It was fairly boring for me as I hung out at the Hilton Garden Inn in White Marsh, Maryland while my photographer attended a safety conference there and Bob Moldenhauer did some sightseeing in the Philadelphia area. At one point, however, I got a laugh as I watched Tom once again slap on the makeup for his KISS Injuries Goodbye presentation with Mark Mortimer. I saw Mark and Tom get into costume in Dallas and they were asked to don the makeup and wigs once again for a repeat performance in the Baltimore area. As I watched Tom carefully apply the black and white makeup to his face, I thought to myself that I wouldn’t be caught dead looking like that.
On Thursday July 24, 2014, as the conference wound down, I was taken along on a scavenger hunt in downtown Baltimore. While all of the conference attendees used clues to find historic sites around Baltimore, my photographer and Mongo hung around with Dubuque, Iowa safety leader Tracy Habel as they watched the event unfold.
We had the alarm clock set for 5:30am on Friday July 25, 2014. There was still some unfinished business in Washington D.C. and Tom and Bob had figured we would have roughly six hours to see the remainder of the sites before we had to hit the road for Michigan. Mongo had dropped my photographer and me off near the Lincoln Memorial at 7:45am and he drove off to find a place to park the Optima. It was the perfect morning to capture outdoor photos as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. A week earlier, when we were at the Lincoln Memorial, the sky was overcast and not conducive for good photos. We had rolled the dice that the weather would be favorable during our return trip and we hit the jackpot!
I posed for a few photos near the Lincoln Memorial; which was framed by a postcard-like blue sky. As I stood there, looking at the majestic memorial, I had wished we had more time to spend in Washington. But the clock was ticking and we still had to make the two-plus mile walk to the Capitol Building and back; not to mention the eight to nine-hour drive home. My cameraman and I met up with Bob on the Arlington Memorial Bridge after he had parked the Kia at the National Cemetery parking structure.
In an effort to maximize our time, we kept up a brisk walking pace and did it without many stops to rest along the way. It was easy for me as I sat in my case; but to be honest, I felt a little sorry for my robust photographer who had to endure the hike. Tom and Bob only stopped twice for water and a quick breather along the way. By 8:45am we were once again standing in front of the Eastern façade of the Capitol. We made the trek in about 50 minutes, which I thought was quite impressive – especially since the last portion of the hike was uphill.
We had to stand in long line to get inside the Capitol; and then we endured a TSA-type security check at the Visitor’s Center before we were allowed into the bowels of the building. It makes me nervous when I go through an X-Ray machine because I don’t know what the long-term effects might have on resin. The last thing I needed was to have my body start cracking and falling apart. It was bad enough when my head came off and my pony tail was detached; I didn’t need other issues as well.
Once we passed through security, we stayed in the basement level because we had heard there were some interesting artifacts there. And the rumors were correct – we found our first Presidential point of interest; the catafalque that supported the caskets of Lincoln, JFK and nine other Presidents.
The black draped bier, aptly named the Lincoln Catafalque, was on display behind a locked viewing case that was protected by ornate bronze bars. Although it was fairly dark in the area once intended to be Washington’s tomb, I wanted to be photographed near the catafalque nonetheless. The one problem was: A sign that stated ‘No Photography’ was situated close to the display case and an armed security guard was making his rounds in the area. Since I am one who has been known to not follow all of the rules, we waited until the guard went around the corner. At that moment, with Bob as a look-out, my photographer held me up and my image was captured along with the historic catafalque. Were we on surveillance cameras? Likely, but at the moment, I really didn’t care.
Finished in the basement, we headed for the Capitol’s Rotunda where I wanted to be placed on the spot where JFK’s body had laid in state in 1963. It likely was the exact spot where the other ten Presidential caskets had been placed as well. Although it was early in the morning, there were a lot of tourists inside the Rotunda and all us were kept behind roped stanchions like a herd of cattle. With armed security eye-balling every move, my photographer did his best to reach beyond the ropes to get me as close as possible to the 10-inch white marble circle. That circle imbedded into the floor marked the center of the Rotunda and there was no doubt that’s where the Presidents laid in state when they were in the Capitol.
Finished in the Rotunda, the three of us made our way south to a large semi-circular room known as the National Statuary Hall. Five U.S. Presidents were inaugurated in that room, but my main focus was situated among the black and white marble tiles that made up the floor. In one popular spot in the Hall, a bronze plaque was placed in the floor to mark the spot where John Quincy Adams’ desk was once located. Statuary Hall is one of the most popular rooms in the Capitol as it’s famous for the “Whisper Spot”. Tour guides ask visitors to stand on the desk plaque of John Quincy Adams and whisper something. People across the room should be able to hear what was said.
I needed to stand on Adams’ desk location; not to whisper, but to be photographed. We had to wait for nearly ten minutes for my chance to pose without people’s feet in the shot; and I had to be quick so as not to be kicked over by a rambunctious child. Luck was on our side as we managed to capture the photo while I stayed intact at the same time. Although I never whispered while standing next to the plaque, I came close to yelling at inconsiderate tourists who had closed-in on my space. I was so worried about getting stepped on or kicked by someone that I didn’t have a chance to think about Adams as he collapsed on that fateful day in 1848.
