Tuesday evening my mom came in town to visit with me before heading north to visit with a friend up in Maine. I gave her the choice of what to do on Wednesday and DC was in her sights. Just happens that I know my way around DC quite well.
We set out early on Wednesday morning at 0700 to catch the light Rail to Penn Station in downtown Baltimore; to then catch the Amtrak train down to DC's Union Terminal. That was my first time really traveling via train long distance. It was a neat experience and much more roomy than an airplane. I would definitely do it again.
As we arrived to Union Terminal and walked toward the museums, we noticed that people were gathering outside of the buildings and we heard a gentleman yell, "Two minutes!" I learned the night before via the news; that Wednesday August 28, 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington with Martin Luther King. Good timing there, Roddy! But now we can say we were a part of history! As we were waiting for the Natural History Museum to open up we saw the masses gathering for the March on Washington. There was definitely a buzz in the city. It was neat to be there for it.
After the museum, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed towards the Lincoln Memorial to join the other 400,000 individuals in attendance. Thanks to a kind gentleman and and some speakers that faded in and out we were able to see and hear King's son, King's wife, and President Obama speak. In case you don't know DC very well, the Washington monument is very near the World War II Memorial which is then separated from the Lincoln Memorial by a one mile Reflecting Pool. It reminded me of the scene from Forrest Gump where he is at the Reflecting Pool and he and Jenny reunite. There were so many people and people lined the entire perimeter of the the Reflecting Pool. It is amazing to me how many people DC can hold before it feels crowded. Other than the huge mass of people gathered for the big occasion of the day, the rest of DC felt rather empty compared to when I was there April-June. So we had a great time milling around.
After our moment in history, we took advantage of a great program that can be found in northern Virginia and DC called bikeshare. We rented two bikes for a couple of hours and took DC by storm and visited all of the monuments. Luckily, we did this about 2 1/2 hours after the MLK event finished so several of the roads were still closed to car traffic, but open again to pedestrian and bicycle traffic. This combined two of my favorite activities, bicycling and the Washington DC monuments.
After museum going, marking our place in history, and biking around to the monuments, we headed back to the beautiful Union Terminal to catch a bite to eat before catching our train back to Baltimore. We were both tired from a very full day. We had a great time together and I am really liking the train as a mode of transportation. Where can I ride the train to next? I am thinking New York or Philly.
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