Out of Office

Washington Monument from Constitution Gardens

After being home for only a week, I found myself on another plane early Sunday morning, this time to the East Coast. I was traveling with two of my colleagues from work to a scientific conference in Frederick, Maryland. We landed at Dulles around 4:00PM, but by the time we retrieved our luggage and picked up the rental car it was already after 5:00PM.

I had no problem convincing my friends to take a quick field trip into Washington, DC straight from the airport, especially since I was the one driving the car! The last time I visited DC was in late September/early October 2010. We pulled the boys out of school to see the nation's capital together with another family - what a fun trip! But that was pre-blog, so I don't have any details posted online.

It was about 5:45PM when we crossed the Potomac River from Virginia into DC, so we still had enough daylight left to walk around a small portion of the National Mall. Fortunately since it was a Sunday evening, we were able to find metered street parking (paid via ParkMobile) along Constitution Avenue NW, right by Constitution Gardens.

After passing by the pond in Constitution Gardens, we walked through the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and then up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial. My friends were kind enough to humor me as I went into the bookstore inside the memorial to get my passport stamps - all 7 of them!

Still my favorite memorial

Walking along the Reflecting Pool, we had to fight off swarms of weird gnat-like things as we made our way to the World War II Memorial...

...and then back to Constitution Gardens again to close the loop. We didn't see the monuments lit up at night when the whole family was here in 2010, so this was a special treat for me!

Constitution Gardens at night

We were back in the car by 7:00PM. What should have been a 45-minute drive to Frederick actually took over an hour because of an accident on the Beltway near the exit to I-270 North. But thankfully we made it in one piece to our hotel and were able to find a restaurant nearby serving dinner since our stomachs were still on Pacific time.

Knowing that we would have some free time when the conference ended, I contacted the National Museum of Civil War Medicine to make an appointment for us to visit Wednesday afternoon. After listening to scientific presentations for 2.5 days, I was definitely ready to unplug my brain and do something different. We first stopped by the tourist information center for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area passport stamp and then over to the museum for our 3:00PM self-guided tour (and another stamp!)

During the Civil War, because of Frederick's location, many sick and injured soldiers were sent here for medical care following the battles of South Mountain, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Monocacy. Its churches, homes, and other buildings served as makeshift hospitals. The museum is currently located in the historic Carty Building in downtown Frederick, which had previously housed a furniture and undertaking business. Richard Burr, a Civil War embalmer with questionable ethics, also operated out of this very building. 

While some of the exhibits were a little morbid, I still thought that it was a fascinating museum. Glad that we were able to squeeze in a visit!

Thought this was apropos since we work for a pharmaceutical company

This morning we checked out of the hotel and stopped by the Monocacy National Battlefield visitor center on our way back to Dulles. The last time I attended the conference in 2017, I was able to visit the points of interest along the auto tour route. Today I was just happy to add another sign pic to my collection (and get the stamps!)

 

R and I will definitely have to plan a trip out east to visit more Civil War sites soon!