Washington, D.C.: via Amish Country

Two little known facts about Washington D.C., which may be related, or not: eggs are not freely available, and it’s closed on Sundays.

The recent Independence Day weekend was our last chance for another of our mini-road trips so we (I) decided we should make the most of it and head south. Having recently read a Clinton biog (his), a Clinton “what’s-wrong-with-America” book (hers) and an “I survived the Clintons” book (George Stephanopolous), I was curious about the city where these three engaged in their subterfuge, scheming and spin to keep the Democrats in power, and especially interested in it now that the subterfuge, scheming and spin was coming from the Republicans in order to keep GW in a job. There just had to be some dirty little secrets to be found, some abject abuse of power to be uncovered, some Republican shenanigans to be exposed. Failing that there was likely to be plenty of tourism to engage in.

Ahmed’s plan was to leave at 7am like we did on the last trip which would get us through all the early morning traffic quickly and easily. However while he managed to get up in time to make it, he let Yasmin and I sleep in for a bit and that blew the ‘leaving early’ plan. We didn’t hit the road until 9am so that meant we joined all the Saturday morning traffic across the top of New York and onto the George Washington Bridge. Then we met up with all the holiday travelers heading south towards Philadelphia for the Live 8 Concert, and others just off in that general direction for a summer long weekend good time. Let’s just say it was a slow trip until we turned off the turnpike (why do they call it that?) and headed towards Amish country.

We stopped at Intercourse, PA for lunch – I just had to visit a town with a name like that – and hoped for some good ol’ Pennsylvania Dutch cuisine, but it turns out that the Intercourse Village Restaurant is not much more than a diner with a couple of Amish women on staff, Dutch-influenced décor and a bunch of apple desserts on the menu. Of course once we went a little further down the road we saw a heap of ‘authentic Dutch cuisine’ places. We did stop at Plain and Fancy Farm and have a buggy ride and tour of Amish farmland. The tour guide was a genuine Amish chap who ran a tour monologue explaining their culture, traditions and history. One of their fundamentals is that they don’t use electricity because power companies require people to work on a Sunday, so I gathered that working on Sunday was the issue. However one guy on the tour from Florida kept pushing this with his dopey questions – trying to argue for the possibilities of part-time electricity and why milk cows on a Sunday. Honestly, if people want to live without electricity, machinery and technology, except for that which they’ve made themselves, good luck to them. It was all very interesting. Even if the guy from Florida did want to push the ‘no electricity’ issue over and over again, looking for loopholes, our guide kept his relative cool. We respected the guide’s request not to photograph the people as we traveled around their farms, because he’d asked, and because it’s a bit creepy to go and look at humans as a tourist curiosity. We seemed to be the only ones who thought like this though – the Americans on our buggy had no issues with it, pointing out to their children a small boy sitting on the roadside watching us like he was a permanent part of the tour display, “Do you see the cows up there… and, oh, look at the little boy.”

The tour guide kept asking us if we had any questions and at the time I couldn’t think of a single one, but since then I’ve thought of plenty: such as (damn that guy from Florida) why not part-time electricity? If you don’t charge it up on a Sunday, could you use a laptop on batteries? They do have generators and they use propane gas in tanks for cooking etc. There is contact with the ‘outside world’ in so many ways that the reasons our guide gave for maintaining their position are easily argued against, but it doesn’t really matter why they do it their way, the fact is they want to live that way and America is a free country, or so they say, where you can do just that.

After our stop in the peace and quiet of the cornfields and buggies, we rejoined the traffic heading south to Washington. We have persisted with our laptop map system, fallible as it is, and true to form it directed us to the wrong location for the hotel. Its saving grace is that it is a map and therefore if you have the address of where you’re headed, you can look it up the old-fashioned way – using what is easily still the most advanced computing system developed: one’s noggin.

It was a few miles from the northern edge of Washington into the city itself and we got to see miles of Washington brownstones, a very different suburban architecture than in Connecticut. I’ve noticed that each state has its own distinct suburban landscape and I imagine that once you get to know them you could figure out where you are simply by the housing style.

The city almost immediately has the feel of Canberra, even on a weekend (or perhaps because it was a weekend). Not a suit to be seen as the government had closed for the Independence Day weekend and it seemed everyone was out of town except the tourists. We checked in to the hotel then took a walk to get dinner. By this time it was dark and getting late and I had completely lost my sense of direction. The doorman had directed us about four or five blocks up the street to find a restaurant but after three or so blocks with no signs of life, I suggested we quit and go back to the Thai place we’d seen three doors from the hotel. It was getting on in time and I knew it wouldn’t be long before Yasmin hit her limits, then the whingeing would start and the ‘carry me’ carry-ons and then she’d be too tired to eat and it would all disintegrate into a scrappy shambles. Good call as it turns out. The food was quite nice, not too much so we didn’t overeat, and we have been missing decent Asian cuisine. Yasmin ate her dinner and then got tired and whingey, but it was only a short walk so Daddy carried her (sucker).

