My wife and I visited Washington D.C. (“DC” from here on out) last week to see some of our nation’s history “up close and personal.” Neither of us had been there, and we felt it was time to see a little bit of it. What we saw was inspiring, surprising, and a little revealing.
How we got there
Last year, I attended a Democratic Party convention in Anaheim, California. As we were wrapping up, I was approached by a Hilton corporation sales representative and he offered me a deal I couldn’t refuse. There was some haggling and arm twisting involved, but in the end, I bought a 3-day stay in Washington DC. My wife and I discussed the timing of our trip and we settled on the last week of April as a late anniversary celebration.
Our planned vacation day arrived, and off we went!
No wonder sagas are written about travels
Leaving Sacramento
We planned to travel by air from Sacramento to DC via Chicago’s O’Hare airport. I don’t fly often, but I have been to O’Hare several times. My stops there had always been uneventful, and I expected this trip to be the same.
Boy was I wrong!
We woke up in the middle of the night and left for Sacramento International Airport (SMF). Traffic was light and we were able to park our car without incident. We’d already checked in to our United flight using their App so there was little left to do except check in our suitcase. The agent in the self-check area was very helpful and we were quickly on our way to meet the security screening challenge.
I have a TSA a Pre-Check authorization but my wife does not. I was able to proceed through the TSA security screening pretty quickly. My wife, however, had a longer line and was screened more diligently than I was. She even that the 3D body scan done on her!
But we made it. Next we grabbed some coffee and pastries at the Big Green Coffee Machine and we proceeded toward our gate. Nothing left to do but wait 40 minutes to begin boarding our aircraft.
We’re outta here!
Boarding time came. We waited for our group to be called, boarded the airplane, and found our seats. Since we had checked our bags, we only had our “emergency” bag that we were able to stow under the seat.
We sat down and watched dozens of people jostle and wrestle bags that had been placed in the overhead bins ahead of theirs. No matter how hard they tried, some people simply could not cram their bags into the overhead bins.
The gate agents, and now the flight attendants kept encouraging people to check their bags so we could close the hatch and begin our flight. But it took another 10 minutes and hundreds of angry eyes looking at one woman in particular before she agreed to check her bag.
We were underway shortly after that.
We’re here, Chicago!
We landed in Chicago 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Our twenty minute “run for the next gate” race was postponed for ninety minutes. Being a Google-renowned gastronome, I was looking forward to sampling some Chicago quality food while we waited for our connecting flight.
I was in Chicago in 2024 for the Democratic National Convention at which Kamala Harris accepted the nomination for the office of President. I was miffed that delegates didn’t get a chance to dine out in town. Many, many racks of ribs, deep dish pizzas, “baptized” Italian subs, and stacked Chicago dogs went untasted that week. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I was hoping that this layover, short as it may be, would be my opportunity to make up for lost meals.
I was wrong.
In the United terminal at O’Hare, there were few dining opportunities. After walking the length of the terminal and perusing our options, my wife and I decided on a non-descript burger and sausage stall. A boring burger, a polish sausage, and a small bag of fries were consumed with little fanfare. Sadness was setting in.
Then things went from “meh” to “this sucks” after that.
Chicago, We have a problem
We boarded our next flight and saw that the same woman with the luggage troubles on our previous flight was also having trouble stowing her carry on bag on this flight. Luckily for her, she found space, after crushing another passenger’s soft-sided bag.
Note to self: buy an adamantium carry on next time.
Just after everyone was in their seats, the pilot came on the intercom and announced that we would be delayed one hour (due to weather problems in DC), and that we were to wait out that hour seated on the plane.
A few minutes passed, and the pilot announced that a second one hour delay had been added on to the first. This time, however, passengers were given the option of de-planing to wait.
No one cheered. Imagine that. But some passengers did get off the plane. We stayed on the plane, since we’d already eaten bad food and had nothing to do but wait, and perhaps, nap.
There’s always time for maintenance
Out of nowhere, a grinding noise was heard coming from the other side of the aircraft. GRIND….GRIND….GRIND. The grinding stopped and was then followed by pounding in the same area. POUND…POUND…POUND.
I was about to look out the window on that side of the plane when, finally, everything stopped and the pilot announced that the plane was being taken out of service and that we would be transferred to different aircraft.
We went back into the terminal. I turned off “airplane mode” on my phone and alerts started coming in. One of them was welcome: it was a $15 meal voucher for each of us from United. I guess this was their way of saying “sorry for the trouble.” My wife and I walked over to a kiosk and loaded up on snacks for our long wait coming up.
Eventually, we were able to board a plane that took off from Chicago headed toward DC.
Finally
We landed in DC about 8:30 PM. That’s nearly four hours after our original expected arrival time. We got a Lyft to the hotel, checked in, then began our short vacation.
The first night
Our original plan was to take a starlight tour after we checked in to our hotel. We were going to use it as an opportunity to reconnoiter that area and plan our walks during the next two days. After that very long delay, that didn’t happen.
We checked in Wednesday after 9 PM and by the time we were ready to look for dinner, it was nearly 10 PM. Considering that Washington DC is a major metropolitan area, we surprised to find that few places were still open at 10 PM.
We proceeded to Google and Yelp! through our dining options and decided to take a chance on a small place named Froggy Bottom Pub. We were staying in a part of DC known as Foggy Bottom. This place had made a play on words for its name so it seemed more interesting than the other places on the list. Off we went.
Froggy Bottom
The place was a restaurant/bar location (we’d end up dining in several places like that on this trip). There were a handful of people having a good time in the bar, but we sat in the restaurant where only one other table was being used.
I’d been surprised to see “Vietnamese Pub” on the window. The menu listed mostly Vietnamese food items and an assortment of beers and cocktails. After a day of eating junk food, we both chose Chicken Pho for dinner and a pint of Froggy Ale beer.
The Pho and the beer were delicious and really hit the spot.
That’s enough
At the end of what can only be described as goofy travel day, we walked back to our hotel and went to sleep.