Far,
We’ve been traveling far
Without a home
But not without a star
Free,
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream
On the boats and on the planes
They’re coming to America
Never looking back again,
They’re coming to America
– Neil Diamond
Thursday 9 November
Washington, D.C.
Not much to write about tonight, except to note that we’ve made it safely to the District of Columbia, inside the Beltway.
Mostly, the day was spent sitting on our butts. We departed Colorado Springs at 8:30am, arrived in Denver just after 10am, where we dropped off the Ford Explorer we’d been utilising the last few days, and went to the airport.
It was a milestone moment for me coming through security: this is my tenth visit, each one featuring multiple flights, and for the first time, I was subjected to a full pat-down. My carry-on backpack was identified as needing a proper search due to a bag of coins and some candy inside. When they were doing the swab test that comes with any bag search, the machine identified that maybe I had some sort of explosive trace in my bag.
That necessitated a full bag search and a pat-down, which involved the TSA officer – who I must say was very friendly and made the process pretty smooth and easy – getting closer to me than I expected anyone in Denver International Airport would. For the record, the entire process from the bag first getting identified as needing a proper search to me re-joining the others was about twenty minutes. And it’s nowhere near as invasive
We flew Southwest Airlines, and had a very smooth flight into the biggest airport in the Washington D.C. area, Dulles International. From there, it’s an hour’s drive to our accommodation in the city, a few miles from Capitol Hill. We’re in a basement apartment that’s very pleasant and hellishly warm, but with low ceilings in some places that requires me to duck my head. Aside from that, it’s a cosy place, and the location is great.
Tonight, we did one of the most American thing you can do: ate Dominos pizza, drank Bud Light and watched football.
Tomorrow is going to be a big day, sightseeing in and around Washington D.C.
kitchtrips 