Game Day in Washington, DC

I(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed)  t's finally time to do what we came to this town to do.  Oh, all the museums, monuments, and historic sites are nice, but we came to see some baseball.  Tonight will mark the 25th team (and their stadium) we can check off on our list in our goal to see all 30 major league stadiums.

But first, let's talk about food...

So far, we've not been real impressed with the capital culinary options. So much so that I can find no pictures of food from our time here.The only decent food we've have is breakfast at a place called the Uptown Cafe near our hotel in NoMa.  We had another, OK, breakfast at the Constitution Cafe which serves as the cafeteria for one of the government buildings next to our hotel.

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The most memorable lunch we had was not because of the food.  My first trip to Washington, D.C., was 41 years ago when I went on an eighth grade field trip there. We spent the week, with a couple of chaperones, at the Hotel Harrington.

It's lunch time and we happen upon the old hotel, which is celebrating it's 100th year here.

The lobby coffee shop makes a reasonable, decent lunch so we step in for a bite. While the food can be described as adequate, the service is remarkably friendly here.

The host tells us these days, it's mostly European tourists staying there because it's the cheapest option for a clean hotel in the middle of the city. Then he points to a nearby table of French travelers to make his point.

Hunger sated, we return to the hotel to rest up for the night's game.

It takes two rides on the Metro to reach Nationals Park, situated near the Potomac on land being redeveloped out of the Navy Yard. A one block stroll leads you to the left field gates, past a large, open area surrounded by old shipping containers called the Fairgrounds or Bullpen, depending on what sign you're looking at.

It's basically a large, outdoor bar with bands playing on one end, corn hole being played on the other, and drinks served in the middle...a large, permanent tailgate party if you will.  

For now, we'll continue on and go into the stadium where we see lightning bolts coming out of the clouds nearby.

We find our seats by first base readily when an announcement comes over the PA system, "attention fans. Severe weather is headed this way. Take shelter in the concourse. Do not enter the seating bowl." Our seats are just under the overhang of the second deck so we're allowed to stay there and watch the light show coming out of the sky. We are wondering if we will see a game tonight, though.

About a half hour later, it had been awhile since we saw any lightning bolts or heard thunder. The ushers take down their ropes and the fans are allowed to find their seats. The tarp is removed from the field and the pre-game activities begin.

We will see baseball tonight.

The Nats are hosting the Atlanta Braves.  It starts out bad for Atlanta and only gets worse from there. In the meantime, we sample the food and beer. Good kosher dogs, one of the worst regular hot dogs I've ever experienced at a ballpark, decent popcorn, and a nice but expensive beer selection.

The ushers here are fantastic and the view spectacular from our seats.  It's a very comfortable place to watch a ball game.

In the end, even though only one ball left the yard, the Nationals absolutely crushed the Braves by a final score of 15 to 1.

The fans are happy. They are literally dancing in the streets after that victory.

Sensing that the subway would be packed very tight right now, I suggest to Letty and Tim that we check out that tailgate area, the Fairgrounds, before we leave.

There's a light crowd and security checking IDs at the gate to make sure we're over 21 but inside (free admission) it's still party time. 

A cover band plays on the stage, people dancing and mingling, and the beer is cold and cheap.  It's a great way to end the day at this very festive ballpark before we catch the last train back to the hotel.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved
Pictures by Letty Musick
Copyright 2015 - All Rights Reserved

A Monumental Journey Across Washington, D.C.

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed)  Tony Arceo shouldn't have even been there that summer morning between my 7th and 8th grade years. A young robber stole a rifle at a pawn shop in neighboring Baldwin Park. The clerk managed to set off a silent alarm and Officer Arceo, from El Monte Police Department, gathered with the other officers outside, responding to a request for help from another police department.

The robber came out, guns blazing, hit Officer Arceo, who was immediately killed. Other officers returned fire, killing the suspect.

Officer Arceo was the first police officer killed in the line of duty in the department's history.

Today, there is a park named in his honor across the street from El Monte High School.

