Dorothy Piotrowski’s blog

Sunday morning was our last chance to get to Arlington National Cemetery before leaving Washington.  Therefore, we were up early once again and were at the cemetery by 8:15.  We decided to take the Tourmobile which would allow to get to the sites that we were most interested in quickly.  We stopped at the Kennedy family gravesite and the Tomb Of The Unknowns.  We were also very lucky to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb Of The Unknowns.

We got back to the hotel, packed up our stuff and met up with Ross and Susie at Liz and Cutrina’s apartment.  Liz and Cutrina decided that this year they would live off campus.  It’s a really nice apartment.  The funny thing is that alot of their furniture they got from the garbage bins at the back of the apartment.  I think you call it dumpster diving.  It’s amazing how great the stuff is that outgoing students throw out.  Unfortunately, it was time for us to go.  We said our goodbyes to Liz and Cutrina and promised to see them again in a few weeks in Pittsburgh at their next tournament.

We left Washington and headed home.  We stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Hagerstown, Maryland for the mandatory Sunday dinner … homestyle chicken.  We said our goodbyes to Ross and Susie and we continued the long drive home.  The drive was uneventful except for the border crossing.  Once again, there were no lines and we drove right up to the booth.

Here is a transcript of the conversation with the customs officer.
Customs Officer: “Citizenship”
Dorothy: “Canadian”
Customs Officer: “Anything to declare”
Dorothy: “Yup”
Customs Officer: “Ok”

We got up on Saturday morning and decided that we would visit Arlington National Cemetery before heading to the university.  When we left the hotel it was just sprinkling but when we got to the cemetery, it was pouring.  We decided that we would try later.  We got back to the hotel and were able to catch a quick nap before heading over to the university.

The AU Eagles first match was against the St. Peter’s Peahens which they won.  We had a few hours to kill, so we headed to the Potomac Mills Mall.  We did lots of walking and lots of shopping before racing back to the university to catch the second match.  They played the Colorado Buffaloe’s and unfortunately they lost.  After the match, we all headed to Chipotle for dinner.  This place is awesome and I highly recommend it.  We dropped Liz and her friend back at her apartment and we headed back to the hotel to look at pictures and get some sleep.

We got up really early on Friday morning and arrived in Washington around 9:30am.  We left the car at the hotel (Best Western Key Bridge in Arlington, VA) and took the Metro into downtown Washington.  All the research we did said that driving and parking in downtown Washington is a nightmare.  We got off at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum and picked up the Old Town Trolley tour.  What is nice about these tours is that they give you a great overview of the city that you are visiting and since they do the tour as a loop, they allow boarding/reboarding at any of their stops.

Our first stop is the Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Korean War Veterans Memorial.  This stop allows us to see 3 memorials at one place.  We started at the Lincoln Memorial and took alot of pictures.  We actually ended up spending over an hour just at this memorial.  From there, it was a quick walk over to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  It is quite a site to see all of the names inscribed on the wall.  There are books at the entrance to the memorial where you can look up a name and it will tell you where on the wall it is.  We then walked over to the Korean War Veterans Memorial.  Another moving memorial.

We got back on the trolley and made our way over to our next stop, The White House.  We got a few pictures and picked up some souvenirs from the gift shop.  We grabbed some lunch and then walked over to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.  We didn’t have alot of time in the museum but we were able to see Archie Bunker’s chair and Fonzie’s leather jacket.  From the museum, we boarded the trolley again and our next stop was the US Capitol.  We took many pictures there and then walked over to the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum.  This would be our last stop for the day.  We wanted to see the show in the planetarium but we were 2 minutes late.  We didn’t really get a chance to check out the museum since it was closing shortly after we got there.

We catched the subway and made our way back to the hotel.  After a quick power nap, we made our way to the restaurant to meet up with Karen’s brother Ross, his wife Susie, their daughter Liz and Liz’s roommate and teammate Cutrina.  Ross had suggested that we go to a BBQ place that they had been to before.  We said hell yeah, it’s BBQ.  The place is called Old Glory Bar-B-Que and it was awesome.  The ribs were to die for and I had all of the sweet tea I could drink.

After dinner, Karen and I decided that we would try to photograph some of the memorials at night.  The only problem was that finding a parking spot near any memorial is next to impossible.  We were able to finally find a spot close to the National World War II Memorial after driving around for almost an hour.  Once again, this was another moving memorial.  We got back to the hotel around 11:30pm and decided to call it a night.

Karen’s niece Liz is a sophmore at American University in Washington, D.C..  She is attending on a volleyball scholarship and whenever time permits, we like to catch a few games during the season.  We checked the schedule and we saw that there was a pre-season tournament in Washington.  We decided that we should go since we could see some volleyball and we could do some site seeing.  We went to the library and got lots of books on Washington.  All the books said that you should spend at least 3 days seeing the sites.  We only had 1 day … this trip would be the speed demon’s guide to Washington, D.C.

We left Thursday around 4pm and headed towards the border.  We always cross at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie because we’ve never had any problems there.  We arrived at the bridge and to our surprise, there was no line.  This was the first time ever that we were able to drive right up to a booth.  We called ahead to the Cracker Barrel in Erie, Pennsylvania and ordered our dinners.  Since it’s Thursday, that means it’s turkey with dressing.  We got to the restaurant, picked up our dinners and headed back on the highway.  Our stop for the night was the Econo Lodge in Breezewood, Pennsylvania which would put us about 2 hours away from Washington.

While reading the newspaper, we saw an ad for a rodeo in town.  We figured we should check it out.  It was North American Professional Cowboys rodeo and it was held at Holiday Ranch Riding Stables.  It was so cool.  They had all the events and even some hot cowboys.