Mr. Behrendt Goes To Washington: Mom's Visit to DC (Part I)

My Mom came to visit me here in DC. It was a great and enjoyable trip for the both of us! With the help of the "Schedule", we were able to see and do everything we set out to do and then some. Other duos would not be able to handle of furious pace or have the desire to carry on. Words can't adequately describe our experience. However I will hit some of the highlights of our trip in this and the following posts.

Thursday, 14Feb13
My Mom arrived in DC from her flight from Chicago in the mid-afternoon. Then we checked in to our hotel not far away from townhouse. Our evening plan consisted of walking along King Street to the water of the Potomac River and eating dinner at Tiffany's Tavern. King Street is the main drag in Old Town Alexandria. This is where many tourists come to eat, shop, and do touristy activities such as the George Washington Masonic Temple, Gadsby's Tavern, and see the Potomac River.

Friday, 15Feb13
5:30 AM. 5:30 AM is the time we woke up to really start our adventure. After checking out of our hotel, we drove to the Huntington Metro to get on the Metro station to head into DC. Our first stop was the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP). We had tickets in advanced because we heard it is tough to get tickets at the gate on the day you wanted to be on the tour. As we found out while waiting 30 minutes for the door to open that the BEP at 8:30 AM on a Friday was not the hottest ticket as we and 1 other person waited outside to get in. The BEP was not as impressive as Mom and I thought it would be. Visitors were only allowed to see 1 line of production. The machines were down in 1/2 of the areas we saw. Overall the tour's length was short. However we were able to determine what people were looking for when people put the $5 and $20 towards the light while checking to see if the bill is fake or authentic.

Next, we went around the Tidal Basin to look at the memorials located around the edge of the Tidal Basin. The memorials we saw were the Jefferson Memorial, George Mason Memorial, FDR Memorial, and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. The water in the FDR Memorial was shut off because they wanted to preserve the piping and pumps. The water is used visually and acoustically to to communicate what was going on in at the time the area of the memorial represented in FDR's life. For example, at the beginning of the Great Depression era, the water was extremely loud and violent. The water represented the crash of the stock market. In FDR's Memorial we partook in a Ranger led tour. The tour allowed us to appreciate things we would have never known about the memorial.

After the Tidal Basin, we ate lunch at Union Station and looked at the Georgetown Law campus before going to Senator Chuck Grassley's office in the Hart Building. We were led on a guided tour of the US Capitol by an intern in Grassley's office. The tour group was smaller than the tour groups of the public, walk up tours. This allowed our group to see and do things the other groups could not see or do. Those things included riding the senate tram/train from senate side of the capitol to the rotunda, being in the gallery in the House of Representatives, seeing the Old Supreme Court location, seeing the fictitious corner stone of the capitol, and seeing the bronze door that was supposed to be the door to the capitol. Other points of interest we saw on our tour were Statuary Hall, the rotunda, Emancipation Hall, and seeing the crypt of George Washington. It is called George Washington's crypt even though George Washington's bones are in Mt. Vernon. Around the capitol are statues. Each state is allowed to have 2 statues in the capitol at any one time except for Virginia who has 3 (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Robert E. Lee). The two statues from Iowa are Samuel J. Kirkwood and James Harlan. However the James Harlan statue is going to be replaced by Norman Borlaug as seen here. After the tour we rode the Metro to home base in Huntington. We ate dinner and finalized our plans for the next day.