DC Diaries, Day 5: Shutdown

Logistics

I woke in the morning to find that the government had shut down while I was sleeping. This presented some interesting logistical questions that Shane and I discussed.

A harbinger of things to come

First, with 800,000 government employees furloughed, we were unsure how the slug lines would work. With fewer people going in to work, that meant there would be fewer drivers to pick up slugs. Also, with fewer people going in to work, the HOV lane would not have as great an advantage over the regular lanes, and therefore would reduce the value a driver would place on a slug.

We went to the slug lines early, just in case we had to come up with a plan B. It turns out that we needn't have worried. There was a line of cars waiting for us, and the slugging proceeded much the same as on previous days.

My second logistical problem was of a different nature. What to do with my day, now that the museums and memorials were closed?  I had planned to re-visit some museums in the morning, before heading out to Arlington Cemetery in the afternoon. Fortunately, I had called Arlington the day before and learned that they would not be effected by the shutdown. But that still left me with a morning to fill.


Memorial Ride

I determined that my best option was to re-visit the monuments and memorials I had visited two days previous. Even if they were closed off, I'd still be able to view them, sit near them, and have quiet moments of contemplation. After a quick visit to the Old Post Office Pavilion, I spent $7 on a 24-hour bike share pass so I could bike back to the memorials, rather than walk.

The Old Post Office Pavilion, now a shopping mall

The DC Bike Share program provides bikes in a number of stations throughout the metro area. With a pass, you can check out a bike and ride it to any other station. A half-hour ride is free with the pass, but anything more than a half hour incurs additional fees. So, for example, an hour ride would cost an extra $2. However, as long as I parked the bike at a station before the time ran out, the ride remained free, no matter how soon thereafter I checked out another bike.

So I leapfrogged my way along the monument route. Each time I passed the Lincoln Memorial I would park the bike in a station and then check out another one shortly thereafter. I was thus able to have a longer bike ride by limiting it to smaller chunks of less than half an hour each.

On this ride, I found some memorials barricaded, and others wide open. I'm not sure why this was, but I saw photos later in the week of some of the previously open memorials that were barricaded at some point after my Tuesday visit. 

You Shall Not Pass

The barricading itself was ridiculous and spiteful. I saw more park rangers on this day than I had on my first visit, only this time they were being paid to keep people out. Former Secretary of the Interior, Gale Norton said in an interview later in the week that "the National Parks Service has a long history of dramatizing budget issues by inconveniencing the public...They often choose the most dramatic type of action in order to get their message across."

However, even if I couldn't go in the memorials again, I could get photos of the closed memorials, something that not every tourist to D.C. can boast of.

How many tourists get to take photos like these?

Two other highlights of the morning are worth mentioning here. The first was my return to the Jefferson Memorial. I had the entire site to myself, almost literally.  I sat on the steps, while a park ranger stood in the rotunda making sure I wouldn't do anything crazy or dangerous like, you know, visit the open air memorial.

The second highlight was the trip between the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials. Instead of taking the route around the tidal basin, as Ray and I had done on Sunday, I rode my bike along the Potomac River. It was a clear, sunny, fall day. The trees had not achieved their full panoply of fall colors, but they were autumn-kissed, and even a gentle breeze would cause some leaves to flutter to the earth. My ride along the Potomac was so picture-perfect that it felt like I was in a video produced by the Washington Board of Tourism.  

A perfect fall day

Misadventures in Rosslyn

I ate lunch at a small cafe near the White House called "Wicked Waffle." The cafe specializes in European-style waffles, and using those waffles for both savory sandwiches and sweet desserts. It was a just little on the pricey side, but it filled me up and kept me sated for most of the afternoon, and that's all I wanted anyway. Well, that and a sandwich made out of WAFFLES!

Out of WAFFLES!

I rode my bike once more to the Lincoln Memorial, parked it, and sat on a park bench for five minutes. I then checked out a new bike, and began my journey over the Arlington Memorial Bridge.  On paper, this looked to be a short two-mile ride, with a half-mile walk to Arlington afterwards. What the paper maps neglected to inform me of, though, was that Rosslyn is a hilly city.

Once across the bridge, I was faced with some very steep hills between me and the bike station in Rosslyn. The ride nearly did me in, but I eventually arrived, and parked my bike. I decided that before hiking back to Arlington, I needed some more Powerade from a nearby McDonald's. When I got to the McDonald's in Rosslyn, though, I discovered that not only did they not have Powerade, but they did not have a self-serve drink station like every other self-respecting McDonald's in the world. 

