(Originally posted September 2006) — Last Monday I went to work in Tennessee. Last Tuesday, I went to work in Washington, DC. Last Wednesday, I was back at work in Tennessee. From the early-1990s until last year, that was not an unusual schedule for me. After about fifteen years of non-stop travel, I have been home for the better part of the past year. It was a much-needed break because travel had become the essence of pain-in-the-buttedness.
Much to my surprise, last Tuesday I actually enjoyed travel again. Three things made the trip enjoyable; (a) I’m not doing this two or three times every week, (b) I was in DC – a town I truly love, and (c) I had thirteen hours in the District for a three-hour meeting. I intentionally took comfortable shoes and promptly ditched the suit coat and tie the minute my meeting was over.
Last Tuesday was a near-perfect fall day in DC. The morning was cloudy (kept the heat and humidity down – don’t forget, DC was built on a swamp) but the sun came out and the sky turned blue in the afternoon. I jumped on the Metro for the quick underground trip to the Smithsonian exit. At that stop, you come up the escalator directly onto the National Mall.
My walking trip took me down past the Smithsonian Castle, the Washington Monument, the World War II Memorial, back up the other side of the mall to the Natural Science Museum and the National Art Gallery. Dropped in and marveled at the only Leonardo da Vinci permanently housed in the U.S. then continued up the mall to the Capital Building.
Even though some nutcase drove his pickup truck through the security gate at the Capital the day before, security wasn’t as tight as it had been for the three years immediately after 9-11 when you couldn’t walk anywhere near the Capital building. There were still guys standing around with machine guns out in the open, but at least you were free to walk around.
I walked over to Union Station, had a personal pizza on the balcony overlooking the main terminal building (one of my favorite places to eat in DC) and then caught the Metro over to the Metro Center exit near the White House. I walked around (didn’t see George W., although he was home at the time) and then wandered over past the Blair House into the Renwick Gallery (part of the Smithsonian Art Galleries) across from the Old Executive Office Building.
My day was running out, but I had taken in more in an afternoon than many tourists do in three or four whole days (one of the benefits to having worked primarily in DC for the past seven years). I caught the Metro back to Reagan National Airport and promptly found that my flight home was delayed. The loud noise everyone in the airport heard was the collective groan of every molecule in my body … as I was reminded why I hated traveling so much.
