What I Did on My Holidays: Baltimore/Washington DC, Part 3

Thursday, L had her first day of the American Sewing Guild conference at the Hyatt down the street, so she hurried off early leaving M and me to take care of ourselves.  We started out to find (a) breakfast and (b) the nearest Metro station.  (a) was accomplished at an undistinguished beanery somewhere in the complex of underground shops, amounting to a subterranean mall, that runs under the office buildings from 23rd Street to 12th Street.  I knew for certain that I was away from the Deep South when I found scrapple on the breakfast buffet steam table.  (It was too heavy on the liver, so not very good.)

Coming out, I got turned around and the first thing I knew we were at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, where L’s conference was going on.  I walked up to a doorman and asked him how to get to the Metro, and he waved a dismissive hand and said “Get in the van.”  I decided this was not the best time to begin a discussion about my not being a hotel guest, so we got in the van.

I’d inadvertently chosen to ride at morning rush hour, so the cars were absolutely PACKED with commuters.  We had to stand for several stops until a young Samaritan noticed us, stood up and gave M her seat.  Most of the commuters FINally got off at the Farragut West station, two stops before ours, so we had a minute or two’s breathing before we had to get off ourselves.  We came up aboveground at the USDA building, two blocks west of the Castle with its gorgeous parterres, at about 9:20.  None of the other museums opens before ten, so we had a little time to kill.  We spent it in the Castle’s snack-bar area, mercifully air-conditioned, and in looking through its exhibits, which are mostly teasers for the constituent museums.  There was an exhibition loaned from NMAH on collectible coins and paper money I found intriguing, but which left M cold; even the shiny REAL GOLD eagles and double eagles weren’t interesting.

Finally ten o’clock came and we walked across to the Natural History museum.  M was torn between admiration of the mounted African elephant in the rotunda and terror at the sheer size of the display.  (After all, elephants in books are rarely as big as the real thing, or even drawn in true proportion.)  In the Dinosaur Hall, though, terror won out.  She simply couldn’t bring herself to be in the same place as an articulated T. rex skeleton, leaning down as though to snap her up.  Instead, we went in to the Mammalian hall, which was full of small (and large) furry animals, with which M was much more at ease.  Many of the African exhibits had animals she knew from The Lion King and Madagascar, so they felt familiar to her.  The Oceanic Hall was closed for remodeling, so I didn’t have the chance to take her in to see the stuffed blue whale suspended from the ceiling.

Later we went down the Mall to the National Museum of American History, where we walked all OVER.  (It was a good thing we went when we did; I just discovered the museum is closing completely after Labor Day for a two-year renovation project.)  We went through the Age of Transportation exhibit and saw high-varnish passenger steam locomotives and farm tractors, woodie station wagons and battered Okie jalopies, tourist cabins and travel trailers, city plans for postwar commuter suburbs and young couples buying a new car because of the “one on the way.”  I made M tag along through an astonishing exhibit of photographs of country music stars taken between 1972 and 1981, at the end of the time when it was still possible to get right up close with your favorite star, tell him how much his music meant to you, get him to sign a publicity photo for your kid, get your picture taken with him, maybe even give him a hug.  (Think about tryin’ to do THAT today with Clint Black, just for example!)  Eventually we had to give up and go because we were both too footsore to keep walking, and M was having problems with her legs chafing.  Back out onto the Mall, and back into heat just as bad and oppressive as the day before at Mount Vernon.

On the way to the Metro, M insisted on having a ride on the carousel that’s been on the south side of the Mall near the Castle since the late 1960s.  She picked out a zebra for her mount, I got up on a regular horse right next to her, and off we went.  (That’s right.  I rode on a carousel.  Me.  At my age.  Deal.)  M, who’d never been on a carousel before, was absolutely delighted.  After that, we both limped back to the Metro station and caught a Blue line train outbound, only to discover the air conditioning was out in our car.  Trains were running behind because of the excessive hot weather, so I didn’t dare get off to wait for the next train, for fear it’d be worse.  We sweltered our way back to Crystal City, picking up clots of commuters along the way and getting hotter and more airless at each stop.  At last we reached our station, got off, and dove into the Crystal City Shops underground mall again, blessed with air conditioning, and were able to walk from the station at 18th Street to 23rd Street before we had to brave the heat again.  Fortunately, the hotel was only two blocks away.

A rest and then an hour of Cartoon Network left us feeling better, so when L showed up we went back out and into Crystal City Shops to find supper.  (It probably deserves its own post, since completely underground malls are uncommon anywhere, but you ain’t gettin’ it from me.)  We ended up at an undistinguished but mostly adequate Tex-Mex place, since M and I were both rebelling at the idea of walking any further than we had to.  Supper done, we went back to the hotel, and so to bed.

Next:  More Smithsonian, with Indians and Rousseau.

There are never any reticulated buttressed epinephrines when you need them.  Fnord.