Dispatch from D.C.

This was written in Washington D.C. on April 6, 2009.

My original title for this post was going to be "Cherry blossoms are stupid." I don't really think they're stupid, but I remain astonished that SO MANY people will travel so far — and push and shove each other so forcefully — to snap photos of these little pink blossoms in D.C. this time of year. Bill and the kids and I came down here for a short vacation before I attend a work conference, and it's been a minor disaster from beginning to end.

Nothing seriously awful, of course — we're healthy and fine. But this hasn't been a great trip — more like a painful veering from one mishap to another. Someday I'm sure we'll find the humor in it, but we’ll need a little time. Read on:

Mishap #1: Getting here, or Cam getting his head stuck in a fare gate.

The flight down on Saturday was fine — it took us less than an hour and a half to fly from Manchester, NH to Baltimore, MD (great fares on Southwest). Why then, would it take us TWO and a HALF hours to travel the final 32 miles to downtown D.C.? Cherry blossoms. That’s why. The train station at BWI is filthy by the way, and of course Cam and Will insisted on putting their hands on every vending machine, water fountain, and pay phone in the place. I used up a week’s supply of antibacterial hand-gel before we even got out of the station.

Anyway, after some delays, we eventually made it to Union Station, only two Metro trains away from our hotel. We disembarked, hauled our luggage, stroller and children down the long platform, and eventually found our way to the Metro. Baffled tourists were everywhere, all trying to understand the Metro fare system, all asking each other for assistance, all cautiously approaching the fare machines and then backing away helplessly. The crowds were stunning, wall-to-wall people. Eventually I deciphered how much fare we’d need and purchased the tickets.

We approached the stroller gate next to the booth. In Boston, when you take the T with a stroller, they let you in through a plain old swinging gate so you don’t have to tangle with the automatic fare gates. I caught the attention of a Metro employee, so he could let us through. He insisted that we use the automatic, wheelchair-accessible fare gate. With Will beside me, Cam in a stroller, and loaded down with carry-ons (Bill was behind us hauling two large rolling duffels), I slid the fare card into the slot. The gates opened, Will ran through, and I started to push the stroller through just as the gates slammed shut.

Now on the T in Boston, the gates are like doors, so if they closed suddenly, they’d hit the sides of the stroller. In D.C., the gates are shaped like triangles, and when they violently slam shut, it turns out they are the exact size and shape to miss the stroller and strike the child in the head. Cam started screaming, and then Will, now trapped on the other side of the fare gate, cried to come back over. I extricated Cam from the gate but we had set off an alarm somehow, and only one of us had made it through, so there we were, stuck. The same Metro employee, completely annoyed and not at all apologetic, made a big show of re-setting the fare gate and letting us through. Cam was fine, but every time we approached a fare gate for the rest of the trip, he covered his ears with his hands and cried.

Mishap #2: Will shoved onto train by crazed cherry blossom mob

We needed to change Metro trains at the Gallery Place station. The station and all the trains were packed beyond belief. We found out later it was a perfect storm — three sports events in town the same night, plus the cherry blossoms at their peak, plus breakdowns in the system. We were getting shoved and pushed every which way.

When the train arrived, everyone surged toward the doors. I was holding Cam, pushing the stroller, and carrying all the carry-ons. Will was holding onto the stroller, but the crowd — desperate to get around the stroller — literally shoved him right onto the train. I don’t remember the exact sequence of the next few seconds — it’s all a terrified blur — but I think I used the stroller as a battering ram to try to force my way closer to Will. As the doors closed and I realized I was losing him, I let go of the stroller, shot my arm through the doors, and grabbed the back of Will’s shirt. I tried to use my body to keep the doors from closing, without letting Cam get caught in between (the poor kid already had his head caught in a fare gate — he didn’t need to get trapped in a train door too). The top half of my body ended up in the train, desperately clutching at Will, and the other half, holding Cam, was outside the train. People inside the train, realizing what was happening, were trying to pry the doors open for me. Metro doors don’t bounce back, apparently. After a few agonizing seconds, I somehow squeezed onto the train with Cam, and the doors slammed shut, leaving Bill on the platform. I hugged Will, almost crying with relief. The thought of a 5-year old alone on that packed train in a strange city!

Someone must have taken pity on Bill, standing on the platform with two pieces of luggage, because the doors opened and he was able to squeeze in with us. We made it to the hotel without further incident.

Mishap #3: Accidentally eating at an expensive French restaurant

The next day we battled the crowds along the National Mall, at the Natural History Museum, and at the zoo. The distances in D.C. are vast, much farther than we remembered. We were all exhausted by the end of the day, and footsore. Leaving the zoo, we trudged toward the Metro station. I spotted a giant sign that said "Pizza" with appealing little tables set out on the sidewalk. It was actually warm enough to eat outside, too. What luck! I snagged a great table for us, and we all sat down. The waitress brought menus, rolls, and water glasses. Then she said, "Just want to make sure you know this is a French restaurant. Sometimes people see that pizza sign and think that’s for THIS place." She laughed, like those people were idiots.

