Day zero traveling to DC Saturday Oct 3

Although lots of the stories here revolve around the MoHo and RV travel, we do sometimes wander off to see things in other ways. This time it was a trip to Washington DC, a destination too far away to manage a MoHo trip, at least while I am still working and have to deal with limited leave time. Neither of us had been to DC previously, and since my agency developed a great soils exhibit for the Smithsonian, I figured it was as good a time as any to take a week off and go see our Capital City.

We flew from San Francisco on Saturday morning, leaving Jamestown, California at 4am to give ourselves plenty of time to negotiate the bay area traffic. Good thing! There were closed ramps and freeways in the midst of construction somewhere around Hayward that had us going in circles in the dark trying to find a way over the San Mateo Bridge. Never managed that, and ended up going via the Dumbarton Bridge instead to find HWY 101 and still make it to the Travelodge in time for the shuttle to the airport. Whew! We had plenty of time to get checked in and on the plane with no other mishaps.

We have learned that one of the best ways to fly from San Francisco is to stay at the Travelodge in South San Francisco, which has a fly and park package that is very inexpensive compared to parking a car at the airport. The package includes a night on either end of your flights, free parking for 10 days, and a shuttle to the airport both ways. Travelodge Park and Fly

The flight seemed incredibly fast at 4.5 hours direct to Dulles with good weather all the way. On the DC end of the flight we made arrangements with the Super Shuttle. This is an excellent way to travel to and from the airport in DC. Dulles Super Shuttle

Our baggage was on time, the shuttle to Arlington was easy, and the Comfort Inn we had reserved turned out to be more than adequate. After we checked in, dinner was an easy walk across a very big very busy Arlington Blvd to a Chinese place called XO Taste. It was very similar to a Chinese restaurant we once went to in San Francisco, but at least there was also English on the menu. The entire place was filled with Chinese people, not simply Asians, but very much Chinese. We were the only Caucasions in the place. It was a bit embarrassing to be the only ones using forks. After a half-hearted attempt at using chopsticks we gave up and returned to our forks. The dinner was excellent and more than plentiful.

Back home to a good night’s sleep, marred only by a stupid migraine for me. Sigh. Maybe it was the air pressure changes. More than likely, it was the MSG in the really great Chinese food from the previous night. Ah well. It made for a vaguely misfired day for me on Monday, but by evening it was finally gone and now I’m great.