The next morning I wanted to get up and get going early. There was a lot I planned on seeing and a fair bit of walking required to do it. The hotel deal didn’t include breakfast and as it was a four-star joint with a pricey restaurant on-site we decided to find a simpler breakfast place and conserve our pennies. After walking for a good half hour and finding nothing open, we came to our first conclusion: Washington is closed on Sundays. After a further zig-zag around the streets we noticed a few places beginning to open, but none that served breakfast, at which point we came to our second conclusion: there are no eggs in Washington. Of course by this time my family is fixated on an American breakfast: eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, coffee, and no amount of cajoling would get them to consider other options, most of which were lunch. Finally we walked past a place that had a breakfast special on the sign out front, eggs, bacon, homefries and toast for $8 or thereabouts. It was the only plate of breakfast available anywhere and there were no variations to the menu when we ordered. You got what the sign said: eggs, bacon, homefries and toast. So two plates of this (at three eggs per plate we shared our big meals with Yasmin) and several cups of coffee later we were restored and ready to hike the Washington streets for the rest of the day. Of course by this time the day is half over, but we had already seen a good deal of Washington in our search for breakfast. As chief tour coordinator my pick was to head to the National Mall and see what we could see.

We were, coincidentally, on the same street that connects to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum so we headed straight there to show Yasmin some real dinosaur bones. They’ve been studying dinosaurs at school all year so it was a good opportunity to give her a sense of scale and reinforce what she’s already been taught. After an hour or so in those ever-growing crowds we headed out into the Mall itself to see a mile of white tents under which was being held an alternative lifestyle festival. Here we are in Washington, at a major site of global power broking, expecting to see suits and briefcases and smell corporate money as it lobbies for government favour, and what do we get? Hippies and tree-huggers. It was one of those “what’s wrong with this picture” moments.

By this time it was mid-afternoon and the heat had started to make itself comfortable around us, making us rather less than comfortable. We stopped for an ice-cream and Yasmin enjoyed her red, white and blue Patriot Pop. Boy, they get ‘em young don’t they? Then Ahmed thought he’d like to go to the Air & Space Museum across the Mall. That’s boy heaven, all kinds of flying machines from Amelia Earhart and the Wright Brothers to jet engines and space capsules. The crowds were growing exponentially as the day wore on and eventually I gave up and took Yasmin to the café and let Ahmed finish his tour in peace.

The day was getting on and we had to pick up the car by 5pm but I hadn’t finished yet. I wanted to walk along the mall, past the Washington Monument to the reflecting pool then around past the White House and back to the hotel to pick up the car and head on to Philadelphia for the night. And we did this but not without plenty of whingeing about having to walk from the smallest member of our party. The hippie festival was packing up as we headed to the monument and garbage was piling up metres high from the food stalls – haven’t they heard of skips? The humidity made it feel hotter than it was, dust was rising from the path and it was generally getting uncomfortable (for those of us who have gotten used to the cushy life of air-conditioning and valet parking etc.)

Because of America’s unique paranoia about security we couldn’t stroll past the Washington Monument on the way to the reflecting pool but had to backtrack and walk around the south side, seeing nothing for a block. I heard one frustrated father (it might have been the one with me) say that he was ready to slap the next whingeing child he heard, voicing the thoughts of so many pedestrians that day. By the time we got to the reflecting pool time was against us so we didn’t stop but looked left as we walked on by, getting in a quick snapshot for the evidence folder (you know, the ‘we were here’ album). Yasmin is riding Ahmed’s shoulders at this point and I can see him beginning to wilt, she, of course, is as happy as a sandboy, all whingeing has ceased for the time being. He gives up at the corner where we have to turn to go past George and Laura’s place and the whingeing starts up again. We are no more than ten metres from seeing the front lawn of the White House when we have to reverse all the way back to the art gallery we passed on the corner because somebody has to go pee-pee (her words, not mine). Eventually we make it to the fence barricading the south lawn and squeeze in with all the other tourists to take the picture. We didn’t see any of the residents but I’ve always wondered about this kind of public housing – what’s it like to have a constant stream of visitors passing by taking photos, gawking in, cluttering up your footpath? Do you peep out behind the lace curtains to check out the tourist-geeks? Are you ever tempted to flash everyone? Being watched like that must make you a little nuts.

Given that there was nothing more to see than the façade of a building we kept walking back to the hotel to pick up the car and consider our dinner options. We were all getting tired by this time and Ahmed and I weren’t far from engaging in whinge-mode ourselves. To make dinner a simple decision I went along with the junk-food option. Someone had recommended Popeye’s fried chicken and biscuits (like salty scones) to us. We’d seen them in black neighbourhoods and learned that black folks like their fried chicken, so we figured that there might be a connection. Turns out it was pretty good fried chicken.

We left Washington the same route we came in, rejoining the highway to Philadelphia in time for Yasmin to fall asleep in the back seat. Ah, silence reigns, and it did so for quite some time.

