1997 East Coast Trip (part 1)

I was looking through my photo albums for some Throwback Thursday photos - because showing kid pix of my siblings, my own kids or my nephews is fun :)  But I happened across some photos and post cards of a whirlwind trip to the East Coast.   Fourth of July, 1997, and I flew out of SF to Washington Dulles at 10pm.  I arrived at 6am, rented a car and drove into downtown.  There's a huge parade and lots of activity on The Mall, so I parked the car at a Metro Station and hopped on a train that would take me downtown.

Here I am, 38 years old, and never been to the East Coast, had no idea what to expect, or what I'd find.  I figured playing tourist along The Mall would be the most expedient thing to do.  There was a parade, and loads and loads of people.  News media reported the next day over a million people were in attendance.  But after a night of dozing on a plane, I was exhausted.  I sat down on the grass to watch the parade ... and promptly fell asleep.  As I look back on it now, I'm surprised when I woke up that I still had my purse and all my property! Of all the days on the trip, this one stands out the most as I was alone, and able to go in any direction that I wanted to. I didn't waste the day waiting in a hotel for my husband to arrive.  I wandered around, saw the Viet Nam Memorial wall, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument.  It was rough going with so many people. I remember thinking I should take loads of pictures, but mostly my pics would just be of crowds, so I elected to get more postcards than photos.   I addressed them and sent them to myself with every place we visited!

Out of the 6 day trip, not much stands out.  See, I flew by myself, my husband flew in that night.  We took separate flights as he was in Gunnison, CO for a music thing he'd been involved with for years, something we'd always attended together, and unexpectedly he didn't want me along this year.  Things had been rocky for us since his father had died in January.  I think this East Coast trip was a "make it or break it" kind of trip, and I don't think I was that anxious to be here.

The next morning, we hopped in the car and started driving north toward Pennsylvania.  I remember getting into a fight about mid-day.  We'd been driving a long while, and he said something snappy about what a great trip this is!  And I muttered "yeah, maybe for you."  He asked what my beef was... I said it's hard to enjoy a trip when I'm doing the driving.  Every highway on the East Coast looks just the like ones in California.  This was definitely his kind of trip, whirlwind driving with very little stops.  Sure, he could say he's "been there" ... but he was only passing through.  I'm pretty sure I sucked it down and kept driving - because then I could stop and see things I wanted to see!