by Jeff Wilcox (MIC Iowa Weather Network) My parents and I went on a trip to Washington DC Sunday through today (Friday). It began on Saturday with a long drive through the countryside to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago for our flight the next morning (Sunday) to Washington National Airport aka Reagan National Airport. We stayed at the Hilton at the airport which seemed easy since all we’d have to do is walk out of the hotel to the terminal without any issues.

Then the issues began, Issue #1, forgot to lock car in the parking lot at airport, had to take the train and the shuttle bus back Saturday night to do that and go back. Sunday, Issue #2 we get to the airport to find that our flight was cancelled (the only United flight cancelled that morning). We were rebooked on the flight leaving an hour later, crisis averted. We took off. We got to the airport and walked to the rental car counter (that took ten minutes) and waited for fifteen minutes in a LONG line with only one person working, Issue #3, the printer stopped working so we had to wait to get that fixed. Crisis averted, Issue #4, we got the car and the automatic transmission wasn’t working, not sure what the hell I was doing wrong, the same thing happened to me in another car from another rental car company in Washington DC last year, immediately took the car back and got a new one (this pretty much messed up the rest of the day so no Air and Space Museum at Dulles for us…we never got around to it later either) Went to hotel. Monday, first day of our two day hop on hop off tour, parked the car at Union Station in Washington DC and went on the tour. It was cloudy and dreary all day, and cold. Tuesday was worse, rain, rain, rain. Hop on hop off turned into Squeeze on and hope to god you can get off before suffocating.

At least we were able to go through many of the museums that day in between downpours. Wednesday, the sun appeared, this was the day we took the Washington Metro from Alexandria to Washington DC. Issue #5, my mother’s ticket got demagnetized and wouldn’t work after the second trip, (it was averted later), went to see money get printed, saw one person take pictures and got their camera confiscated (no it wasn’t us). Sunshine however led to afternoon thunderstorms beginning,

We were lucky to get back to the hotel before the storms began dumping the rain (picture at top of post). We drove to dinner later that night, Issue #6, took an hour to go 15 miles to dinner. Thursday, was our river cruise to Mt Vernon, home of George Washington. Day started cold and cloudy, but the sun did break out later in the day just for me to get a sunburn.

. Mt Vernon was interesting and hilly, crowded and hilly, did I mention hilly? Cruise back was ok, cruising past the airport back to the Waterfront in DC and then back to our hotel. Issue #7, went to the same restaurant as the previous night an hour earlier than the previous night and it took an hour and 40 minutes, no excuse for traffic to be that bad. Got up early this morning and headed to the airport and was able to get on the plane which left early, went through turbulence over OH and IN and got back to Chicago about 30 minutes early, then headed home. All in all, a good trip, however issues made it not so great, along with the rain, sunburns and whatnot.

NOTE: There will be a discussion for Saturday, followed by the resumption of the videos Sunday.