Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Time to leave New York, boo! Genevieve and I were up, done with breakfast and packed early so we headed out to the NY Public Library before we left the City. Unfortunately, it doesn’t open until 10:00am on weekdays, so we were out of luck seeing it. They had kindly left one of the wooden doors open so we could see the lobby through the glass at least.

We took a cab the few blocks to Penn Station, got sushi for lunch (Genevieve and me) and waited for our track number to be called for our 11:35 train. Once it was there was a huge line to board but the guy next to me assured me that it would be okay because the train originated in NYC. If we had taken the earlier train to DC at 10:30, it would have been a different story as that train originates in Boston and many of the seats would have been taken. He was correct, once we boarded the train we had no trouble getting four seats across and stowing our luggage. We settled in and enjoyed the ride. As we were pulling into DC about a half hour ahead of schedule, my phone rang. It was the pet sitter, apparently there were rats (!) in our basement (!) that were attacking our cat (!) and would it be okay if they let her outside. Yikes! This is not the news you want to hear mid-way through your trip.

Trying to put this conversation out of my mind (and not freak out the kids) we tried to enjoy the beauty of Union Station.  We waited in the cab line and noticed that it was seriously hot here in DC. The cab took us to our hotel, the Marriot Residence Inn. I had booked us a two bedroom suite because I thought we might be missing the space after New York, but when we got to our room it was way way too huge. Like the size of an apartment huge. So we called down to the front desk and downgraded to a one bedroom which was still plenty big. We had a real living room with a kitchen and dining area and a bedroom with two double beds. We stowed our stuff and went out to the Air and Space Museum. Mark loves this museum because one of the spy satellites his dad worked on is there.  There was a Russian warhead and a US warhead on display, and Genevieve explained to Charlotte what nuclear weapons were for (remember we had seen the Hiroshima photos in New York so I’d explained it to her then) We also got a picture of the jets my dad had worked with (mostly selling them to Australia I believe) and enjoyed the Wright Bros. exhibit and all the stuff on Amelia Earhart and early aviation.

After the museum we walked around the Mall a bit but it was so hot that wedecided to go back to the hotel. On the way we looked for a place to have dinner but found nothing so we ate at the pizza place right next to the hotel. Then we all went swimming – this hotel had a pool thank goodness!

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