The Long Way Around

I'm not sure how much internet access I'm going to pay for in this hotel room, so I don't know exactly when this will be posted. I generally get free internet, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

 

We're in DC and at our hotel, and it's been a long day in getting here. We woke up about 5am and starting getting the kids ready for our 8:30am flight. Leah wanted to leave the house by 6am, and I think we pulled out of the driveway at about 6:04am. Good job, Leah.

I had already set a notification on the AA site to text my phone with gate information two hours before the flight, so I was a little surprised when 6:30am rolled around, and I didn't have any messages. I asked Leah to get out the flight info and call AA to get the gate info, and it was then that she clarified our departure time. She had been telling me 8:30am every day for a week, but it was actually 8:50am. No big deal, just another 30 minutes of sleep I could have had. I made it up on the plane.

Anyway, DFW almost never has lines at security except when you have four tired children in tow, and then everyone in the metroplex is trying to get to gate C2 along with you. Yep, we had to stand in line. The first time I've ever had to do that at DFW, and you all know that I fly out of there fairly regularly. We made it through with no hitches and set off to our gate.

The kids had a good time looking out the window at the planes anticipating what was to come next. Finally, we were allowed to board, so we all settled into our seats for a good long flight. Everything went pretty well. Emma fell back to sleep, Abbie listened to music, Reagan watched a movie on my PSP, I worked my Games magazine. It was a nice flight, but we had to land eventually.

As we started our descent, we came into some turbulence. Reagan started to feel queasy first, and Leah armed her with an airsickness bag. Next, Leah started to get a green around the gills, and she armed herself. Finally, Abbie looked at me like she was going to faint. I quickly put a bag in her hands as well, and got it there just in time. As it turned out, Abbie was the only one that actually needed a bag, but I was sure glad that there were plenty to go around; just in case.

We flew into Baltimore, and once we were on the ground, we had to trek halfway across Maryland to get our luggage and catch the bus to the DC metro. The bus ride and train to the hotel combined was about an hour and a half, so the kids were pretty restless by the time we arrived at our stop. Thankfully, our hotel is just across the street from the metro station.

Since none of us had eaten since breakfast, we quickly dropped our things in our room and headed out to find dinner. The server at the restaurant looked at us a little funny for ordering dinner at 4:00pm, but we were too starved to care much. Following dinner, we walked around Old Town Alexandria for a bit and went down to the waterfront where the kids enjoyed looking across to the Capitol Dome and seeing all of the boats.

Tomorrow we're going to the zoo and on a tour of the Capitol Building, so the kids are already in bed and headed off to sleep. I should have some pictures to post after our day tomorrow and of course, I'll have another post.