The DCs do DC

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Saturday 19^th October

New York – Washington DC

Sunny with drizzly spells - 17’C

Our driver Abraham picked us up in his town car nice and early at 8.30am to take us out to the RV collection point in Tappan, New York - which is about a 45 minute drive north from downtown Manhattan. It actually felt like we were leaving the cocoon of New York and straying out into the real world again! Jimmy the manager at Camping World was awesome to deal with and had us out of the depot within an hour, after showing us over our new wheels and doing the paperwork. Our home for the next 10 days is a Ford E-23 Freedom Elite, 23ft class C Motor-home.

First port of call was to a huge shopping complex called the Palisades Centre where we found our favourite supermarket - Target! Our mission was to fit out the RV with food supplies, bedding and kitchen utensils for our roadie. The motor home hire company does offer to provide some of the essentials for $75 per person. The pack is quite basic and had things we didn’t need and not others – therefore we decided to purchase our own supplies - with the intention of donating it to a shelter or goodwill store at the end of the month. We trundled out of there a couple of hours later, laden with two full trolleys! We needed lunch after that serious retail workout and we had spied the East Japanese sushi train restaurant – which had our name written all over it. Finally all equipped, we were on the road by 2.30pm, heading for Washington DC. We stuck to Interstate 95 and had a few surprises down the line as we came across the toll gates: first one was on the NJ Turnpike at $28.45, the next one was $10 for the Delaware Memorial Bridge followed closely by a $4 at the Francis Scoot Key Bridge and Baltimore Bridge had the last bite of $4! We pulled into the Cherry Hill Park on 9800 Cherry Hill Road on the outskirts of DC about 7pm after stopping for a couple of coffee breaks along the way. The RV Park is quite different to what we are accustomed to back in New Zealand. It claims to be a two-time winner of North American campground of the year and is a winner of the campground industry’s Plan-it-Green award. They are into recycling in a big way and are 100% fully wind powered and have solar panels – meaning they can go off-grid on peak summer days. It is huge and has amenities such as two large swimming pools, hot tub, outdoor movie theatre, café, lounge with open fire, free wi-fi, exercise room and they even offer a dog walking service! Most bays we noticed have picnic tables and fire pits! Under construction is their new addition – a water park. We can also hook up to power, town water and direct waste – excellent facilities. The nightly rate of $62 was reduced with the presentation of our Good Sam Club membership card (given to us by Camping World). We were also pleased to discover that the café is selling out of their ice cream now that summer is over and they were selling 2 scoops for the price of one. Not only did they give us that – they doubled it as well – so we had a naughty desert tonight. We settled in to our new digs and set the Casa del Rue up for living - making the queen bed with the new linen, tuning in the TV and cooking our dinner – soup and a turkey salad wrap (plus ice cream!). Very happy with the set up as it has a decent sized kitchen, dedicated dining area, separate sleeping area, with separate shower and toilet adjacent to the bed.
We hit the sack pretty exhausted, looking forward to exploring DC in daylight.

Sunday 20^th October

Washington DC

Fine and sunny - 20’C

What an awesome sleep-in! We obviously needed it after a big day on the road as we didn't get out of bed until 9.45am. Jennie was the first guinea pig to try out the on-board shower and it received mixed reviews.

We caught the metro bus right from the RV Park around 11.00am at just $1.80 each, which took us to the Greenbelt Metro station. There we purchased our SmarTrip cards for $10- $2 of which covers the rechargeable card itself. The fare into DC was $3.85 - arriving at the Archives-Navy Memorial metro station in the middle of DC. The entire journey is roughly an hour. Cherry Hill RV Park is apparently the closest RV Park to DC.