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We're here at the Law Enforcement Officer's Memorial in Washington, D.C., looking for Officer Arceo's name. It doesn't help matters that I first think his last name is "Arcero" and that I don't know that Tony was his middle name. He's listed under "Manuel" but we eventually find him in the locator book located at the end of the memorial where slips of paper and pencils are provided.

It takes us a few minutes to pick out his name from the thousands that are engraved here but we do find it and Letty takes a rubbing of it with the slip of paper.

Sitting directly over the Metro stop where we exited, this is our first stop on a day full of monument and museum touring here in the nation's capital.

We've been to DC before and it's been exhausting. There is so much to see and do here, you can go nonstop for a week without making much more than a dent on the surface. This time, we've set aside one day for monument and museum hopping, trying to see new things that we haven't seen before.

That means we'll try to avoid the stuff we've already seen...no Capitol Building, White House, Natural History Museum, Washington Monument, and more...but there will be a couple of revisits along the way.

A colleague at work suggests the Spy Museum is a must so we trundle up the street to see that.

It seems more like an amusement park attraction than a museum. A lot of stuff here is from the world of fantasy, especially from the works of Ian Fleming.  A lot of movie props from the 007 series are on display here. Cars from the movies, costumes, and other props.

There are some interesting real life spy items on display here like poison tipped umbrellas, invisible ink, tiny cameras, and listening devices.  I'm not sure is justifies the over $20 admission to get in, though. They also won't let us record video so it's on to other interesting DC sights.

A short walk away, we cross the Capitol Mall which is undergoing a massive renovation and is a giant construction zone. This displeases my wife but we continue on.

The next stop is the world's most popular museum, the National Air and Space Museum. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, this one is a rerun for us, too, but it's always a worthwhile stop.

Tim was only a little beyond being a toddler last time we were here so it's nice to show him such iconic craft as the Spirit of St. Louis and the Wright Brothers Flyer.

They're also building a new exhibit in the lobby where a barely acknowledged space capsule that carried Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in the Apollo 11 mission sits almost unnoticed in the corner.


Next up is another rerun, Ford's Theater, where Abraham Lincoln was shot.  It's different than two decades ago. The basement museum has been completely redone to the point that I can't find anything that used to be there. Not sure that's an improvement.

You also need a ticket to get in, now. These are free and available at the counter. I don't know what good they do since we were there at the height of the tourist season and after getting them were told to go right in.

You can see the blood-stained pillow that the president laid his head on as he breathed his last, though (see below).

The theater itself hasn't changed much, if at all, in the intervening years since our last visit. It's still a somber place to think of the history-changing pull of a trigger that happened up in that flag draped box.  Wheelchairs can't get past the last row in the auditorium but can still see the box from there.

Across the street sits the Petersen House where the mortally wounded president was taken to. You'll be glad to know that three years ago an elevator was installed allowed wheelchairs access to all areas of this part of the site.

First, we take in the room where officials drafted a letter to Andrew Johnson, preparing him to take the oath of office. Even if the president had somehow managed to survive, the damage to his brain would have been so extensive as to render him unable to continue in office.

Across the hall is the room where Mr. Lincoln expired.  We're told the bed is not the same one but the bedding and pillows are original.

The Metro takes us over to George Washington University where we plan to walk along the river back to the Lincoln Monument. There's another, extremely historic, site here that sits unmarked and unnoticed by most. It's massive, though.

Several large, curving apartment and office buildings sit on this parcel next to the Lincoln Center.  The name, Watergate, gave us a suffix that forever means corruption and cover-ups.

A small breakin here led to the larger cover-up of the crimes of people in the Nixon administration.  It would lead to that president's downfall and resignation, triggering one of the biggest crisis in our nation's history.

From the back of the property, it's a long hot walk along the river to the end of the Mall where the Lincoln Monument sits.  Hordes of tourists clamber over the marble steps of this tribute to our 16th president.

Elevators take us up to the statue hall but the best part is escaping the crowds by going back out and to the back porch of the building.

Pushing on, we come across the city's newest monument, this one in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It's supposed to be a chunk removed from a mountain (a 'mountain of despair') with Dr. King's image in relief on the front of it.

