Life of Lydia

Dear readers, in the next several blog posts, I will be chronicling our recent trip to D.C. for National History Day.

Only my father and I went this year, which ended up being hard for my mom. I also missed her a lot.

We brought three suitcases, in order to have room for our clothes as well as all the stuff for the performance. The small purple suitcase contained my costume, hat, helmet, and paperwork (in a hardshell clipboard). The large purple suitcase contained the deconstructed coat rack and music stand and the flip book, as well as my personal clothes, toiletries, and several books. Even with all this, I ended up with empty space in the suitcase. The blue suitcase contained all my father’s personal items, this suitcase was quite full since he brought his c-pap machine, and pillow.

Luke and my mother dropped us off at the Springfield airport.

This photo was posed.

After going through security, we had some time to sit around and wait.

Eventually, our plane arrived.

After the plane arrived, it was still a while before we could get on, so we got some sandwiches at a shop in the airport.

When it was time to get on, my father had to scan his digital boarding passes.

Entering the plane.

On the plane.

My dad took the window seat, so that he could follow along on his digital aviation map. I had been wondering what he was going to do on the plane, and I quickly learned.

We stopped in Charlotte, NC to change planes.

The Charlotte airport was much larger than Springfield.

Boarding the new plane.

Waiting to take off.

On this flight, my father was able to watch a Mets game in addition to following our path.

Getting off the plane in D.C.

We landed at the Ronald Reagan national airport.

We got our luggage off the conveyor belt.

We rode a shuttle to the rental car building.

Entering the rental car building.

We took an elevator up to where the cars were.

Our rental car was a Kia soul. We call this an Uncle Dave car, because one time he had one as a rental.

We ran into a lot of traffic on the way to our hotel.

We stayed at a hotel called Residence Inn Greenbelt. I thought it was very nice. All the rooms there are suites. Our’s had a full size fridge and dishes, which was very convenient.

After we checked in to our hotel, we went to Target to retrieve a pickup order of a table and chair for the performance. They accidentally gave us a four pack of tables, but my father got it sorted out.

We also got food at Target (primarily TV dinners), which we brought up to the room on a bellhop cart.

I got out my costume items to make sure they were fully intact.

Among the dishes in our room were a few wine glasses, one of which I chose to use as a rinse and spit cup.