Two Wheels Good, Four Wheels Bad

So we arrived in Washington DC at 2.35am, after a mammoth 12-hour train trip down from Niagara Falls. The train was packed, and our car from Niagara to New York in particular was full of teenagers who were SO, like enamoured of their own, like voices and were SO, like cool.... One of them had a baby who had inherited its mother's love of making noise, and joined in whenever he could. In addition the train was late into Penn Station, so we had no chance at all to stretch our legs and get any proper food before jumping on the next train down to DC.  The train pass might have sounded good on paper, but I really hope our subsequent trips will be better than this one!

Serial killer Ted Bundy's VW

After an extremely late start, we negotiated the subway and went into town.  The heat and humidity were crippling - we initially joined a queue to get into the National Archives, but the thought of standing in a queue in full sun for an hour just was untenable, so we staggered to an air-conditioned cafe and pondered our next move. Looking around for any museum or place of interest that didn't involve queuing, we finally found the National Crime Museum and checked it out.  I found it fascinating - it's very hands-on for kids, but it covered just about every aspect of crime from pirates to CSI to electric chairs to law enforcement.  Tony and I had a crack at 'shooting' an armed offender with actual glock pistols that the police use - he fired the lethal shot, but I got the bugger in the leg!

Storm hits Washington DC

Then it was time to wolf down a burger and join the Segway tour.  Now THAT was an experience!  We all met at the YMCA, got divided into groups, then progressed into an alley with our tour guides to meet our Segways and get familiar with driving them.  At this point, I noticed that the head honcho was following a rather vivid mess of pink and green on his I-Phone, muttering something about a 'supercell heading this way'. And then it hit.  The weather went to hell in a handbasket with the most incredible wind and rain, thunder and lightning. An extreme weather freak like myself thought this all rather exciting, but I'm sure others had different views...We all retreated to the building and waited for it to pass, which took about 20 minutes, but for the rest of the night the thunder and lightning were ever present, rumbling and flashing in the distance all over the skies.  The storm caused a lot of damage, with trees and branches beaten up and thrown on the ground, including one on the White House lawn.  Anyway, after that little hissy fit, we got back out there, wearing little plastic rain ponchos, and got cracking on learning how to Segway!  It's SO much fun - AND you get a leg workout at the same time, girls ^^  You lean forward to make it go fast, and backward to slow it down, pull back more to stop it and bend your knees like a skier to turn it.  Getting on and off is interesting, but it got OK after a while. It even growls at you if you try and get on when it's not ready!  So our guide, Rory, decided that our group of 8 were fit to go, and off we went in single file down F Street, towards the White house.  The storm had cooled the temperature down considerably, so it was just lovely weather to gad about it.  We toured around the main sights of the city for about 3 hours, with our guide giving us a really interesting running commentary on what we were looking at. We went for miles - this kind of trek on foot would not have been fun!  Got to orientate ourselves as to where everything was, and became mini celebrities at the same time.  A lot of hot, weary fellow-tourists trudging around looked enviously at us trolling around on our wheels, and lots of kids were heard giving their Dads hell because 'I waaaant one of those daddyyy'.. by the end of the evening our calves and feet were pretty sore, but all-in-all I would highly recommend a Segway tour for anyone wanting to do anything a little different when in this city.

Photos from the day can be viewed here.

Tony and I on our Segways, in front of the White House.