Springtime Visit to DC

In April we took a 5 hour road trip North to pay Washington DC a visit, and well worth the visit it was too. What a beautiful and interesting city. So totally different to any other I have visited in the States.

We arrived on the Thursday before Easter and spent the rest of the day and much of Friday morning orientating ourselves and working out where and what we were going to go and see - easy peasy right? Not quite. From here on in our visit was hampered by security alerts which meant NO ENTRY into the Capitol Building, Library of Congress or the Supreme Court despite two attempts, a heatwave, half the nation deciding to flock to the capital to see the stunning Japanese Cherry Blossoms, the sheer volume of queues to visit the National Museums and even the time it took to get a decent meal. When I say that in terms of the sheer number of people in Washington DC that weekend The Mall resembled Marina Beach on a Sunday, and the Museums Sathyam Multiplex any night of the week, some of you will catch my drift. Overcrowded and unsafe. Especially with little ones, one of whom is anti-handholding and anti-pushchair/stroller!

By Saturday evening hot, tired and all with aching feet we decided to call it quits and go home to de-stress and have a quiet Easter Sunday. Hopefully we will return again at a less busy time of year to see all that we missed. And miss things we did because the mayhem was such that the sightseeing buses were jampacked and even if the four of us could have got on one, the traffic was seriously gridlocked! Another time...fingers crossed.
Here are some pics of our trip.

Personalize your own free slideshow

7516 Miles

To this very day and hour that is exactly how many miles I have driven since taking delivery of my car, give or take a few days, 4 months ago in October.

To put this into some sort of perspective when I was a SAHM in England my average annual mileage topped a whopping 4000 miles, that included dashes here there and everywhere countrywide to visit friends and relatives and the odd holiday or two. The reason it was so low; because I could and did walk everywhere that I possibly could in my hometown, there were many days, even weeks when my car never left the driveway.


Now (and this is frightening) of all those 7516 motored miles none of them include any wild and wonderful road trips, oh no, they are completely made up from school runs, grocery shopping runs and all the driving around in circles that I find myself doing. Almost. All. Of. The. Time.

Even if you wanted to walk anywhere here you can't, it's just not set up for that. People only walk for excercise and dress accordingly so there is no doubt as to what is it they are doing. A few weeks ago we were sat at some traffic lights and Ellie piped up,
"Oh wow, there's something you don't see everyday!"
While I was laughing at the tone of her observation I realised that she was actually pointing to a family who were WALKING and actually risking life and limb CROSSING THE ROAD! I have to say, that she was completely right...that is not something that you see here everyday...comprendez?

So the upshot of all this driving is? Well let me just ask... "Does my bum look big in this car?"

The Driving Test

In order to 'Drive Thru Our Lives' here we had to take a driving test and I will tell you that the very thought struck terror into me. It's been a few years, OK a good few since I took my driving test in England...and I failed first time round.

A drivers license is very necessary here because obviously it enables you to drive, it also acts as your photo-id which you have to carry everywhere with you and present fairly regularly, I was very nervous carrying my passport around all the time knowing my propensity to lose things and I don't lose any old things, just important things. It also enables you to own a car - if you also have a social security number...but that's another story.

We had the date set and around about 100 pages of North Carolina Highway Code to revise and just the sight of all those pages were overwhelming and we just didn't feel confident enough so we postponed it for a week. The day approached and Ian thought about postponing it again but by this time I just wanted it over and done with - if I failed I'd just have to take it again the following week.

The day came and we made our way to the test centre. We presented our paperwork and waited to called by our assigned examiner. Mine was Miss Frosty and I don't think it helped her mood when I pulled out an anti-bac wipe to clean the binocular like eye test machine - I'm not THAT fussy or an OCD case but it did look very greasy where hundreds of other foreheads had probably rested to take the eye test. Next was the computerised multiple choice theory test in which you had to get 20/25 correct to take the driving part of the test. Thanks to Jo (a Brit friend in New Jersey) I was well prepared for this as she'd told me about a website where you could practice questions. The test wasn't hard but some of the terminology was very different to the DVLA version and I can't now remember all the examples but...'defensive driving' was one. Should you practice defensive driving? Ian and I both thought that this would be a bad thing but apparently defensive driving is a good thing! I got one wrong and passed on another because I just didn't understand the question and it was onto the 'driving' test.

Ian took his first and passed, so there was no pressure was there? Me and Miss Frosty make our way to Ian's hire car and in my head I keep repeating to myself, speed limit (I'd been practicing for days at trying to stick to it!), 3 point turn and emergency stop. After checking the car for road worthiness we were off. One thing I had noticed was that there is usually a speed limit sign at least every 200yards along every road - but not this one! I hazard a guess that it's 45 and breath a sigh of relief when I do eventually see a sign. Around this time Miss Frosty thawed and became quite chatty which I didn't think was very helpful and made me wonder if it was a distraction technique!

So ten minutes in and I've observed and stuck to the speed limit, turned left and right, carefully 3 point turned and I'm thinking, 'just an emergency stop to go, just an emergency stop to go.' When Miss Frosty says 'stop' I did THE best emergency stop I've ever done...only she didn't quite want it to happen then because she actually wanted me to just stop and then show her how good I am at reversing. Ooops! Thankfully she saw the funny side, I reverse, we drive on and then she lets me do my emergency stop. Not quite as good as the first but it was good enough.

Back to the test centre to be told I had passed, have my mug shot taken and to hear that my license will be in the post in a few days. Celebration time! - Ian and I actually had lunch together, on our own, which I don't think has ever happened during the last 5 years!!

Driving Thru Your Life Part II

Thank you to Gill for this Driving 'Thru' Your life example!

Drive Thru Your Life

We are definately definately in the Land of the Car.

Nobody walks anywhere unless it is from and to their car, and everything is geared up for 'doing things from your car'.

Need some cash? You can drive to, up to and thru the cashpoint and obtain your money through the car window. Need to pay some cheques in? You can drive up to the bank window where a cashier is waiting for you and then you drive thru.

Need some medicines? You can drive thru at the pharmacy.

Hungry? Drive thru for anything and everything you may so desire. Burgers, Pizza, Donuts, Chicken, Sandwiches - the list is endless.

A coffee? Drive thru Starbucks.

Groceries? Why not phone or email your shopping list to the shop and then drive thru to pick it up.

Taking your child to school? Just drive up to the carpool line, join the queue, inch forward, unlock the door, teacher opens the door and removes child and you just drive on thru. The same applies when collecting your child from school.

In fact I have been inside Ellie's school just twice, once for a look/see and the other time on Meet the Teacher day....and I don't mind telling you that on this point I feel 'robbed'. Robbed in the sense that on my daughters very first day of 'big school' I wasn't able to walk her into her class and settle her in, and she looked so little in her big school uniform and she was a little nervous. On the plus side I suppose...at least the children and teachers didn't have to deal with a whole host of blubbering mothers!

I'll be on the look-out for more 'Drive thru your Life' examples! Haven't seen a Drive Thru cinema, but wait, I think that may be called a 'Drive In'?