Omen of things to come… In the middle of the night on Friday night someone’s banging on our door to alert us that there’s a fire in the hotel. They said the alarm didn’t go off so they have to knock on everyone’s door. We both got out of bed but took the time to put shoes on and grab our jackets. Heck, I even stopped to go to the bathroom before heading out the door. I guess we flunked fire evacuation 101. Anyway, we head for the stairs, we followed those instructions right, and also noticed that no one else had been in the hallway or on the stairs. Once outside, we’re the only ones out there. We walked around to the front of the hotel where we see two fire trucks and pass two firemen on their way out. The firemen told us to go back to our rooms, they hadn’t found anything. We never did see any other hotel guests during the “fire”.
Day Five…The following day we decided to attempt to explore Washington D.C. again. Of course my husband parks at least seven blocks from any of the sites but trudge on we do.
We finally reached the back of the Whitehouse and found out that we could get tickets to view Mrs. Bush’s garden. We jumped on that one; it was a rare event that they opened the garden tour to the public. They even had the Marine Corps band playing off to the side.
It really was nice to get up close to the Whitehouse even if it was just the backyard and the gardens. We spent quite awhile walking the grounds.
Of course this is the ONLY blurry picture I brought back, the new camera was wonderful and I took so many great pictures! 
Remember the Whitehouse rose garden where you’d often see the President and other heads of state give speeches?
I had to get a photo of me on the Whitehouse grounds.
Boy I tell you, the Secret Service was everywhere and you’d better watch where you stepped. We had to go through a security check before entering the grounds and even before that, you could see the Secret Service guards everywhere that was anywhere near the Whitehouse. Security was tight as it should be.
We walked over a mile in D.C. then my husband said he wanted to see the original Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in the city. I reminded him that it was not a 15 minute tour and we walked the mile or so back to the car. I was pretty pooped by then.
I’ll fill you in on why I said the fire alarm was an omen of things to come tomorrow.
