Prep work:
Navigation: My two year old Garmin GPS did not have maps of Canada and it would cost $60 to buy an expanded map, so I bought a new Garmin nüvi™ 1690 with US/Canada coverage instead.
Registering it and upgrading the maps was a horrible experience. Theoretically it can be registered manually using any browser by typing in the serial number, but the Garmin web site did browser version sniffing (more than simple User Agent string detection so spoofing failed) and refused to go to the registration page unless I was running a Windows or a Mac machine. I finally gave up and powered up an old Mac Mini and went through their whole rigmarole. [rolls eyes]
I downloaded updated maps, but the updates would not go into the onboard memory, so I bought a 4GB microSD card. The Garmin software would not load the updated maps directly into the microSD card, I had to download and run their host-based map software, download the maps to my Mac, and then use the Mac software to download the map pieces to the Garmin. It was extremely slow and annoying. To top it all off, I suspect it was not using the map pieces off the SD card during our trip based on missing information, e.g. it did not know about the Flight 93 National Memorial. [rolls eyes]
Hotel reservations:
- Embassy Suites in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. Our northern neighbours have the best view of the falls, and we wanted to see the falls at night. The hotel was chosen because of location, location, location (and I was able to trade in all my accumulated points for a night).
- Hampton Inn in Horsehead (Elmira), NY. This was picked fairly arbitrarily to be reasonably close to Watkins Glen and on the way between Niagara Falls and Washington DC.
- Hawthorn Suites in Alexandria, VA. This was "home base" for our DC daily adventures. Since it was a suite, it was much more comfortable than a simple hotel room. This was an excellent choice, as it turned out.
- Hot breakfast (scrambled eggs, mystery meat, waffles) plus fruit, cereal, juice, coffee, etc.
- Roomy suite with a generous living/dining area and a kitchenette.
- "Manager's Reception" at night was actually supper (we had burgers, tacos, and loaded baked potatoes while we were there).
- Free shuttle to and from the Van Dorn metro station.
We launched the expedition at 6:50AM, an excellent start time for us. At Port Huron, we used the Garmin to find a Speedway gas station, using the Google Search feature. Unfortunately, it was closed. Quite closed. Fortunately, we found another one nearby that was open.
We made it to the Embassy Suites about 2:00PM. Shuttle parking threw us on check-in, we were (naively) expecting self-parking. There was two choices: valet parking for $30 or semi-valet parking for $20 (a valet parked the car off-site with a shuttle to pick it back up again). We scrambled to get the right bags, etc. out of the car, but we did score an undefended luggage cart and moved into our room OK.
The falls are walking distance from the hotel, which was nice. It is all uphill on the way back.
We did the tour behind the falls: it was very expense for a ho-hum experience. Definitely a "do once." Maybe. There was a movie shoot going on overlooking the Horseshoe Falls. We saw a couple of takes, but it is like watching paint dry.
We went out to see lighted falls about 8:30PM. No lights due to Earth Hour. I looked out the hotel window about 9:30PM and the lights were on. We went back out but only to the upper level, by then we were running out of ambition to climb the hill from the lower level back to the hotel.
April 1
We crossed back over the border and drove down to Horsehead, NY. The Hampton Inn there was very nice. From Horsehead, it is 18 miles to Watkins Glen. After settling in at the hotel, we drove around the Watkins Glen park to get the lay of the land. The trail through the canyon closed yet for clean up and repairs. Bummer, but we knew about that. It was raining off and on, mostly on.
The GPS is giving me the silent treatment. I figure Griping Gertie is pissed because I switched to English June and Aussie Andrea. I had to reboot the GPS to get her to talk to me again. For the rest of the trip, we stuck to Gertie. [rolls eyes]
April 2
In Elmira and surrounding countryside, we saw a lot of Mark Twain signs, so we did a little research and discovered Samuel Langhorne Clemens was buried in Elmira so we visited his grave site.
