We got there at 11pm Tuesday the 24th. Josh had called the hotel shuttle service before to see if they ran the shuttle to the hotel that late. He was told that the last shuttle from the airport left the airport at 11:15pm. Our flight landed at 10:58 and rushed off it to get to the shuttle in time. We got to the stop just to see the shuttle drive away at 11:10. We were not happy. We decided that since we would be using the Metro for the next couple of days we would take that to our hotel. It was a nightmare getting passes to the metro. You had to go to 2 machines. We were so confused. Luckily there was a metro worker who showed us how to do it. We also asked him how far it was to our hotel. He told us not far. Boy was he wrong. it was about 10 blocks from the metro to our hotel. We got off the metro and used GPS to find the hotel. If you have ever used the GPS on the street you would know that its not that easy. We were going the wrong way and had to turn around. As we were walking and walking just turns to me and says "Do you know what DC stands for?" I told him that I didn't. He then told me that it stands for Death Capital and how there was a lot of murders and stuff. Great Josh way to tell me something like that as we are walking on the side walk of DC in the middle of the night. Really. I became really scared after that.
We finally made it to the hotel. As we checked in they wanted the money up front for our stay. Josh had to make a money transfer. We get to our room and its really small for a suite. Double bed, small closet and just a shower. We were just glad to finally be at the hotel.
Wednesday we had a complementary breakfast and met others. We had round table and a meeting in the morning. After we went to 17th street to the Torpedo Factory with another family. It was a long, hot and humid walk. The Torpedo factory was a building used to make torpedoes . They now have converted it into studios for up and coming artists. Each room had art for sale. It was extremely interesting. Some of the art I liked was made out of layered foam core. Someone also made pots with different seines in them. I had been waring my bracelet that someone made for me that was identical to the one that Ally was buried in. I suddenly noticed it had fallen off. I was heart broken. We searched everywhere we could think of with no luck. I went back to the hotel very sad.
Thursday was the presentation of very good survival rates at a hospital in Florida. The surgeon Dr. Kays had charts showing the survival rates. It made me a little sad to think that if we had known about CHERUBS before Ally died, we could have probably prolonged her life. But maybe not too.
I told Dr Kays that if the baby i'm pregnant with now has CDH I will be moving to Florida for a couple of months.
We had pictures taken of us in front of the Capital Building, and a meeting with Senator Sessions. Senator Sessions is very much for CDH research and helped us get funding for research. His grandson Jim Bo is a survivor of CDH. Senator Sessions is the Senator for Alabama. After the meeting we had lunch with his wife , daughter, son in law and grandkids.
We had a fast lunch because after we had to rush to meet with our senator. We had mad a appointment to meet with Senator Matheson. Josh ran to get there in time. I went as fast as I could. My feet were swollen and had cuts on them. I finally get there only to find out that our meeting was for Tuesday not Thursday. We still got to meet with the same person Josh met with last year. We had some more time so we went to the National Archives and saw the Declaration Of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. The only one that was not faded was the Constitution. We were able to get there just before the building closed at 5:30.
Friday we had a tour of the Capital Building. That night we also had a Cherubs Ball. We met with Senator Sessions and his family and had a catered dinner. Josh had a great time talking to Senator Sessions for a while. He has now decided that he wants to be a senator some day. The conference was over that night.
Saturday we were on our own. Josh and I went to the White House and took pictures. Josh really wanted to visit the Ford theatre and we did. Very very interesting. The Ford theatre had a museum in the basement. We saw the box where President Lincoln was assassinated and the gun used to kill him. We went to several shops and then went back to the hotel. We had dinner at a little local cafe.
Sunday we flew home. First to Michigan, then Ohio, and finally to Salt Lake.
It was a great, inspiring, eventful, learning trip
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