Sanity Restored, Fear Kept Alive (Part1)

 Special Correspondent Carol Florio

Well the rally is history and it was quite an interesting adventure.  We booked the trip through Expedia and all reservations went through without a hitch.  Up at 4AM Friday for a 6:30 flight out of Logan, we parked the car at the nearby Logan Shuttle caught the 5AM bus and had time for an overpriced breakfast at the airport.  We flew to Newark to change planes with a 1/2 hour layover.  We boarded a small prop plane for the trip to Washington.  It was a strange looking little craft.   Here it is :  

As we descended into to Dulles the plane was bounced around by some pretty high winds which is why Carol looks a little green in this picture and the kid getting off was ecstatic to reach terra firma. 

Dulles is a confusing, kind of sucky airport with lots of big empty spaces to be crossed and not much signage help.  After fifteen minutes of wandering around we made our way to the curb to catch the hotel shuttle which promptly blew right by us.  A call to the hotel got it back with the driver none to happy with us.

The Crowne Plaza Dulles was a decent place and they let us check in early which was good.  After a nerve-calming libation we decided to make a dry run to DC.  The hotel was about 25 miles outside the city but the bus stop was right out the front door to take us to the Metro.>

It was a smooth commute to the Smithsonian stop, total travel time around one hour.  We spent the day walking all over the Capitol area looking at some of the most magnificent buildings you will see  anywhere.


 

Of course we checked out the National Mall which was the site of the next day's rally.  Final preparations were still underway but all in all it was pretty quiet.  That would change.