We walked to the opposite side of Statuary Hall to a locked door situated in the wall. Above the door were words etched in gold lettering that read: Lindy Claiborne Boggs Congressional Women’s Reading Room. It turned out that the unassuming reading room was once the Speaker’s Room and was the place where John Quincy Adams had died two days after suffering a stroke at his desk. Adams was placed on a couch inside the Speaker’s Room where he was attended to by physicians. With his wife Catherine at his side, the former President uttered the words: “This is the last of Earth. I am content.” He died at 7:20pm on February 23, 1848 at the age of 80.
I wanted to find a way into that room and stand on the couch where Adams had died. A nearby tour guide told us that tourists were not allowed into the reading room unless they were escorted by a female member of Congress. I was terribly disappointed; we didn’t have time to recruit a Congresswoman to act as our escort – so I settled for a photo outside of the door. It was close; but not close enough – and I will make it a goal of mine to get into that room on my next visit to Washington.
At roughly 9:45am, we were finished with our business inside the Capitol. Back outside, we made our way across the street to the Library of Congress. The only reason we decided to go inside the main building of the Library of Congress was during the War of 1812, the dang British burned Congress’ library. Following the 1814 fire, Congress purchased Thomas Jefferson’s entire personal collection of books; which was a total of 6,487 books for the hefty price of $23,950. Those books formed the nucleus of the current Library of Congress; although two-thirds of Jefferson’s books were destroyed in an 1851 fire in the library.
We didn’t want to spend a lot of time inside the Library of Congress. My photographer’s goal was to capture one good image of me with the main reading room used as a backdrop. Once finished, we’d start our journey back to the vehicle.
With roughly two hours left to sightsee and get back to the Optima, we decided to visit the Smithsonian National Museum of American History since we were walking right past it. Once inside, we scrambled to see as much as we could in a short period of time – my focus was Presidential artifacts. We were able to view some historic items as well as a few famous Americana artifacts. One of the main highlights was a mismatched pair of the ruby slippers from the movie Wizard of Oz; but I was disappointed that the Scarecrow’s costume was not on display that day.
In another section of the museum we saw the original Star Spangled Banner; a 15-stripe and 15-star American flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the Naval portion of the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812. The original flag was huge; it measured 30-feet by 42-feet. The huge flag became very famous on the morning of September 14, 1814 when Francis Scott Key wrote about it in a poem he called ‘Defense of Fort McHenry’. The poem later was set to music; renamed the Star Spangled Banner; and became our country’s national anthem. Even though it was impossible to capture a photo of me with the flag, just being in the presence of that historic relic will be a memory I won’t likely forget.
From the flag room, we headed into another area that peaked my attention. There were dozens of historic artifacts on display; some of which were general American history and other items were of Presidential nature. The first display that we came across focused on the Declaration of Independence. In the display case, I saw what some would consider the holy grail of artifacts associated with the Declaration – the portable writing desk that was used by Thomas Jefferson when he drafted the historic document.
Although I would’ve loved to have posed for a photo as I stood in the desk drawer; or perhaps I could’ve lied down inside the historic relic and dreamt about what may have been inside there in 1776; but instead I had to settle for being a foot from the desk with a pane of glass in between it and me. As I gazed in amazement at the relic, I envisioned Jefferson as he opened the drawer to dip his pen in the ink well while he wrote the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. It was exciting for me to fathom that Thomas Jefferson actually touched that desk with his bare hands; and he used the desk as he wrote the most famous document in American history. It was hard for me to pull myself away from that display case that protected Jefferson’s lap desk. But I knew the clock was ticking and we had to finish our stay at the National Museum of American History.
In a couple of display cases near Jefferson’s lap desk, I posed near two other Presidential artifacts: The summer military uniform of Dwight Eisenhower and the suitcase that held the nuclear weapons passwords during Bill Clinton’s administration.
When we left the National Museum of American History, my cameraman and Mongo had wished they would’ve had more time to explore. That museum was nothing short of amazing and I could’ve spent a lot more time in there, but it was time for us to head back to the Optima for the long ride home. The hike past the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial led us back across the Potomac River via the Arlington Memorial Bridge. When we reached our vehicle, it was 12:20pm; we were a little bit later than we had planned, but what’s twenty minutes? My photographer and Bob had figured they could make up that time on the expressway by going a bit over the speed limit.
Snuggled tight in my camera case, I was in my normal travelling spot on the backseat and kicked-back for the scheduled nine-hour ride back to St. Clair. The drive was uneventful for the first two hours, but a short distance onto Westbound I-76 and we hit a traffic jam. Initial reports that we heard over the radio was there had been a serious automobile accident on the expressway near Everett, Pennsylvania and it had the freeway bottlenecked to a single lane headed West. It took nearly an hour for us to reach the accident scene, at which time the highway had opened back up to the normal two lanes. The rest of the ride went without issues and we arrived back in St. Clair at 10:30pm.
Our trip to our Nation’s Capital was a complete success; or should I say it was almost a complete success since I didn’t get photographed inside Mount Vernon; nor did I stand on Washington’s tomb thanks to the rude, old hag. Mongo was a lot of fun to travel with and his love for history was equal to mine and my photographer’s. That was a good thing as we were just six weeks away from heading to Ohio for another Presidential journey; one that would prove whether or not the three of us had the Wright Stuff.
