We read that if we wanted to go into the White House we would have to queue at 7am downtime. So we were up at 6am. We were downtown at 7 and in the queue at 7:30am. We got our ticket for the tour at 10:30am so then we went off to do other stuff; Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veteran's Memorial and then off to Arlington Cemetery. We saw JFK's grave and then realised we had 30 minutes to get back to the White House. We walked very fast back, I trotted and even ran some of the way. We made it by the skin of our teeth and walked around the President's house bright red and sweaty. You only actually see about 6 rooms and it was over before it began really. The Christmas decorations were nice though. Now all we wanted to do was sit down but we both called home first to say we were at the White House and then proceeded to the Old Post Office. We sat down and had a cup of tea and then we went up the Post Office Tower. This is supposed to be the "best" view of the city but the city has great monuments and memorials designed to be seen from the ground. Afterwards we had a soft pretzel and a triple cheeseburger while waiting for the FBI tour. This tour was really good although there were really too many people per group. We saw the labs and it finished with a firearms demonstration. Then it was onto the Capitol. The government of the USA, it was a shame because we were so knackered we didn't really appreciate the building and what it stood for. We then trekked down to the Jefferson Memorial, Korean Veterans Memorial and FDR Memorial and then back to the Metro. I took out $100 on CIRRUS as Claire's card still didn't work. We had been walking for near enough 12 hours and we were completely pooped. We called Slyvena and it turned out we were only 3 blocks away! Bernie had left a message with the telephone number, Claire had copied it down wrong. We turned up at their place, camped outside their door as they were out shopping and then were made to feel very welcome. They cooked us dinner, let us watch tv and gave us a really comfortable bed.
Friday 12th December
A glorious lie in, in a proper bed. Got up at 9:30am and had toast! Said goodbye to Slyvena and Santiago and junior and were now on our longest part of our journey. No-one to save us until Nevada! We didn't seem to make much progress during the day. We wanted to go on the "beautiful" Skyline drive but they wanted $10 just to drive on it. We went through Maryland, Virginia and now Tennessee. We found a BP Station to stop at for the night and we had our dinner - noodles. Claire went in to wash up. A police car pulled up while I was making the bed. He then turned around and went in the shop. Claire emerged and then the policeman shone his torch through the back windows. So Claire poked her head out and said "Hello". He immediately asked for ID so we gave him our passports. We were then joined by a state trooper! The policeman asked who the van belonged to so I produced my documents. I haven't actually looked at them myself to see what they say but he seemed quite happy with them. He asked how old we were and commented that we weren't juveniles and that was it. "Welcome to the State of Tennessee".
Saturday 13th December
Had an hour's lie-in, got up at 7:30am. We fixed the radio so we could listen to Country and were on our way. Today Nashville! Country, Country, Country! We went to the Opryland Hotel - a huge complex with conservatory, river, waterfalls inside. Then onto Opryland USA where we went round the Country Music Museum. We then went into the city which wasn't what I expected at all. Not very many skyscrapers and lots of old buildings. We did the historic tour in two bits - backwards. We drove on to a rest stop on the way to Memphis to stay the night.
<these are extracts from my diaries written whilst travelling and working in Canada and the US in '97-'98>
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