Washington, DC

Last week I was in Washington, D.C. A big group of us went to Capitol Hill to lobby to make Highway 84 a four lane. This road runs through several of our counties in rural Southwest Alabama. It is a winding up and down hill road that has many areas that are hard to pass another vehicle on. It is loaded with log trucks at any time of day because the production of wood products is the biggest industry in the whole region.
We are the region that the interstates passed us by. It has been bad for business, but good for culture. We are still the laid back, front porch way of life people who love to spin our stories and yarns because we have not become rat race industrialized. We are probably the ideal place to spend the rest of your life after you’ve done all that. We are probably the ideal place to raise a family in a close knit environment for the same reason. Where we live is always brought home to me in a big way when I watch the reruns of the Andy Griffith Show where he and Barney sit on the front porch after supper and sing harmony on a full stomach. We still live life that.
I do love to travel. I am a born tourist. I used the Washington experience to see as much as I could between trips to Capitol Hill as part of the Highway 84 delegation. I visited the National Botanical Garden right there on Capitol Hill. I was delighted to see that they used so many native plants. I am not generally a picture taking tourist, but I did get some shots with my fancy new cell phone. There were a couple of good ideas I wanted to bring home to use in my own garden plantings. The gardens were emphasizing innovative uses of natural materials.
My roommate and I took a couple of trolley tours. I always find a roommate for travel when I can to share the cost of the room, which in Washington is a lot even with the group rate we had. The trolley tour is the way to go to really see things. There is one that lets you on and off
At various stops to really explore and will pick you up later. It was sold out for the night tour so we took one with another company, which wasn’t as good. It was led by a "has been" actor who obviously didn’t like children or other people much for that matter. He started off slow and only got really animated when we passed the National Theater where he had starred in a production of Hair. That was the one with the naked people singing rock songs. His body must have been better then. He did, however, become very patriotic when the tour was ending. On the last leg, he all but pulled out a flag and waved it at us. As most people who are loudly patriotic, there was a method in his madness. He had his tip jar out as we got off the bus. We had been allowed to use the back entrance to get off at every other stop, but not this one. We discovered the reason was that he had placed a tip jar by his side. He became very humble at that point. The effusiveness of his thanks was predicated by the size of the tip. His was a night tour of the monuments, which I found less than inspiring because I had visited most of them numerous times in the daylight with less crowding of bodies.
We also visited Hillwood, the estate of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress. It has wonderful gardens around the rambling 1950s era house that was remodeled to house some of the finest rooms of paneling ever transported from the castles of Europe. The gardens are the part I like best. I could sit at the bottom of the 40 foot waterfall forever listening to the trickling water. I feel the same way about the Indian Baths at St Stephens Historical Park here in rural Southwest Alabama. They are a natural water formation in a secluded glade. The Post estate has 30 full time gardeners. St. Stephens has a staff of 4 to do everything. I guess we just learn how to make do with less in poor rural area. We love nature, but just take it for granted because we are blessed with some much of it. In Washington, they don’t have much, so they prize it.
One thing traveling does, is make me look at what we have with new eyes. I love to be on the road, but I am always glad to get home and listen to the birdsongs on the front porch. It is hot here, but I can turn on the fan and enjoy the breeze. What we have is unspoiled nature wailing to be discovered here in rural Southwest Alabama.