Day 5

Day's Traveling
    Start: 2:14 PM (Washington, DC)

    End:  10:23 PM (Houston, TX ) *central time

Total Travel Hours

     Joanna: 15 hours 34mins

             4 hours 8mins 7 (train) hours  21mins (car)4 hours 5min (plane)

     Alex: 14 hours 29mins

              4 hours 8mins (train) 6 hours 16mins (car) 4 hours 5min (plane)

States Driven through:

New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland*, Virginia and Texas (5/10)

*only 14 miles were traveled in this state
Today was our first and last day in Washington, D.C. It was another beautiful day (how are we getting so lucky?!) Aileen had work at 8AM (this seems to be a trend in our trip so far, everyone we stay with has to work or go to school- I guess Jo and I should feel like slackers… or not). Jo and I slept a bit later and started our day after 9. Last night we had decided to try and head over to the Zoo during the morning and then over to Rosslyn, VA for lunch with Aileen and to catch the bus for the Dulles Airport. 

We packed up our things and before we could head out I received a frantic request from Aileen, which changed our plan up a bit. She asked us to drop off a check at her landlord’s house before the end of the day. The landlord was the opposite direction of the Zoo, but after Aileen gave us some directions (although tad vague and yes you do have to go past the tennis courts Aileen) I compared them to the directions to the Zoo and figured out a relatively simple loop to get to both places.

We made it to the landlord’s with little confusion (that was easy it was a straight line). For the Zoo we had to back track a bit. Our travels took us past the Polish Embassy!

That’s when everything got a little confusing. Joanna figured I knew exactly where I was going, and I did my best to pretend I was an expert of the Adams Morgan road ways… if only that was the case. Instead, we ended up making a wrong turn that had put us a mile or more away from the zoo. I’m not sure of the exact distance, but it was far enough that when we asked people, “Excuse me, how do you get to the zoo?” we would receive a slight chuckle and a, “Well you are going the wrong way…” in reply.  After getting this reply twice, Jo and I headed over to a map and tried to figure out what went wrong. We managed to look lost enough that a city worker came over and helped us out, a lot. He stopped traffic then flagged down the necessary bus that would put s back on the right path.

The bus took us back to Aileen’s apartment for the most part (so we backtracked again). This time Jo took over the navigation. She figured out that we could walk the other direction from Aileen’s house and we would eventually make it to the Zoo.

The path we ended up taking ended up being a very roundabout way, but this time when we asked people, “Where is the National Zoo” we were greeted with replies such as, “Oh you just keep going straight on this road!” and “Just three more blocks, right ahead!” However, at this point it was already 11:40. We had planned to be back at the apartment and on our way to the metro station at 12:30. This did not leave much time to finish walking to the Zoo or look around the Zoo. But Jo and I were dead set on making it to the Zoo.

At 12 we finally made it! Looking at the map we realized that we could walk straight through the part and end up at Aileen’s apartment (the path we had tried to take earlier in the morning). Because of our previous luck with navigation we made sure to double check with one of the Zoo employees at the welcome center. The women at the front desk confirmed our theory, “Yea, that will take you right where you want to go, alright but cha’ gonna miss the Panda exhibit and the wild bird cage!” Jo and I just laughed… she had no idea we were even lucky to see any of the animals!

We headed out and completed one of the quickest tours through the National Zoo (look for it in next year’s Guinness World Record’s book). We saw the cheetahs, zebras, elephants and tigers. The main event was the lions! They had brought the cubs out early and we were able to see them play around for a few minutes. 

By the time we left the Zoo it was 12:20 (great timing right!!). We did not get lost on the way home thanks to the lovely signs pictured below. It’s like the city had finally caught on that Jo and I are not very good at navigating.

We got our bags from the apartment, grabbed a seat on the bus and headed to the metro station. Our timing was perfect, as we headed down the gigantic escalators our train pulled into the station. One transfer to the Blue line (wait time 3mins) and we made it without problem to Rosslyn and with a half hour to spare (I now take back everything I said; clearly Jo and I are just expert navigators- if you want any advice please feel free to contact us).

To ensure no further problems, we grabbed lunch to go from Chipotle and bit Aileen adieu. The sun was still out as we sat on the bench, ate lunch and waited for our bus to take us to Dulles Airport.

The bus arrived a little late, but the fact that everything had worked out thus far, Jo and I were still feeling good. We hit a little traffic and ended up getting in about twenty minutes later than planned but we (actually only Haggred) made some friends during the trip. He was the topic of conversation in the back of the bus and I think he will be getting a few friend requests before the night is through!

The Dulles airport was beautiful, clean and big. Huge windows provide light for the ticking area and you aren’t required to know your gate or terminal information until after security (a very nice feature for people out of town). We made it to our gate with about an hour to spare (very good planning).  

The wind helped our plane out and we actually landed in Chicago a little earlier than expected, a first for this trip.

Then we had to wait in Bear country (not for very long). The Midtown airport in Chicago is little more yellow and little more crowded than Dulles. But there was only a small distance between our arrival gate and our departure gate so all and all it’s not horrible (minus the Bear’s fans... who weren’t really making themselves known, but I know they are here).

Our flight was delayed by about 10 minutes, not terrible by any means. We waited at another gate, as all the chairs were full at ours. The gate was for a flight to Albany, and for a moment Jo and I thought of switching flights for a moment, and then saw the temperature, 19 degrees… definitely not, haha. Not when Texas had a high today of 66 degrees!

On the plane, the flight crew was trying to make up delay time they had picked up in Boston. But, another passenger had other ideas. As we were about o push off, she got up to go to the bathroom. The flight staff suggested she sit back down and wait until after the plane took off. She said she couldn’t wait. The staff called the captain as she was in the bathroom and the captain said to knock on the door and tell her to hurry up! She didn’t and we lost our spot in the flight pattern and had to wait a little bit longer.

 It all turned out okay in the end, the pilots made up 42 minutes of the delay time and we only got in 7 minutes behind schedule.  As we walked off the plane I was officially the furthest West I have ever been!! Jo and I had made it to Huston, Texas!

Jo’s brother, Mike, picked us up and took us to Krogers to pick up some frozen pizzas for dinner. When we got to Mike’s house Jo did a good job explaining it, “it’s so Texas looking. ” Haha, well it was another good day and now it’s time to relax with some beers and pizza.