coolest part, I think was that you got a nice view of most of DC from the hill. After Arlington, we tried to find the Iwo Jima memorial statue. We succeeded, but couldn’t find the exit to park near it. We settled for a drive by and snapped a few pictures.
With that we headed out of DC and toward Atlantic City. I took over the wheel and drove us across part of MD and into DE. We got to drive across Chessapeake Bay on a huge bridge which was really cool. John was amazed with the ocean.
Delaware wasn’t all that impressive. It reminded me a lot of rural Minnesota actually. Small farming type towns, 2 lane roads, relatively flat, lots of trees. At about 4PM, we showed up to a toll ferry. Being that it was Sunday, they only ran the ferry twice that day. We would have to wait until 7:30PM for the next ferry. The catch was, if we went in then, we couldn’t leave the grounds. Reluctantly we opted in. They did have a cafeteria, a gift shop, and a few games to play. There was mini golf, but it wasn’t open. Right away Amanda and John found the beer and had to have one. I decided not to. John and I played some video games for awhile which Amanda watched. Then we got some cards and played card games for a few hours. Finally the time arrived to board our ferry. They had us drive onto this huge boat and then you just park. It’s all done so the boat is equally weighted. The boat was fairly big. It had an indoor part on the first deck above the cars, and then there were 2 smaller observation decks above that. It was a little cold, so we mostly stayed inside. John had never been on a big boat like this so he was just giddy. After landing, we drove off into the night for Atlantic City. It was about 45 minutes later that we rolled into what I like to call “mini-Vegas”
Well, I’ve now been typing this for over an hour and it’s getting quite long. I’m going to call this intermission time. I’ll finish off my story tomorrow and post the 160-some pictures I have. Stay tuned Mehle fans!
