POSTCARDS FROM WASHINGTON D.C. TO BOSTON

 

With her somewhat tired but ever watchful expression, I wonder if Miss Violet was ever a chaperone?

Over Easter vacation, plus an extra week in 1992, I was one of eight chaperones looking after 36 high school kids – including my youngest daughter – on a history trip from Sonora, California to Washington D.C. and on up to Boston and several historic places in between.  It was a wonderful trip and the kids were great.  This will be kind of a long post – even for me J – but it was hard to leave things out.

Fun time!  Showing 36 teenagers from a small mountain town in California how to buy tickets from an auto dispenser & ride the Metro system in Washington D.C. during rush hour.

I gazed at the White House from outside the fence, but never took the internal tour as the line was waaaayy too long!

We went to Old Town Alexandria to see the cobblestone streets there where cars driving on them go “thumpita, thumpita, thumpita”, and trying to walk on them is a bit tricky as some of the stones are flat while others are rounded and your feet are constantly having to adjust for the change.  It actually kind of hurt.  Carriages and wagons driving over the stones back in their day must have made quite a racket.  The kids seemed interested enough in seeing the cobbled streets, but when a couple of them discovered a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor in the area, guess where everyone wanted to go!

We toured the Naval Academy here, then went shopping for souvenirs! J

The National Museum of American History – First Ladies Gowns

National Air and Space Museum – Dr. McCoy, Capt. Kirk, & Mr. Spock.  “Energize.”

The real astronauts of the fated Shuttle, “Challenger”, buried in Arlington Cemetery where we also saw President John F. Kennedy’s memorial and, of course, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

This beautiful stone house was Washington’s Headquarters at Valley Forge.

The enlisted men slept in rough cabins heated by a small fireplace on cots stacked 3 beds high – 12 to a cabin.

The Liberty Bell in Philadelphia

Her house is tiny in every way – almost like a doll house.  The ceilings are low and it was a tight fit going up the staircase to the second floor.  I didn’t even try getting to the top floor.

While we were in Philadelphia I took a ferry from “Penn’s Landing” across the Delaware River to Camden, New Jersey to see their new aquarium.  “Penn’s Landing” refers to William Penn who encouraged “Friends”/”Quakers” to come to the ‘New World’.  My many-times Great Grandfather, George Smedley, was one of them. 

Look at all those yellow taxis!  They rush from stop light to stop light.  Varoom! Screech! Varoom!  Screech! till you think your head’s gonna snap off your neck.  The driver also tells you a harrowing tale about some murder that happened the night before while you’re on your way to see the Empire State Building and you can hardly wait to get out of the taxi when you get there.  Yikes!

The Empire State Building.  It was a very foggy Easter Sunday when my daughter and I were there.  Somehow we managed to convince the elevator operator (who was dressed as King Kong) to take us up to the very tip top of the building.  We were in that tiny little round room just under the antenna.  We couldn’t see a thing through the fog, but when we looked at postcards of the building, we knew where we’d been!  It’s another 12 floors above the regular observation deck on the 86^th floor.

One of my dreams had always been to see the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes dance onstage - a dream I never really thought would come true.  But on that evening of Easter Sunday, there I was – with our whole group - in the theater watching the Rockettes kick up their heels on stage!  You just never know . . .  :)  

Pier 17 is a big mall full of all kinds of shops.  I certainly had fun here!

The Statue of Liberty in all her glorious splendor.

Unfortunately, this is the way we saw Lady Liberty.  Later we went over to Ellis Island and when I looked back toward the Statue of Liberty she was in full sunlight.  Timing is everything.  

I wonder if it looked this spiffy when the hopeful immigrants were arriving tired and hungry after sailing across the ocean on a crowded ship.

Of course we saw a lot more than what’s shown through these New York postcards I selected to feature.  We walked down 5^th Avenue on Easter Sunday wearing bunny ears.  We watched skaters on the ice rink in Rockefeller Center.  My daughter and I saw “Cats” at the Wintergarden Theater, and took a carriage ride through Central Park.  The group also visited the United Nations.  

On the way from New York to Boston we stayed overnight in Mystic, Connecticut, and yes, there really is a “Mystic Pizza” there.  We were 10 days into the two-week trip when we stayed overnight in Mystic.  I guess, because it was a quiet neighborhood street I went walking down the afternoon we got there, but it just suddenly ‘hit’ me: I was walking down a street in Connecticut!   I laughed at myself.  I mean, I knew where I was in actuality, but somehow I hadn’t quite caught up to it until that moment when I found myself in a very normal situation simply walking down an ordinary street except for the fact it was 3000 miles across the county! J 

We stopped in Newport, Rhode Island to see “The Breakers”, the Vanderbuilt’s magnificent vacation home.  Quite an amazing place!!

Following the Red Brick Road – officially known as the “The Freedom Trail” in Boston . . .

 . . . past Paul Revere’s House (we didn’t go inside) . . .

 . . . and on up to the Old North Church and the statue of Paul Revere.  We did go inside here and it was very interesting.

All those little compartments down on the main floor are private boxes for different families – each one laid out a little differently inside depending on the size and needs of the family.  Each box has a plaque with the family’s name on it.  I don’t know if the boxes were so identified back then?  In the winter the families were allowed to bring small braziers or buckets of hot rocks to keep them warm as the church didn’t have central heating.  The folks sitting upstairs didn’t have to worry about that, of course, as heat rises.  They might have been almost too warm at times?  The minister’s lectern was raised so those sitting in the boxes could see him.   

Of course we had to see the locale on which the TV series “Cheers” was based.

We were in Salem, Massachusetts to learn about the famous witch trials held there.  Shopping on Pickering Wharf was more fun.

We saw the Minuteman statue ‘on the green’ in Lexington where the kids learned about the “shot heard round the world”.

A few of the girls in the group decided to have their picture taken with him.  My daughter is on the right in the brown shirt.

The kids on the bridge between Lexington & Concord.

Answer to the question:  Oof. The bridge!

Some of the kids decided to go to a Red Sox baseball game.  We could see part of the stadium from our hotel which was just across the way.  Too bad it was a kind of rainy evening, but they had fun anyway.

It was still kind of rainy the next day when we went to see the U.S.S. Constitution – “Old Ironsides”.  The Person telling us about the old ship’s history kept us standing out there in the misting rain while they orated on & on.  I wondered when on earth they’d be through and let us go inside the ship out of the rain?!!

Once inside I was surprised at how small and cramped the ship’s cabins were – hardly more than a narrow bed and maybe enough room to turn around in and those were the officers’ quarters.  The captain’s cabin really wasn’t all that much bigger.

And yes – that’s yours truly with my windbreaker pulled up over my head under the ‘thought bubble’ hoping we’d be out of the rain soon. 

:->

La Nightingail