Weather: very wet in Washington, overcast in Britain
I was up at 9.00 on a filthily wet morning, and after breakfast completed my packing, as time would be very limited in the evening before going to the airport. Reba dropped me off at the Metro on the way to work, which I took as far as the Pentagon stop, situated under the heart of the building. The vast five-sided structure is the largest single-structure office building in the world, and its unusual shape arose as to make best use of the plot on which the building was originally to be sited, and retained even though it was constructed elsewhere.
After passing through security and showing my passport to the official on duty, I sat down to await the 12.00 tour, the next on which space was available. I spent a little while browsing in the souvenir shop, but finding little of interest, just the obligatory US military T-shirts, toy guns and the like. Meanwhile other people awaiting the tour were taking turns in the waiting area to stand at a replica press conference desk.
The tour was conducted by a young member of the navy, walking backwards all the time so as to keep a close eye on her charges. We were shown many long corridors, divided up between the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. These were full of portraits and other memorabilia of the services past and present, while innumerable doorways led to the offices of some of the most important figures in the present-day command structure. One small room was set aside as the Hall of Heroes, commemorating each of the recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor. The lower floors were rather plainer, home to the less important personnel, and featuring the amenities one would expect for a small town, for this is what the building effectively is, with around twenty thousand people working there.
I left around 1.15 and took the metro to Smithsonian, then walking briskly across the Mall to the Natural History Museum to escape the rain. After lunch in the canteen, I had a brief look in the museum shop for a suitable ``thank-you'' present to leave for Reba, but found nothing suitable and instead tried the shop at the National Gallery of Art, having more success. I then returned to the Natural History Museum, seeing first the Hope Diamond, a magnificent blue gemstone with an equally colourful history, and then the museum's highlight, its splendid gem and mineral collection. All manner of substances were on display, with a wide contrast of colours, but with time pressing I was not able to read up on the details of each in turn.
I left the museum around 4.30 and took the metro back to Van Dorn Street for the last time. Reba picked me up and we returned to the flat briefly, just long enough to collect my case and reorganise baggage a little in preparation for the flight home.
The roads to the airport were relatively busy, but at least moving fairly quickly in the direction we were heading. Reba dropped me just outside the United Airlines check-in, we said our farewells and I went inside.
Check-in proved quick and painless, and I found myself with ample time to spare before the flight boarded. I took one of the airport's bizarre shuttle buses across from the check-in building to the departure area. (These vehicles have a variable height passenger cabin in order to cope with a variety of different floor levels in different parts of the airport.) I amused myself by browsing in the various shops on offer around the departure area, then read for a while until my flight began boarding.
The plane, a Boeing 767, departed around 21.00, in heavy rain. The flight back to London was fairly uneventful. In between an evening meal soon after take-off and breakfast just before landing, I passed the time by reading my book and watching the film. This was Keeping the Faith, a comedy involving a rabbi and a Catholic priest who both fall for the same woman, entertaining without being too taxing on the brain, just right for a flight.
We landed at Heathrow at 8.50 local time, but the wait to collect luggage and pass through Customs meant that I just missed the 9.30 bus to Oxford and instead caught the one at 10.00. The bus arrived in Oxford about an hour later, and I made my way to the nearby taxi rank. I was pleased that everything had returned to normal after the strains of the fuel crisis, and I was safely delivered to my front door at 11.20.