The drive from Kansas City to Washington DC took three days and was fairly uneventful - not counting the tornadoes. We stopped for the first night in Cedar Grove, a town built around Fort Campbell airforce base. Fort Campbell is home to the 'Screaming Eagles', who I had never heard of before, but apparently are legends if you are a true american.
Just as we were driving into town the severe storm and tornado warnings began coming over the radio for Southern Kentucky and Northern Tennessee - which is exactly where we were. We watched the storm roll in from the balcony of our hotel with the other guests. We could actually see the clouds spinnig above us. It was very cool. I, of course, was terrified. I think when the tornado sirens started going off, Simon might have even started to worry a little.
There were a few tornadoes reported that night. The nearest one touched down 800m from our hotel. The lightening and thunder was probably actually the scariest part though. There was even ground-to-sky lightening, which I had never even heard of before.
We survived tornado valley and arrived into Washington a couple of days ago. We have spent the last two days walking our butts off, trying to see all the sights. Yesterday we visited the Arlington National Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monement, the Capitol building and visited Obama at the Whitehouse. Today we went to the Jefferson and FDR Memorials. They were all really interesting and because they are all in generally the same area, it's a nice place to spend a day wandering around.
Yesterday it took us until 3pm to actually get into Washington from our hotel. We are staying in Arlington, which is across the river from Washington DC. Google maps told us we should walk through Arlington Cemetery, across Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial. Google maps didn't tell us it was impossible to get into Arlington Cemetery. The area of the cemetery we could actually walk to was blocked off by armed guards. We jumped in the car and tried to drive there, but the roads around it are a maze and there are no signs and we couldn't find our way in. After walking and driving in circles for the better part of the day, we found a small carpark that we could walk into the cemetery from. Still not sure if we were actually allowed to park there, but Sandy didn't get towed and Simon didn't explode (I have never seen anyone so frustrated!) so it all ended well.
All the major tourist sights here are pretty interesting and well worth seeing. But I'm still not sure how much I liked Washington itself. Because of the Pentagon and all the military bases here, and I guess because Obama lives here, everything is surrounded by huge wire fences and armed guards. It makes the place kind of uncomfortable and unwelcoming. We actually went into a petrol station on one of the main roads to buy a cold drink and were asked for our military ID. The servo was for military only - we couldn't even buy a bottle of water. Weird!
We have seen everything we wanted to see though. So tomorrow we jump on the bus to New York. We have to get rid of Sandy in the morning before we leave though. Fingers crossed!
