July 3, 2007. We left Newark, Delaware and arrived in Washington, D.C. at approximately 6:00 pm.
We drove around the city soaking in the sites, which I tried to recall from my last visit back in 1972. (a high school trip, where I was more interested in hijinks with my friends). There are a lot of memorials and monuments in Washington. And alot of classical architecture. Just before July 4th celebrations, there are also alot of policeman, helicopters, police cars, FBI and SWAT teams. (Two policemen on motorcycles came to our rescue when Rudy tried to drive the 12.5′ RV under a 12.4′ bridge. The police stopped traffic and we made it, going through the middle of the tunnel.)
We parked our RV near George Washington University, 4 blocks from the White House, and interviewed anyone who wandered by, including a student from Missouri who helped a homeless man by panhandling for 2 hours and giving the proceeds to him. A novel way to be a good Samaritan.
Interestingly, we picked a spot to sleep across the street from a roadtripnation bus. Roadtripnation was born of a 2001 cross country trip by 4 college friends, who interviewed all sorts of people along the journey, seeking guidance for their own road trip of life. Their 15,000 mile odyssey became a PBS documentary and series, 3 books and an online community. It also inspired future roadtripnation explorations by college age students.
We spoke with 22 year old Matt from England (he knows the Queen, you know) and Christine (the only girl traveling with 4 scruffy guys), who shared their experiences on the road with us and helped us understand the need to find creative solutions for problems along the way, such as bathing ($5 showers at Flying J or a hose and biodegradeable soap). Matt gifted us a copy of The Open Road. Quite inspiring. We’ll post our interview with Matt and Christine soon. It’s interesting, don’t miss it.
As the night drew on, Rudy & I shared a pizza and had a game of catch with Googly Ball (from the Tony & Nick’s blog bag).
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the full moon. Since we keep the RV door open all the time, we catch some interesting sights— I saw a full moon, courtesy of a drunken student, who seemed quite proud of his Copernicus crater.
to be continued, on the road……
Hey this the student from Missouri. I quite enjoyed my night as robin hood and would recommend it to all who have nothing to do after a long night of drinking at 3:00 in the morning. I’ve seen my M street buddy around and plan to make him some more scratch in the future.
Try it you might like it!
Panhandler…we’re still editing the footage and will put it up soon as we can. We told your story to others who were very impressed.
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