USA HQ

A raging thunder storm greets our introduction to early Saturday morning, shattering a dream in which I was waiting to drive to a Torquay away match (clearly I have troubling dreams.)  Drawing the curtains, we watch from the bed as lightning forks across the sky, and rain smashes down on the road far below.  It's 5.30am and it's time to get up.

Our destination is Penn Station, for the "Carolinian" Amtrak service to Washington DC.  The journey takes us three hours, calling along the way at Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, which to my mind puts us through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland.  We're joined on board by a friendly conductor, who clearly likes a joke with his passengers - when he comes to scan our tickets, he says: "So it's Elizabeth going to Washington, and it looks like Nicholas gets off at Philadelphia."  Brief panic, then a laugh - I've been had!  We've also been joined on board by several climate change protesters, off to a demonstration in the capital - pertinent, given the current President.  Our Amtrak service is comfortable, roomy and speedy, and along the way we encounter some of the great rivers of the eastern seaboard, riding alongside the Delaware, and crossing the Susquehanna, Bush and Gunpowder.  We roll into Union station bang on time, and there's no immediate hurry to alight - the train is due for a half hour comfort stop, which makes sense when you consider that its final destination is Charlotte, North Carolina, a further ten hours' travel away.

There's a need to be slightly diplomatic and a little bit sensible as we exit the station, eschewing the offers of placards and posters as we pick our way through the protests to the US Capitol Building.  The building is the home of the US Congress, and sits at the top of the National Mall, on what is called Capitol Hill.  From the bottom of the steps, we can survey virtually everywhere we intend to visit today, for our area is fairly contained.

The Mall is flanked on both sides by the numerous buildings of the Smithsonian Institute, the world-famous free museums housing everything Americana.  We've agonised over which museum to visit, but finally decide upon the National Air and Space Museum.  The choice is not a disappointment, for within these walls are great, historic and significant items.  We're quite short of time, so we earmark the most interesting of the galleries, seeing along the way the Hubble Space telescope, the Apollo-Soyuz test project and astronaut spacesuits.  Outside the spaceflight galleries, the pioneers of flight are celebrated - Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis, the plane that made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight in 1927, is here, as is Amelia Earhart's Lockheed 5B Vega, in which she became the first woman to fly non-stop across the Atlantic five years later.  Another of the great aviators, Howard Hughes, is represented by the Hughes H-1 Racer, which set both a world airspeed record and a record for the fasted flight across the United States.  But topping even these icons, sitting reverently in its own gallery, is the one that started it all - the Wright brothers' plane which, on 17 December 1903, was powered 20 feet above a North Carolina beach for twelve seconds, in the process changing our world forever.

The Spirit of St Louis

The Wright Brothers' plane (caveat - the canvas is a reproduction)

Back outside, and in a really punishing heat, we start our long walk down the Mall, stopping off at a catering van for a Philly cheese steak sandwich, which we eat in the cooling shade of nearby trees.  Looking down the mall, the famous Washington Monument dominates the vista, a giant needle dedicated to the memory of George Washington.  The monument took some time to build, for having begun in 1848, it was not completed until 1888, due to lack of funds and the intervention of the American Civil War.  On completion, it was the world's tallest structure, an accolade it held until the Eiffel Tower was completed in 1889.  Nowadays, it is the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk, at around 555 feet.

The Washington Monument

Feeling warm on the National Mall

Beyond the Washington Monument, the National Mall gives way to the World War II Memorial's massive fountains and pool - in which people are dipping their toes - and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which film-lovers will remember fondly from Forrest Gump.  By the time we get here, we are seriously over-heating, sweat pouring off us - and everyone else.  Undeterred, however, we plough on, for there is one more must-see sight, which has been on my list for many years - the Lincoln Memorial.  Standing in the form of a classic Greek temple, the memorial is America's great "thank you" to one of its greatest presidents.  I leave Lizzie on a shady spot of grass, and hike the steps in sun-stroked delirium, passing through the colonnades and into the cool and shady interior.  Up above, the face of Honest Abe looks out over his capital, observing the same view that Martin Luther King Jr saw in August 1963, when he gave his I Have A Dream speech from the very steps on which I stand.  For me, it is a moment of happiness, admiration and reflection - I've finally made it here.

The Lincoln Memorial

The 16th President, Abraham Lincoln

Our walk back to the railway station - back up the Reflection Pool and the National Mall - is equally exhausting, but there is at least one more distraction to help keep our mind off the heat.  Not that we can get anywhere near the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but straining for a view across the park and through the trees, we can make out the most famous address on Earth, the White House.  It certainly looks like an amazing place to live, and you can only imagine the comings-and-goings of so many presidents - Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan to name only a few- and the decisions they made from within those walls, which impacted so many, both in positive and negative ways.  I suppose that's a good thought to sum up Washington DC - it is the ultimate seat of world power.

The White House