Leaving Washington…several times

my nightmare has always been picking up a hire car I know nothing about, and driving through a city I don’t know.  So guess what I did today?

we decided that we would go and visit Arlington national cemetery once we had checked out of the hotel, picked up the car and were en route to the Shenandoah national park.  It took 30 mins to get to Arlington, which is about 5 minutes from union station, as we had no idea where we were going.  Liz is a shit navigator, and I’m a shit driver under stress. But we did it, and went on a tour of the cemetery, saw JFK’s memorial, then tried to find Route 66. You would think there would be posters up all over the pigging place, but not a bit of it.  We crossed and recrossed the Potomac River, until Liz shrieked at me “There, there” automatically assuming I could see what she could.  A nightmare of swerving between several lanes ensued, but I got there, probably picking up a few bad driving point on the way.  The satnav said 80 miles.  80 miles my **se. It was 41 miles once we had reached the national park, but once we got going it was fine.

old Hawkeye Conroy spotted 3 sets of bears with Cubs, on one occasion making me do a 27 point turn on the highway to retrace our steps. And it was only the third set that I managed to see.

The hotel resort is fine, sort of cabins on stilts, and with such amazing views over mountains and valleys.  It’s blowing a right gale with lightning flashing over the mountains and pouring rain,

and I suspect I won’t be wearing my sandals in the morning.  We had a great supper, surprisingly, and are looking forward to a soggy trail tomorrow.