Committed!

I was busy talking myself out of the planned Washington, D.C. trip. There were (are) lots of reasons why the trip should be postponed.

So I stopped the argument. I bought the tickets the other night. We are committed to going now.

I decided that we would take Amtrak for a couple of different reasons:

1. I hate driving. Driving leaves me exhausted and anxious, and that is a miserable way to start or end something that is supposed to be pleasant.
2. I can only drive about five to 6 hours a day, then I'm done. That makes for about two hotel stays, and at least six meals - each way. Averaging out to be about $600 with gas - not to mention gas and parking while in D.C.
3. I have always wanted to take a train ride - period :)

So, once the tickets were bought, we looked up baggage information.

Turns out there isn't a checked baggage service in Cincinnati (if we are reading the chart correctly). We THINK this means that we are limited to two carry on bags each. We are going to call the ticket counter next week to make sure.

We also did the virtual tour of our type of train, and our room reservations. We are using a roomette. Figured it would be better for both of us if we didn't have to stay in a chair for 15 hours.

Kiddo -

So far, we are going to be riding in a car. It isn't all too fancy. It isn't too expensive. It isn't as nice as some of the other bedrooms on the train. We have a bed that folds down from chairs. There is a personal bathroom. There are two showers on the train that everyone shares. The private bedrooms have their own personal showers.

It is going to be 15 hours to Washinton, D.C. I think our firends are going to pick us up there. I wonder if there are cabs there. That would be awesome.

We already have tickets to go see the Capitol building. I have a library book about it. We have plan for next week to write a letter to our Congressperson to see if we can get tickets to go see the White House. I would like to see President Obama when we go. I wonder if he will be at home? He goes all over the place. The last I heard he was around Europe or something with another President. He wasn't the President the last time I saw him. He came to Dayton. I haven't seen him, in person, since he was trying to become President.

We are making a plan to decide which museums to go to. There were like a million different museums to choose from in the book. I sort of want to go to the National Zoo too, but I don't know what animals will be there.

Our next step is to write the letter to get tickets to the White House. The White House web page says that we have to get the letter in 30 days in advance, and we are running out of time. We may not get them either, because they might run out. We will see what happens.