First order of the day was to grab some 24 hour passes for $46 on the hop-on hop-off service run by 'Big Bus Tours'. Our first circuit was the blue route, which skirted around the Washington Monument (this is still undergoing strengthening work from a 2011 earthquake and is covered in scaffolding from top to toe), the World War Two and Lincoln Memorials, Arlington National Cemetery, the Pentagon and Thomas Jefferson Memorial. It was a beautiful, sunny day so we stopped for lunch at Quiznos for a salad and wrap under the Ronald Reagan building on 14^th St and Pennsylvania Ave before taking the obligatory photos of the front lawn of the White House. Next adventure was to jump on the Red line, which covered all of the Smithsonian museums along the Mall, Union Station, Lincoln Memorial, Thomas Jefferson Memorial, U.S. Capitol, The White House as well as the inner city area. We had time to jump off at Union Station while the bus had a 20 minute layover and enjoyed taking in the architectural features of the train station. It started off again in a clockwise direction around the Mall and we stayed on until it approached our metro station near the Verizon Centre. We caught the train and bus back to the park and got back around 7.30pm ready to relax for the night. We loaded some funds onto our Skype account and had a good long chat to Max back home.

Monday 21st October

Washington, DC

Fine and sunny - 17c

Woke to the alarm this morning as we wanted an early start into Washington. Opening our motor-home door revealed another glorious sunny day accented with a frosty ground. We advised the office of our intention to stay again tonight then boarded the 8.10am bus to the Metro. Being a Monday we embarked the train at a different station to yesterday and arrived into the Gallery Place station about 9.15am. Perfect timing to catch the yellow loop Big Bus just outside the Spy Museum. The yellow loop took us up and around Georgetown - a gorgeous historic district. We passed the narrowest house in Georgetown (and possibly all of Washington DC) - so cute! We also observed many of the quaint cottages are already adorned with pumpkins on their doorsteps and other decorations in readiness for Halloween at the end of the month. We found a popular looking cafe called Baked and Wired - serving delicious bakery items on one side and real coffee on the other. While waiting for the coffees we noticed some tiny biscuits for sale .25c each, they sounded rather appealing with mint, ginger and peanut butter as some of the ingredients across the variety of flavours. With further observation we saw that these were dog biscuits made lovingly by the owner's daughter. She also sold them in multiples packed into adorable little takeout boxes. On our way again, coffees in hand we strolled along Canal Street complete with an old lock to remind us of the area’s history.
As the Big Bus came past again we hopped back on and travelled a few miles to where we wanted to switch loops. The Big Bus hop-on hop-off tour has a total of 4 loops and we wanted to return to the blue loop of yesterday to be able to explore the Arlington Cemetery. At this junction while we awaited the blue loop connection, we took photos of the US Institute for Peace with its amazing dove-like roof line and the Einstein bronze statue memorial. The memorial to Albert Einstein is situated in the Academy of Sciences grounds. The bronze figure, weighing approximately 4 tons, is 12 feet in height. We dwarf in comparison in our photos with the great man. Across the street we took in the 58,000+ names of the Vietnam Vets who have died, etched into the memorial, wandered around the World War II memorial and spent time at the Lincoln Memorial. We saw a fox walk out in front of us as we walked along the reflecting pool on our way to meet the bus which came as a bit of a surprise. Eventually we reached the Arlington National Cemetery. The commentary recommends a good 2 - 3 hours to explore properly but we only spent about an hour there - luckily timing it right to witness the changing of the guard at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We also got to see President Kennedy's eternal flame. At about 3pm and well overdue for lunch we caught the metro to the U.S. Capitol Building end of The Mall. After taking the mandatory photos next to the reflecting pool, we found some interesting cuisine at the American Indian Museum. The museum’s Mitsitam Native Foods Cafe provides the opportunity to enjoy the indigenous cuisines of the Americas and to explore the history of Native foods. The Cafe features Native foods found throughout the Western Hemisphere, including the Northern Woodlands, South America, the Northwest Coast, Meso America and the Great Plains. Each of the five food stations offers a variety of flavours and cooking styles. We both selected from different stations incorporating some buffalo chilli, salmon and some very nice unique salads. Now re-energised, we spent an hour inside the Natural History Museum. This only allowed enough time to check out a few key exhibits - the dinosaurs, the Hope diamond and a quick glimpse of the stuffed birds. We caught the Metro back to Cherry Hill about 4pm. Visiting Washington has left us tired, but very pleased we came and also keen to come back again someday. Back at camp we had a quick catch up with our motor-home neighbours, also neighbours from Down Under. We shared stories of our adventures so far and then decided to get organised for the continuation of our roadie tomorrow.

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