Trip of a Lifetime Part 2

Trip of a Lifetime
Sunday, May 26th
To start our day, we went to church at Bethany Lutheran Church, my usual church.  Unlike when my Dad was here, we did not arrive at the church about 45 minutes early.  It was a good service for Trinity Sunday.  We recited the Athanasian Creed.  My Grandma liked how it was responsive with the pastor versus the congregation reciting the entire creed.

After the service we went to the hotel to change and drove to my apartment to park the car before we headed out for our day in Old Town Alexandria.  We wanted to take the Old Town Trolley from the King Street Metro station to our destination about 17 blocks down King Street towards the Potomac River.  Unfortunately the the Trolley does not start until 11:30 AM and we needed to be at the Carlyle House at 11:45 AM.  If we waited for the trolley we would not have made it to the Carlyle House on time.  So we walked.  Some members of our group complained from the start to the end including pointing out a parking garage right next to our destination.  However I think the walk was good and the complainers had plenty of time and opportunity to point out the possible deficiency in the schedule.  I think the person who created the schedule did a great job and I appreciate the work that went it making the schedule.  The Carlyle House was nice.  It was nice to see how some people lived in that time even though it was a rich person's house.  Most of the house had been restored because it was abandoned for awhile after a generation of two after John Carlyle.  However the structure remained intact because it was made of stone.

Next we went to Gadsby's Tavern.  We saw what a tavern would like around the time of the Revolution.  It had a eating and drinking area on the first floor, large room for activities such as dancing and smart pigs on the second floor, and a few beds and rooms on the top floor.  I am glad I do not have to frequent places like that.  Then we went to the adjacent hotel that has a room where George Washington had birthday bashes and Thomas Jefferson celebrated after his Inauguration.

For a midday break, we went to Pop's Old Fashioned Ice Cream.  My Grandpa had one of the biggest sundaes I have ever seen.  He was able to eat the whole thing!  Afterwards we went the final block or two to the waterfront.  We walked around a little bit to see the area before resting for our big Potomac Boat Cruise.  We say people playing drums on 5 gallon plastic buckets, playing the harp, making balloon animals, and drawing caricatures.

The highlight of the day was the Potomac River Cruise.  We took a boat ride from Alexandria to Georgetown and back that took about 1 hour and 45 minutes.  We crept slowly up the river seeing all the sights you could see from the river boat.  We were able to get great seats at the bow of the ship.  There was plenty of room on the bow of the ship because people left after getting slashed with a little bit of water.  We had not seen the monuments from that vantage point before.  We also saw some new things like the Naval Research Laboratory and US Army War College.  The tour was different in each direction.  As we were going up the river I told my group that the tour guide had not talked a word about Arlington Cemetery even though in was right next to us on the water.  Then on the way back it was an integral part of the tour.  It was a great tour for us because we got to rest and see old and new sites all the while doing it in a relaxing environment from a boat.  It was pretty cool.

That evening we went to Don Pablo's for dinner and shopped for food for myself at Shoppers.  I will not have to go grocery shopping for at least a month except for items that need to be fresh or something for a recipe.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  I was taking pictures with my Grandma's camera instead of my own.  Maybe my Mom and/or Grandma will  graciously lend me some of their pictures, which I will post on the blog at some point in time.