Some people here are saying it's not a good likeness. It commands a great view over the tidal basing, looking across to the Jefferson Memorial.

It's striking and a ranger is on hand to provide more background information on Dr. King and his life but I think we learned more about the man and his struggle at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.  Of course, we had much more time there to soak it in.

The visitor's center, gift shop, and bathrooms here are also a great place to relax, charge your batteries, and get ready for the next part of our exploration.

Around the edge of the basin, on a sometimes treacherous path for the wheelchair, we come around to the massive Frankin Delano Roosevelt memorial that seems to stretch on forever.

Waterfalls commemorate the TVA, bas reliefs the depression, and the large statue of FDR...not in a wheelchair, by the way...are some of the highlights here.

At last, we come upon the Thomas Jefferson Memorial where a statue of the man looks longingly towards the White House.  We're spent so it's nice that this memorial lacks the crowds of the more popular Lincoln Memorial.

We read some of his writings engraved on the walls before calling it a day.  The DC Circulator bus picks us up out front and takes us to Union Station.

Dinner is here, expensive but not that memorable, then it's back on the Metro to chill and relax after this very long day of exploring this city.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Capital Transitions - Riding the Rails to Washington, D.C.

(Please read our Covid 19 Statement first - Ed)  While we fell in love with the food at Supano's in Baltimore, it is a bit spendy with a final bill in the three figures for the three of us. I'd like to have one more meal there before we leave but it would push the budget.

Not to worry, our new favorite Charm City restaurant has a nice happy hour where we can eat without feeling the pangs of poverty.

A good size, delicious pizza is only $8 with liters of Natty Boh only $3.  Luckily, the hotel is only a hundred yards away and we can easily walk over to it to sleep off this pile of pizza and booze.

Derek, the host we met our first night, sits with us as we chat.  We find out we both have media work to talk about...our blog, Tim's voiceover and announcing work, travel articles while Derek tells us he's lined up financing to film a pilot and pitch it for a reality show he wants to make.


Talk turns to family and we find he's putting two of his through college while ours already made it through and he tells us one more thing: the trial of the cops that were in charge when Freddie Gray died is starting this week so he'd like us to be careful and on our toes.

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We'd heard quite a few riot tales from various people while we've been in town. We've met plenty of local citizens on both side of the divide and found most people in Baltimore to be friendly and down to earth but there seems to be a distrust of the other side and a lot of anger bubbling under the surface and it would not be a place where we'd want to be if and when it boiled over.

It's our last night anyway, we're leaving in the morning.

During our time in Baltimore, we fell in love with the Charm City Circulator, a fleet of free, wheechair friendly, and air conditioned buses with friendly drivers. We found that the Purple Line stopped in front of our hotel and went to Penn Station. That's what we're going to do when it's time to leave.

Packed up with two suitcases and a duffel bag, we're at the bus stop in the morning. Bus should be by within 10 minutes.

We wait.

We wait some more.

Finally, a lady walks by and says "are you waiting for the bus to Penn Station?"

"Yes."

"They're not running because the Freddie Gray trial started and there's a protest on the next block."

We do notice the news choppers circling above like vultures and plenty of sirens in the area. We decide to hoof it five blocks to the nearest light rail station and take that to the train station.

Once there, it takes another 45 minutes and three trains that are not going to the station passing us by until we finally get on board.

It's another hot and muggy day and my plan of taking a comfortable air-conditioned bus to the station has been dashed. We're sweaty and a bit grumpy by the time we get to the wonderfully air-conditioned lobby of Penn Station.

Luckily, the ticket vendor is a very friendly lady and exhanges three tickets to Washington, D.C. for the twenty dollar bill I hand her.

It's fairly uneventful after that as we settle into the comfortable MARC train for the short trip to Washington's Union Station. We transfer to the Red Line of the Metro subway system for a one-stop ride to the NOMA station.

The Courtyard by Marriott sits adjacent to the subway station, which as this point is no longer subterranean, and we check in to a very comfortable, accessible room featuring a huge bathroom with roll-in shower, double sinks, a tiny little kitchenette (microwave, coffee maker, and fridge), along with a king size bed with a queen size sofabed.

