The Votes Are In!

We had a lot of fun in the DMV over the past nine days! Here are the highlights that marked our ballots...

Around the Beltway

For our penultimate day in the DMV, we planned to visit four parks in both Maryland and DC proper. Two of them are official units in the National Park System, and two are managed as part of the National Capital Parks unit. Because our first stop was in Maryland on the opposite side of DC, we decided to drive a clockwise loop around the Beltway (I-495), getting a little later start than usual to avoid morning commuter traffic.

80 miles, 2 hours

Sunday Drive

This morning we checked out of our hotel in downtown DC and took I-395 S to I-695 E across the Anacostia River to I-295 S. Once we entered Maryland, we continued south on MD-210 to our first destination of the day, Fort Washington Park. This checks off my 200th park visited, and it just so happens to be celebrating its 200th anniversary this year. How cool is that?!

200th for #200!

Girl Power

The first item on today's itinerary was the 10:00AM ranger-led tour of Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument. So after grabbing breakfast from the lobby this morning, we walked a few blocks east to the Metrobus stop at New Jersey Ave NW & K St NW and rode the 96 Capitol Heights bus past Union Station to Massachusetts Ave NE & 2 St NE (5 stops). It was a short walk south to Belmont-Paul (0.2 mile). 

☑ Unit #198

We're Going on a Stamp Hunt

Because the K St NW & 4 St NW stop was right across the street from our hotel, we started our day riding the P6 Metrobus this morning. We had already loaded SmarTrip cards onto our phones, so it was super easy to "tap to pay" when we boarded. Four stops later, we hopped off at 11th St NW & F St NW and walked the rest of the way, passing by the statue of Revolutionary War hero Brigadier General Casimir Pulaski on the eastern side of Freedom Plaza.

The stone pavers represent a map of Washington, DC

Monuments by Moonlight

Our hotel is on the corner of K Street and 4th Street NW in Mount Vernon Triangle, which I had read was a safe neighborhood. So it was a little disconcerting to hear a woman screaming from the street below when we were upstairs this afternoon. We found out from the front desk that someone had snatched her purse/bags while she was on the sidewalk nearby. Needless to say, that made us rethink our plans to walk the 0.75 miles to Union Station this evening and called a cab instead.

We grabbed a quick dinner from Raising Cane's inside Union Station before the 7:00PM check in for the Monuments by Moonlight Tour that we had reserved with Old Town Trolley Tours. Here's the view we had looking southwest at Columbus Circle and the Capitol while we waited to board the trolley...

The Freedom Bell is a double-scale replica of the Liberty Bell

We're Golden

Thanks to the National Park Travelers Club, I found out about another website which allows you to keep track of the counties you've visited. While I'm not as die-hard as my some of my fellow NPTCers when it comes to county collecting, it is a fun way to see where we've been. In Virginia there are 38 municipalities that are independent cities which are not under the jurisdiction of any county, so those are slightly harder to get. Having already "counted" Fairfax and Alexandria so far on this trip, we took a small detour through Falls Church this morning so that I could mark it off on our county map.

Really, it was on the way...

Ok, so maybe I *might* have a problem... 

Today's route: 30 miles

Going to the DMV

Our Wagons Ho! road trip in May allowed us to make some significant progress towards our amended goal of earning the Gold Master Traveler Award from the National Park Travelers Club in 2024.

 

    Units: 36 (minimum 50)

    Stamps: 83 (minimum 100)

    Regions: 4 (minimum 6)

And now that we have visited 190 National Park Service units (184 for R, technically), the 200-unit Silver Lifetime Achievement Award is also within reach. So, this trip to the DMV (DC-MD-VA) will put us over the top for both! 🙌

Out of Office

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.

Washington Monument from Constitution Gardens

Traveling Buddies

Many of our adventures have been shared with another family. We first met 6 years ago when our older boys were just in kindergarten and they were placed on the same U6 soccer team. We came to find out that our families had many things in common, including enjoying visiting our national parks. The kids earned their first Jr. Ranger badges together at the Santa Monica Mountains NRA and have been hooked ever since. The moms love getting their passport stamps. And the dads... well, they're great about humoring the rest of us in our obsessions!

I calculated how far we've traveled in our trips together and the number I came up with was....