Chris​Hubbs​.com

Last week I traveled for business to Washington, DC. While my original plans left me little time for sight-seeing, I still managed to take a long evening walk and see the memorials along the National Mall. Then old man winter intervened and pushed my flights around, giving me an unexpected whole day to visit museums. Now, I could give you a step-by-step itinerary of my trip, but it would likely bore you to death. (Now I’ve set myself up to have to write something non-boring. Uh oh.) What I’d rather talk about, though, is the overall experience I had.

This was my first visit to Washington. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been a history and government junkie, so I was excited to get to see some of the places for real that I’d only seen in pictures. I wasn’t disappointed. It’s even more impressive to be there and see them. First, because many of the buildings are massive in a way that a photograph just can’t communicate. (The Supreme Court? Unbelievably immense.) But second, because all the buildings are so close together. You come up from the Metro, and bam! there’s the Library of Congress. Walk past it and bam! there’s the Supreme Court. Then turn the corner and whammo! the Capitol building. And on and on. Amazing.

As I started my journey down the Mall, I felt a little bit sheepish playing tourist; I seemed to be the only tourist around, everyone else was just finishing up work for the day. Still, I had fun snapping pictures and marveling at the architecture. Halfway down the Mall you reach the Washington Monument. Some 500+ feet tall, it’s a massive obelisk that dominates the skyline. I took a few pictures to try to capture the sunset off in the west and the ring of flags that surrounds the monument. I’m sure I didn’t really capture it, though - it’s just too much to take in with a camera lens. (At least, too much for me and my camera lens.) At the Washington Monument I finally saw a few other tourists, all doing the same as me, gazing up at this massive two-tone tower.

I continued my trek westerly across the Mall. From the Washington Monument you have a long walk past the reflecting pool until you reach the Lincoln Memorial. Coming from the east like I did, it isn’t immediately apparent what exactly the reflecting pool reflects. The pool is long, fairly wide, a few feet deep, and made semi-famous as the pool that Forrest Gump wades into at the end of the movie. (I heard two separate tourists that I passed on the walk mention this fact, so it must have been more memorable to them than it was to me.) It was also drained for the winter; there was just a little bit of water in the center of the pool where the snowmelt had run. It was anything but impressive as I walked by it in the winter dusk, but it made a comfortable walking path as I headed toward Lincoln.

The guidebooks all describe the Lincoln Memorial as the most popular of the memorials on the Mall. This was evidenced to me as I walked toward it that night - the frequent camera flashes reflecting off the inner walls of the memorial lit it up beyond the already-bright normal lighting. When I reached the Memorial, there was no shortage of tourists, even though it was nearly seven pm. Adults, small children, families, a school group, all in awe of the massive man of marble. And then I turned around.

As magnificent as the Lincoln Memorial is, what really captured me (and many of the others) was the view back across the Mall. So that’s why they have a reflecting pool: from the Lincoln Memorial you can see the whole Washington Monument reflected. Even in the snowmelt a patchy reflection lit the Mall. Far in the distance the Capitol was lit up brightly. What an amazing scene.

Now why do I keep bringing up the number of tourists there? Wouldn’t I have preferred there were fewer so there would be less crowding? Well, crowding wasn’t really an issue. But what got to me was this: even in these contentious political days, a diverse group of visitors could all stop for a few minutes and share the wonder. We could all appreciate the beauty and truth of Lincoln’s words engraved in the wall of the memorial. We could all feel thankful for past leaders like George Washington. We could all stop and feel the love of a free country, this country, our country. Amazing.

Rich Mullins summed up my feelings toward my country so well in his song Land of my Sojurn:

Nobody tells you when you get born here How much you’ll come to love it And how you’ll never belong here So I’ll call you my country But I’ll be longing for my home And I wish that I could take you there with me…

…home again, home again, jiggety jig.

I always seem to forget the beginning of that rhyme, but I quote the end of it often enough.  I made it home last night from Washington (via Minneapolis) thanks to the skill of the Northwest Airlines pilots who drove our DC-9 through snow and 30 knot landing winds to get us to Cedar Rapids.  Still, it was a late night - got home about 12:30, and many thanks go out to Daniel Garner for graciously agreeing to pick me up at the airport so Becky could stay home with the girls.

When I get a chance to stop and think, I’m sure there are a couple more blog posts to be written about this trip, but for now I’m just glad to be home.

So I’m finally caught up with my trip posts. It’s 10:20 PM and we’re in a hotel room in Dayton, Ohio. We traveled from Waxhaw this morning, picked up my sunglasses from the Cozart’s where I’d left them last night, then headed up through NC, Virginia, West Virginia, and most of the way through Ohio. It was actually a pretty good drive, not too tough, went pretty quickly.

We stopped in West Virginia at a Cracker Barrel for lunch. I’d never been in West Virginia before today. Well, not quite true; I think our college choir bus went through that little arm of WV and the little arm of Maryland on our way to Pennsylvania one year, but that hardly counts. Anyway, maybe the Cracker Barrel experience today wasn’t totally representative of WV and its people and culture, but maybe it is… I’ll just take it as a data point. So, we’re all familiar with the stereotypes of West Virginia and its people; of uncultured inbred toothless hillbillies… you get the idea. The funny part today was this: had I gone into that restaurant with no preconceived stereotypes about West Virginians, the ideas I’d have picked up in that hour would have pretty well matched the preconception I already had. I saw more people without teeth, in bib overalls, and/or just plain scary looking in one hour in that Cracker Barrel than I have seen in a month of Sundays at home. (Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t fearful or anything… more just amused.)

