Day 23 | New York to Washington DC
Sadly, our time in New York has come to an end. The road to Washington is just one long highway, the New Jersey Turnpike, punctuated by toll booths. We lost count of the times we paid tolls, but it was at least $35 and took about seven hours to do the four hour trip due to an accident and general busyness. At places, there was at least eight lines either way.
We stopped in at Mount Holly, New Jersey for lunch. This was our first time at a Cracker Barrel which is a chain-restaurant here. This place was a bit odd, you ordered at the table and paid at a cashier that was also the cashier for a huge shop full of their own line of furniture, toys, souvenirs and preserves. Very weird and a bit of a pain queuing to get a table then queueing to pay. But the food was good and very cheap.
New Jersey to Washington DC, another amazing drive - approximately three hours 40 minutes
As we approached through Baltimore to Washington it all came to a complete stop until our two lanes were split by emergency vehicles. We were just stopped for an hour without much more than shuffling closer. It was obvious there was a few that were getting extremely agitated by all this.
Once we arrived we sorted out one of those GPS anomalies where it sends you to the wrong end of the property and we were looking over a 10-m retaining wall. Checking in about 8pm was swift and we quickly decided to get to grips with the public transport by getting to the subway (called the Metro here also). Our station (Rosslyn) is at least 4 stories deep down a single escalator which is difficult to ride without a bit of trepidation. The tunnels are huge compared to NY but these are actual tunnels rather than cut-and-cover way the NY subway was built.
With respect to the NY subway system, this one seems a lot cleaner and certainly quieter (at least on a weekday at 9pm) and provided swift transport across the Potomac River to the Federal Triangle station adjacent to all the monuments. While we were walking, we passed a protest outside the Trump International Hotel and the complimentary Police presence. It was a little quiet after NY. We had a quick wander around but it was rather cold and we hadn't really prepared for this.
We had dinner at Asian Nine in town, the food was super fresh and delicious.
Highlights:
Rosie | The Washington subway
Angus | Cracker Barrel’s Rueben
