D.C. Vacation

 

A good time was had by all!

    The summer after I was in eighth grade, in 1967, the family drove to Washington, D.C. We walked to the top of the Washington Monument and walked to the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.

     I seem to recall a tour of the Federal Mint building – there was a two way mirror that I found intriguing. We did the Smithsonian where the family stood behind a wax figure of Lyndon Johnson sitting at a desk, and we had our picture taken. LBJ was President at the time.

     We visited a couple of churches in town – I remember getting a charm for my charm bracelet at one of them – the churches were not in the city but rather out a ways where the view from each was beautiful.

     Besides doing a lot of walking, two things stand out about our trip to Washington even after all these years. One was the tour of the White House – we were standing in front of a roped off room with a lot of other tourists. I nudged Eric, and, totally provoked, he hit me – or rather, he strongly nudged me back. A police officer on the other side of the rope did not see what I had done, only what Eric had done, and the police officer gave Eric a bit of a lecture! Mom was mortified. Imagine Eric embarrassing the family like that in the White House! It was years before I confessed my part in the incident – which Mom would have realized all along if the public embarrassment had not been such a juicy story to repeat to all forever afterward.

     The second memorable incident also involved Eric. One night eating dinner in an affordable restaurant outside of D.C., my brother came back from the restroom laughing. When asked what was so funny, he said there was graffiti in the bathroom that said, “flush twice, it's a long way to the kitchen”!

     It was a long drive both to and from Washington – and Mom and Dad listened to different music on the radio while riding than the tunes that I preferred as a new teenager, which made the ride even longer. I remember when we were on the way home the song Up, Up, and Away by the 5^th Dimension came on the radio, it was in the top 40 at that time, and I was hoping Dad would not switch to another station. He let it play. Not one of those family memory instances where we all sang along. It was just the song on the radio, the wheels on the road, and the Des Soyes returning from a once in a lifetime vacation in the nation's capital!

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