Washington D.C

As some may know, the Spring Valley high school band recently went on a trip to our nation's capital. We've been practicing various patriotic songs and marches over the course of the past few months, and our plan was to play at the steps of the Lincoln memorial. Over the course of the trip, myself and everyone else found ourselves gazing at some of the most interesting and historic sites in the country, brushing elbows with an incredibly diverse rage of people from various countries around the world, and becoming so sleep-deprived that it's not even funny any more.
From start to finish, here's the story....

....March 23rd, 2013--Day 1

Tensions were high at the start of the trip, as can be expected. Chaperones were beginning to realize just how much work was cut out for them to keep twenty-odd restless teenage kids together, and it was dawning on all of us that we were going to be a long way from home for a long time. The bus was a little late, but the loading process was about as streamlined it could be under circumstances, and soon we were on our way.




Night one we spent on the bus. Most people slept upright in their seats. I, personally, am incapable of sleeping upright. There's always some part of me pressing harder against the seat than the rest, and so I end up with weird cramps and numb spots. I eventually moved to the floor, and spent the night rolling around amongst our luggage and banging my head against the underside of the seat. Needless to say, I got very little sleep.

March 24th--Day 2
We drove most of the day, and I lost count of how many states we passed through. Eventually, we ended up in Pennsylvania, where we stopped at Gettysburg and took a tour of the battlefield. The tour guide was interesting; he talked loudly and animatedly, and he had a tendency to mumble-chuckle at his own jokes every once in a while. After the tour, we ate at General Pickett's Buffet (which was better than the name may suggest). We made it to the hotel around seven or eight o'clock, and I played a lively game of 'Splenda' (better known as 'spoons') with my roommates before eventually going to bed.

March 25th--Day 3
I was, until this day, unaware that one's feet could hurt so much.

The day started with a tour of Mt. Vernon. We walked through the house itself (which felt odd--I felt as if I was intruding on someone's home without their permission), and then were given free reign to wander around the estate. The local flora was interesting--I noted the usual maples and oaks, but also sycamores, holly, and magnolias, which you don't see too much of in the midwest. There were interesting buildings and even some barns that were still in use, and I heard rumors that George's dentures were somewhere on display in the visitor's center.

Next on the itinerary was the Smithsonian, my personal favorite. We wandered through the American History museum, and saw Dorothy's shoes from The Wizard of Oz and Kermit the Frog. The rest of the day I spent in the Natural History museum with a fellow natural science nerd. There was everything there from ancient, fossilized mammal skeletons from the Pleistocene to a zoo full of insects and arthropods, and I even caught a passing glimpse of the Hope Diamond (there were so many people crowded around it, a glimpse was all you could ever get). For lunch, I had the most expensive apple and cookie I've ever eaten, and for supper, we went to Union Station.
Back at the hotel, we stayed up a little later than we should have building a fort out of the bed mattresses.

March 26th--Day 4
My memory of the chronological order of this day is mixed up, because I wrote it a day late and the itinerary was switched around due to weather.
To the best of my knowledge, we started out the day at Arlington cemetery, where we witnessed the changing of the guard ceremony and saw the Eternal Flame and the Kennedy burial spot. The Lincoln memorial was next, where we played our songs (despite the attempts by the wind to send our music spinning off into the reflecting pool), and then walked around the park that surrounded the memorial and saw the Vietnam wall. Next was the Iwo Jima memorial and the statue of the six soldiers raising the American flag. According to our guide, one of them was actually from Antigo, Wisconsin, though I couldn't quite figure out which. Lunch was at a renovated Post Office that had been turned into a mall, where we ate some blessedly reasonably-priced food and were ushered into various souvenir stands by some of the pushiest vendors I've ever come across.
We ended the day at the Toby's dinner theater, where we saw a very well-done production of Fiddler on the Roof. The food was good, the actors surprisingly similar to those in the movie, and I even had a chance to leave behind a napkin with my blog address and a myriad of doodles (If you found it, tell me!). By the time we got home, it was 11:54, and I could barely walk, let alone think.

March 27th--Day 5
This was the last day in the hotel, and subsequently the last chance I had of getting any decent sleep. We hurriedly packed in the morning and did a quick sweep of the hotel room, and then loaded up everything onto the bus once more and set off for our last day of touring. We went back to the Smithsonian first, and I went off with the group that went to the National Archives. We arrived a half hour before the place even opened, and even so, the line extended half a block around the building. It grew even longer as the day went on. Once inside, we saw the Bill of Rights, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and even the Magna Carta, among other things. One thing I found interesting was the speech that was written during the Apollo missions as backup in case they didn't come back....
We trudged on to the Air and Space museum next, and saw a few of the major items like the Wright Flyer and Amelia Earhart's plane. Regrettably, we couldn't stay long, because we were running short on time and we hadn't yet gotten a close look at the Capitol building. We did a quick walk around the perimeter, and observed the various protests going on at the steps. After loading up the bus again, we went, in quick sequence, to the White House, Jefferson Memorial, Franklin Roosevelt Memorial, and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. By that point, I was once again dead on my feet, and grateful when we finally got on the bus again and headed home.

The rest is pretty uninteresting--another night sleeping on the floor of the bus, a relieved homecoming, and finally sleeping in my own bed for the first time in five days. In short, it was a great trip, but man am I glad to be back. My congratulations and thanks to Ms Donna Dawson (the band director), for putting together yet another successful band trip and for putting up with us for five whole days.