"Oh, um, of course," I said, frantically flipping through the menu. We should have apologized, gotten up, and left, but the kids were already tearing into the rolls, and we were so tired, and hungry.

"Let's just stay," I told Bill. "It'll be an adventure, something different." He looked dubious. But we stayed. I ordered an appetizer as my entree, to try to keep the cost down. They didn’t have a kids menu, but offered to make the boys a plate of pasta. They unfortunately topped it with a very chunky sauce, which the kids found suspicious and refused to eat. My appetizer was good, and so was Bill’s dish, but both were so artfully and delicately presented that there wasn't much actual food. Bill said, "I’d offer you a bite of the potatoes, but then I wouldn’t have any."

"C'mon, we’ll laugh about this someday," I said. Bill was glaring at me over the very expensive check. I had to admit, it was an awful lot to spend to still feel extremely hungry. After we paid the check, we went straight across the street to McDonald’s and ate again. I kid you not.

Mishap #4: Hotel evacuation

When we got back to the hotel after the French restaurant debacle, we stepped off the elevator and were immediately ushered outside by firemen — apparently the hotel was in the midst of an evacuation. It was already past the kids’ bedtime, and we were exhausted, but we reluctantly joined the group of guests wandering around on the front lawn of the hotel. I positioned the stroller at the forward edge of the crowd and instructed Will to RUN toward the elevator the minute they gave the all-clear. We made it into the second group onto the elevators when they let us back in, not too bad.

An hour later, around 9:30, literally moments after the boys had finally fallen asleep, a piercing alarm went off inside our room, accompanied by a bright flashing light. Both kids woke up and started sobbing. Then a voice came over an intercom instructing us to leave the room immediately, and to proceed down the TWELVE flights of stairs. Bill and I looked at each other in disbelief. What else could go wrong?

In the end, we didn’t evacuate again. We looked out the windows to see what everyone else was doing — huddling in their rooms like us, apparently, waiting to see if it was the real deal. The alarm continued to go off every two minutes, and the kids continued to sob and cover their ears, but an actual human voice broke in to the recording at one point and said, "This is a false alarm, you don't need to evacuate." So we stayed, but for some reason the hotel couldn’t turn off the recorded alarm. It went on so long that Cam eventually fell asleep with his hands over his ears, his cheeks streaked with tears. We held Will and waited it out. Finally after 10 PM it stopped. Whew.

Mishap #5: Air & Space Museum

After a grueling couple of days, lots of tantrums from the kids, and the incessant crowds, we were looking forward to Monday’s visit to Air & Space. Will is into space and the planets and that kind of thing, and I just knew this would be a great outing for us. The cherry blossoms were past their peak, and it was no longer the weekend, so we figured the crowds would have decamped. They did — they left the cherry blossoms to visit the Air & Space Museum.

Bill and I aren't all that crowd-tolerant to begin with, but I don’t know how anyone could have stayed inside the museum in those conditions. It was a madhouse, pushing, shoving, lost children sobbing (not mine, fortunately), a total melee. Both my boys reacted to the noise and chaos by immediately throwing tantrums — Cam literally, and Will in the form of whining and complaining. He informed us that he hates space, hates airplanes, was completely bored, and wanted to go home immediately. I tried to salvage the situation by having us split up — one of us would take Will around to try to see some exhibits, and one of us would stay with cranky Cam — but that failed too. There were impossibly massive crowds and long lines in front of every placque, every exhibit, every square inch of the place. I finally gave up. We trudged back to the hotel, defeated.

Epilogue

Today is Tuesday, April 7. Bill and the kids are back home safe now, and I'm ensconsed in the conference hotel north of the city, marveling at the profound silence in my hotel room. I miss the kids already, although not the tantrums. Looking back over the last three days, I have to wonder if it was worth it to take the trip. We spent a fortune (including the astonishing bill at the French restaurant, and $25 for an umbrella purchased from a gift shop during a downpour, because I neglected to pack one). That rubs salt in the wound of all the mishaps — not only did we have a rough time, we paid too much for it too. But we DID see the cherry blossoms at their peak — I guess that’s something. And there were some bright moments, like watching the kids happily splash their hands in the fountain at the World War II memorial. (Until Cam accidentally splashed Will, and Will in return delivered a tsunami of water into Cam’s face, resulting in major tears and we had to leave.)

One good thing — we conquered the Metro and became quite adept at it. And Will, who has long had an inexplicable, longstanding fear of escalators, actually got over it during this trip. I took him for a celebratory escalator ride at the Metro station before they left, just for fun. That beats the cherry blossoms any day.