After that, we headed for Watkins Glen, with a preliminary stop at Montour Falls - She-qua-ga (tumbling waters). The Montour Falls were really spectacular. That is one advantage of scoping things out the night before - finding the unexpected.
We walked the Watkins Glen rim trail, which was very neat. The rim trail has several good overlooks, including a bridge across the chasm. It would have been neater to walk the canyon trail. On the positive side, it was sunshiny, warm, and we had the whole park almost to ourselves. During the summer, it gets pretty busy.
After the Glenn, we beat feet for our hotel in Alexandria, VA, arriving just before 7:30PM. By the time we were checked in, we missed "Manager's Reception". The "Manager's Reception" turned out to be a lot more than we expected: basically a light supper, including drinks.
April 3
For the Metro, we did day passes ($9 per head, unlimited travel from 9:30AM till closing). This was a little more expensive than a direct ticket to DC, but a lot less hassle and gave us flexibility that we used to visit the National Cathedral and the Zoo.
We walked the mall for 6 hours. We went from the Smithsonian Metro stop to the Capital building, Union station (way overrated), and then back along the mall. On the mall we saw the World War II memorial, Washington Monument, White House (total bust), Lincoln Monument, FDR Memorial, and the Jefferson Memorial. The weather was great; sunny and pleasant.
The White House was a total bust because there was Something Important™ going on, so security had a major area behind the White House closed off (including part of The Ellipse). We saw the front of the White House, but nothing of the back (which is the more publicised side).
April 4
Wednesday, we started out for the Mall, but changed our plans on the Metro and went instead to the National Cathedral. The concept was to make a side trip there before we were all footsore from a day of Mall walking. The Cathedral was very interesting and impressive. It was a bit of an uphill hike, but it was down on the way back so it all evened out.
The kids were pretty excited about the Zoo, so we agreed to duck in and check it out on the way back to the Metro. Well, that turned into spending the the whole day there. It is a very nice zoo and the kids thoroughly enjoyed it. We hit almost all the displays, leaving as it was closing for the night.
The weather mostly overcast but no rain - perfect weather for a day in the zoo.
April 5
We were originally scheduled to head home. We had seen the monuments of the Mall, but we had not gone inside any of the museums, so we extended our stay another night.
We first hit the Museum of Natural History. It was interesting, but very busy. The gemstone collection was especially busy. We ended up seeing the Hope Diamond, but none of the other gem displays because of the press of people. That was a little disappointing.
Next we went to the National Archives. It took a very long time to get in. What was frustrating was the line would move nicely, then stall for an extended period of time. When we got close to the door (after an extended "stall"), a security guard explained people were using their smartphones to buy a tour reservation for $1.50, bypassing (and stalling) the exterior line. Once we got inside the building, the line for the Rotunda moved pretty quickly. It looked just like the picture on the National Archives web site, except there are a lot more people clustered around the display cabinets in real life.
It was interesting to see the actual documents, but the experience was marred by the long wait, the crush of people, and the dim light combined with the faded documents (the Declaration of Independence was unreadable). As a result, I was unable to fully appreciate and savour the experience.
We spent the rest of the day at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. That was a great experience. I went all geek on my family and they even enjoyed it. We saw most of the exhibits, but not in the depth that they deserved. Next time...
April 6
On Friday we checked out of the hotel and drove to Arlington National Cemetery. We got there in time to see the Changing of the Guard ceremony. We went through the Lee House, saw the Kennedy grave sites, and then walked to the Marine War Memorial (Iwo Jima Memorial). While walking to the Marine memorial, we watched a caisson procession, which was sad but beautiful.
After Arlington, we headed home. On the way, we saw signs for the Flight 93 National Memorial so we did a little detour to see it. The detour was pretty spectacular, a very nice drive through the scenic Allegheny Mountains. Our feckless GPS had no clue about the the memorial and park roads, despite my updating the maps before we left. [rolls eyes]
The only other event on the drive home was driving past a bad car fire. The car was fully engulfed in flames. The highway was five lanes wide (counting the shoulders) so we were able to safely pass on the left shoulder, but not without some excitement.