That night we stayed at one of the famous (notorious?) Howard Johnson motels, a bit like our Niagara experience, a come-down to reality after the previous night’s high-roller accommodations. This one boasted an included continental breakfast, which I discovered the next morning consisted of a plastic dispenser of cornflakes, disposable bowls and spoons, a 3-gallon container of milk in a bar fridge and a self-serve coffee machine. Still once we’d found it (that map again!) we were glad of a bed and the rooms were big enough.

Next morning we encountered a similar breakfast problem, probably because we weren’t actually in Philadelphia but about 10 miles to the east of the city in the lower New Jersey suburbs. Eventually we found a diner and queued for a table. Large plates of eggs, omelettes and French toast with the requisite bottomless cups of coffee fortified us for the rest of the day and we headed south-west to take a look at Atlantic City.

The weather was fantastic, bright, sunny and very beachy weather. Turns out Atlantic City is on the beach. We parked at Donald’s first place (Trump Plaza was his first foray into casinos in Atlantic City where his name is now on at least a third of the real estate) and got lost trying to find our way through the casino out onto the boardwalk. More by luck than good management we found it and there it was, the boardwalk, right up against the beach. There’s beach on one side and casino doorways and stores right up against the other. This is a very developed strip of (ex-)nature. We took a walk, went down on to the beach, picking our way through the crowds of sunbathers (remember that scene in that John Candy movie?). Yasmin had a play in the sand and her and I had a paddle in the freezing cold Atlantic ocean. I’ve dipped my toes in quite a few of the world’s oceans now.

After an ice-cream on the boardwalk we took the lazy option and rode in a push-chair back to Trump’s place, stopping for a cool drink at the Rainforest Café. This place is a work of excess…sorry, art. The restaurant is done out like a rainforest with moving animals, jungle sounds, hanging vines, trees – the whole nine yards. Yasmin thought it was wonderful and it put Ahmed in a playful enough mood to order some ridiculous red/blue drink in a silly ‘you-get-t-keep-it’ cup. One sip and he wished he’d been a little less adventurous, while I, on the other hand, enjoyed a great frozen fruit juice.

After our brief Atlantic City sojourn we headed up the Garden State Parkway hoping to catch a better view of the coastline than if we’d taken the interstate. However what we got the best view of was toll booths. Here are my thoughts as we drove: “Melbourne, I do not want to hear you complain about CityLink ever again. You’ve no idea how good you’ve got it. We’re on the Garden State Parkway heading from Atlantic City to New Jersey as I write this, and we’ve stopped at I don’t know how many tool plazas and paid I don’t know how many 35c tolls…! Every 10 miles or so there’s another toll booth it seems and instead of enjoying a bit of a snooze while Ahmed drives, I’m constantly scrabbling around in the car for exact change. The tricky part is there’s no signage as to how much the toll is until you’re right up at the gate and then if you’re in an exact change lane and don’t have the exact change…CHAOS ensues! There is an E-Z Pass system for the whole highway system but we didn’t sign up for it because we didn’t think we’d use it. Hmmmm. But we have discovered that toll booth operators aren’t compelled to have poor temperaments and gruff exteriors; it turns out that outside of New York they are much more pleasant people to encounter on the road, cheery, chatty and good for directions if you need them. Maybe the rest of America is really different. I guess we’ll have to find out more at another time.”

This country really is set up well for road trips. Aside from the annoying toll booths, there are plenty of places you might actually want to pause en route if you’re in need of sustenance. The roadside stops are enormous and have huge numbers of people passing through. You can get a selection of fast foods, Starbucks’ coffee, crappy souvenirs, cash from the ATMs and make the requisite toilet stops all with relative ease. It’s a far cry from the days when I travelled as a child, when a roadside stop was Dad parking on the actual side of the road and we would get out to stretch our legs while our parents drank lukewarm tea from a thermos.

We made a few of these stops on the journey home, to swap drivers and to take a break from the relentless highway. It was my turn to drive at the point we rejoined the I-95 so I guess I got the good bit (not) – the New Jersey turnpike into New York, across the George Washington Bridge and back into Connecticut. All concrete views, traffic build-up and impatient horn-honkers. Being the 4th of July everyone everywhere was driving to someplace to see fireworks. Except us. We just got stuck in the middle of all those people. And as it was getting on to evening and the sky was darkening, the urgency of the fireworks seeker’s driving increased. This wasn’t the fun bit and it was all mine as everybody else dozed.

We made it home in time to see the first of the evening’s fireworks displays from our balcony. They were all miles away, but we’re up high enough to see a bit. Although you can buy fireworks at the supermarket, we didn’t bother as we had nowhere to let them off, but I did get a box of sparklers for Yasmin to swirl about. Once she’d done that and seen a few of the distant displays, the 4th of July was over for her and it was bedtime. The end of another quick look at a bit of America.