Over the Rhine graced the CD player this afternoon in honor of our Ohio travels, and tonight we hit a shopping mall to stretch our legs and eat some supper. Tomorrow morning I think we’ll be hitting the local Tim Horton’s in honor of my favorite Canadian *Dan (who speaks so highly of them!), then it’s back onto the interstate through Indiana, Illinois, and finally into Iowa. It will be good to be home.

Sunday morning of our trip brought us to Calvary Church in Charlotte for the Sunday morning service. It is Becky’s folks’ church, and she attended and was an intern there while in college. Then in 1998 we got married in the chapel there… so I guess we have a little history at the church. :-) We got there early so Becky could see a few people she hasn’t seen in a while… and of course she could show off the girls.

After church we pigged out on Sonny’s BBQ, which has some phenomenal sweet tea. Then it was back to Waxhaw for an afternoon nap, and then the traditional Christmas Eve feast with Becky’s folks. Then it was off to bed for the girls as we packed up to head to Faith & Ernie’s for Christmas…

Day 3 was another travel day; Nashville, TN to Waxhaw, NC. It doesn’t look that long on the map, but it winds through the mountains a good bit, which makes it longer. It’s a very pretty drive.

We got packed up and left the Opryland resort about 8:30. Taking I-40 east, we headed through Knoxville and then wound our way through the mountains to Asheville, NC. It was rainy and foggy all day, which made for some beautiful views of clouds hanging low in the mountain valleys, but it also made for some difficult driving. Still, we made it to Charlotte in time for supper and then drove the 40 minutes on to Waxhaw to see Becky’s folks.

We hung out at their apartment for a little while and had some dessert (Laura just loves her ice cream!), then they took us over to the little JAARS apartment that we’re staying in. The JAARS headquarters here actually is set up with several lodges and apartments to house folks that come in for training and the like. They’re also available for visitors, which works quite well for us. We’re actually in an apartment that has two bedrooms, one bath, living room, dining room, and small kitchen. Laura slept in a real twin-sized bed, a real step up from her toddler bed at home. She did really well. It’s nice to have a little home-away-from-home where we can just settle down at night. (It even has DSL so I can get my internet fix!)

Fortunately we won’t be doing much more driving for a day or two; Sunday we’ll head into Charlotte for church, then Monday we head up to Conover to visit Ernie, Faith, and Brandy for Christmas. I’ll try to keep my blog posts up-to-date since I know some of my family will be reading them while they’re together in Chicago at Ryan’s place. Hi guys!

Day 2 of our Christmas trip landed us in Nashville. Becky’s brother Bob and his wife Holly and daughter Taylor live just south of town. Holly works for Gaylord Entertainment, which operates the massive Opryland Resort there in northeast Nashville. As such, she gets a phenomenal discount rate for rooms in the hotel, and we took full advantage of that to stay there for two nights.

We slept in (a necessity after staying up ’til midnight) and then went with Bobby and Taylor to a local Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Then it was back to the resort and we started walking around. The place is amazing. They have two domed areas with multiple levels of attractions, shows, shops, and gardens. One has an indoor river with boat tours! Bob had lined up a boat tour for us and off we went.

At lunchtime I was able to get together with Andy Osenga to grab lunch. He was getting ready to record some background vocals for another guy that afternoon, and they were heading out for lunch first. I joined them for lunch at a local Irish pub-type establishment (I call it that knowing that Ryan would be happy to tell me how different a true Irish pub is from that place!), then went back to the studio and hung out for a while while Andy recorded. Mitch Dean (who has worked on albums for Jars of Clay, among others) was doing the recording, and it was an education for me to see just how the process works. It was difficult, if not impossible, to resist the geek appeal of all that sound recording and editing gear, and that doesn’t even begin to address the enjoyment I had as a musician seeing how songs get sculpted into a finished product.

I headed back to the resort mid-afternoon and we walked around and saw more of the sights. The place is just designed to soak your money out of you. They have a Chick-Fil-A inside one of the domes. The price for a basic CFA sandwich? $6. At a normal CFA, it costs about $2.50. Add on the $10/day to park, the add-ons for the extras in your room, and I know I couldn’t afford to stay there at normal prices. Oh, a word about the room we stayed in. It was actually a three-room suite, two bedrooms, each with two double beds, and then a connecting sitting room that was huge; perhaps 20 x 30 feet. Each room had windows that opened out to the dome with the river, so you could hear rushing water all night. Amazing. Bob said it usually runs about $550/night. He got it for just a tiny percentage of that price, I’m sure.

That night after Holly got off work we went and saw the “Ice” show right next door; it was a big building full of ice sculptures, and included two big ice slides! They issued you large coats at the door; the single-degree temps inside were in stark contrast to the 60-degree temps outside. Laura was a bit scared, but went down one of the slides. Unfortunately, the picture didn’t come out. There was an amazing ice nativity scene, of course an igloo, a bear ice fishing, a train… very cool stuff. (Pun intended.)

Finally, we went over to the massive shopping mall next to the resort to grab dinner. We ate at the Rain Forest Cafe, which has a waterfall, massive aquariums, animatronic elephants and apes, simulated thunderstorms, the whole bit. The food was pretty decent, too. We finally made it back to our room and collapsed into bed. Well, I guess I collapsed; Becky went down with Bob to hang out for a while and listen to a band.

I’ll just add the rest of the pictures here at the end; the descriptions on Flickr will fill in any info you need.