I bought a large Sprite and drank it as I walked to the Marine Corps Memorial, reflecting on how much this town had disappointed and defeated me. Not only was it a city whose steep hills had stopped short my blissful bike ride, and then further kicked me in the teeth by denying me my blessed Powerade relief, but it was also the city in which Josiah Bartlett and Josh Lyman were nearly killed.  Rosslyn, Virginia: you are dead to me.

Arlington

I stopped at the Marine Corps Memorial on my way to Arlington. The statue of the flag raising of Iwo Jima is huge and impressive, but the memorial is lacking in one crucial aspect. There are no benches around the memorial. I guess the Marines want you to tough it out and stay on your feet when you come to visit their memorial. After snapping a few quick photos, I gazed once more on the six men who raised the flag, and then moved on.

Ira Hayes is there in the back

I had decided months ago that my first stop in Arlington National Cemetary would be the grave of Ira Hayes. He was a Pima Indian from Arizona, and was one of the six flag raisers in that famous photo. After reading Flags of our Fathers, I was deeply moved by Private Hayes' story. I entered the cemetery from the north, and Ira's grave was on the south end, so it was quite a hike to get there.

I sat in the shade of a tree near Ira Hayes' grave and reflected on his tragic life. "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" had been running through my head since entering the cemetery, and a stray whistle of the tune had escaped my lips during my hike to the grave site. As I sat under the tree, the hymn came back to me and I softly sang it to Ira.

A tragic American story

I heaved myself to my feet, and began wandering through the cemetery. Although Arlington is filled with many memorials and famous graves, I had made no prior plans on what to see, other than Ira Hayes and the Tomb of the Unknowns. Before reaching the Tomb of the Unknowns, I stumbled across the graves of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Arthur Goldberg, and Lieutenant General Leonard Wood.

A famous grave

I tried to time my arrival at the Tomb of the Unknowns so I could watch the changing of the guard, which occurs every hour on the hour. I got there with 30 minutes to spare, so I detoured to the nearby monument in honor of the USS Maine, as well as the small memorials dedicated to the astronauts of the Challenger and the Columbia. There was also a small memorial dedicated to the men and women who died during the failed rescue attempt of the hostages in the U.S. Embassy in Iran.

They have slipped the surly bonds of earth..

..and touched the face of God.

I returned to the Tomb of the Unknowns at a quarter till. I found a good seat on the steps, shaded by the memorial behind me. At the stroke of 4:00, the changing of the guards began.  An Army Honor Guard approached the tourists and asked us to remain silent and standing throughout the ceremony. It was a solemn moment, and throughout I pondered the inscription: "Here rests in honored glory an American Soldier known but to God."

Tomb of the Unknowns

Army Honor Guard

As the ceremony concluded, I walked slowly out of the memorial. I checked the map of Arlington on my phone to see if there were any memorials I ought to see before heading out. I noticed that I was not far from the memorial to Pan Am Flight 103, which was bombed over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

This last memorial was a cylindrical cairn, with a number of stones equal to the number of victims.  Visitors had placed pennies and nickels around the base of the cairn, so I took the change out of my pocket and left my own offering.

Memorial to the Victims of Pan Am Flight 103

On my way out of the cemetery, I passed the grave sites of the Kennedys. I approached the grave sites from the uphill side (furthest from the main entrance) and found a tasteful, simple cross. On growing closer, I found that this was not JFK's grave site, but that of his brother, Robert.  I rounded a corner and found the vast complex of marble and slate that marks the grave site of our 35th president.

Evening

My day at Arlington complete, I hopped on the metro to the Pentagon. Shane had told me that the slug lines at the Pentagon had a lot of users, both drivers and slugs, so I figured this was my best bet at finding a ride back to Woodbridge on a government shutdown day. Sure enough, as I approached the Highway 234 slug line in the Pentagon parking lot, there were already three or four cars waiting for me. This was my first time slugging without any assistance from Shane and it was a marvelous success.

I got into Woodbridge about a half hour before Shane, so I walked across the street to the Taco Bell, checked to make sure they had a self-serve drink station, and then ordered myself a stiff one (that is, a Mountain Dew Baja Blast). I quietly nursed my drink, waiting for Shane to arrive, and thinking about the day and the week behind me.

Eventually Shane arrived, and his wife showed up shortly thereafter to bring us back home. Dinner was another home-cooked meal of Parmesan chicken, creamy potatoes, corn, and cheesy garlic bread.

After dinner we watched a movie (School of Rock) before turning in for the night.

The next day would force me to say farewell to DC and begin the long trek home. It had been a fabulous week, and I would leave with no regrets.