Our windows look out on several sets of train tracks just a few feet away. Trains go by ever few seconds from before sunrise to midnight. Uh oh...that's what we were thinking too but the Courtyard has invested in some quality sound proofing and multi paned windows.

Now, we just have a very nice trainspotting view without the sound that comes with it.

It's time for us to unpack and rest up for the D.C part of this trip. We'll catch up with you in the morning.

Darryl
Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Baltimore-DC-Baseball Nexxus...the trip index

Here's the index to all our recent posts from Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Baltimore

Part 1 - Getting through the airport, onto transit, and to our hotel was a bit of a pain in the rear. Read about it here...Arriving in Charm City.

Part 2 - Soaking in all the history Baltimore's public transit can provide for us...Chasing History in Baltimore.

Part 3 - Game Day in Baltimore as we visit #24 on our list of stadiums...Game Day in Charm City.

Part 4 - Leaving is almost as hard as arriving...Riding the Rails to Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Part 1 - A day long, non-stop journey to sample some of the city's monuments and museums...A Monumental Journey Across Washington, D.C.

Part 2 - Now it's time to visit #25 on our list, a very fun and festive Nationals Park...Game Day in Washington, D.C.

...and, of course, two more accessible stadium reviews for you on Fields of Dreams.

Oriole Park at Camden Yards

Nationals Park

Darryl

FIELDS OF DREAMS: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.

I have to confess. As an Angels fan, I have a hard time warming up to the Nationals. Mostly, this stems from when Frank Robinson was manager of the then Expos (who moved to DC and changed their name). Robinson knew how, and would take every opportunity, to push Angels' manager Mike Scioscia's buttons. 

That's the past, I need to put it behind me because a game at Nationals Park is one of the greatest events in baseball.

Moving from Montreal to our nation's capital, the now Nationals played in an old RFK stadium until this park was completed and opened in 2008. The major history of the nationals goes back to Canada as the Alou's both played and managed here. They played in the flawed Olympic Stadium until moving here.   Major League Baseball seriously considered folding the team until the deal for the move was made.

These days, superstars like Matt Scherzer, Bryce Harper, and Jayson Werth call this park their office.

Here are the stats:

Opened: 2008

Surface: Kentucky Bluegrass

Construction cost: $110 million

Capacity: 45,971

Field dimensions: Left field - 337 ft; Left center - 377 ft; center field - 402 ft; right center - 370 ft; right field - 335 ft.

Home team: Washington Nationals (National League - MLB) 2008 - present

Events attended: 1 game

Although there is loads of parking here in surrounding lots, the completely accessible DC Metro drops you off near the left field gate via the Navy Yard station.

Ticketing is problematic when calling 888-632-6287 where you are directed to go to Ticketmaster. If you do go to their website and are a Federal Employee, however (or have a friend willing to help you who is)...this being Washington, DC...you can pick up a sweet 30% discount on seats, which come with a $10 voucher for food or souvenirs, and be treated like a king. Go to Nationals.com when single tickets are on sale (during the season) to take advantage of this and other special deals.

Accessible seating is available throughout the stadium at all levels. Pricing for tickets is a bit more than other stadiums, such as nearby Baltimore, and season ticket holders lock out the seats behind home plate on the field level.

Beer selection is vast but is around $2 more than average. The regular hot dog is atrocious but the kosher dog is very tasty.

Some things that are unique to Nationals Park...

The president's race where people wearing giant rubber heads that look like some of our presidents race around the warning track.

Soft (and delicious) pretzels shaped like the team's logo which somehow reminds me of the Walgreen's logo.

An area beyond left field called the Fairgrounds that serves as a large, communal tailgate party before and after the game.

The concourses are open so you'll not have to miss the game while you go out for another beer.

We're calling in number four in our list of stadiums for now, just edging out nearby Camden Yards in Baltimore.

The friendly staff, fans, and festive atmosphere make this a great place to take in a game.

Darryl

Copyright 2015 - Darryl Musick

All Rights Reserve

Photos by Letty Musick\

Copyright 2015 - All Rights Reserved