Washington, District of Columbia, what does one think when they hear this name? Some think of power, some think of history, I think of an experience that will never be taken from me. Let me begin by talking about the trip. So I am a member of Project REACH, which is a government funded program that allows for less fortunate individuals to experience college and have a helping hand during the process. Project REACH was departing from Cazenovia, NY at 5:30 AM. I was filled with excitement and I to be able. I couldn’t tell you if it was because I hadn’t slept the night before or because I knew my first destination in D.C. was the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I am a huge science geek and the first stop I wanted to go to was definitely the museum. The trip from Cazenovia only took roughly six and a half, maybe seven, hours so my sleep on the way there was not only inevitable but necessary.
Now, there are a total of 19 Smithsonian museums, with 17 of them being located in Washington D.C. With that many museums, you could essentially spend an entire day inside one of these museums and still have hundreds of more exhibits to see in them. The museums have artifacts and art works that go far beyond monetary value and actually can move you to tears out of their key importance and their past. While in the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), I was able to look at the Wright Brothers exhibit, The Apollo 11 Space Mission exhibit, and I was even able to touch the moon! I don’t think anything really beats that moment of saying “hey, I touched the moon!” After the museums, we were introduced to our tour guide, Eric, to take a little tour of the city from within our bus. After checking out some historical buildings and streets, we went to go see Shear Madness, an interactive non-musical play at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The show was quite enticing, being that I was able to sit front row! Having the audience engaged in the action of the play helped it become more enjoyable, especially with the witty and relative jokes. After the show, we ate dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe! This restaurant had old memorabilia of performers and concert outfits from a variety of different artists. After dinner, we checked into our hotels and hit they hay in order to get ready for our next day.
The next day was our Memorial/Monument & Government building day. We checked out almost all the memorials D.C. had to offer. We visited the Washington monument, The Lincoln memorial, The World War 2 memorial, the Library of Congress, the White House, The Capitol as well as the Supreme Court building. I’m probably missing out on a couple of the things we even saw! There was so much history to see in so little time. After a long day of sight seeing, gasping and screaming for joy at things I dreamed of seeing in person, we ate dinner at this restaurant called Buca Di Beppo. This is an Italian cuisine restaurant that gives you this old school feeling as if we just walked into a time machine, bringing me back to the 1980’s. We returned to our hotel after dinner and some final sight seeing at the Pentagon and Air Force Memorial. On our final day in D.C., we visited Howard University, one of the best Historically Black Colleges in the country, to take a tour of the campus as well as get some information about their graduate programs and benefits of being in the system at Howard. After the tour, we checked out the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and learned so much about how this relatively new memorial changed the game, allowing for blind, as well as other handicapped individuals, to get an equal opportunity to check out a memorial. Our final, and most powerful, stop of the tour would have to be the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. Standing next to the 30 foot tall block of stone can make you feel so much smaller, yet bigger than you are all at the same time. It is a mixture of feeling like you are a part of a bigger picture in history while also realizing the actual physical size of it is captivating.
The entire time on the bus ride back to Cazenovia made me realize how much there is to life I’m missing out on, how much life I haven’t lived yet, and how much life there is to live, as well as realizing just how much history there is to be seen. My first trip to D.C. might have to be the best trip I’ve taken in a LONG time.
