WASHINGTON, DAY ONE
I am sitting on the front porch of my Airbnb on Grant Avenue in Takoma Park Washington at a small table with my coffee on a heater beside me because the very pleasant room is too small for a desk and table. I got here yesterday at about 4:30 p.m., again very easily. I am continually amazed by how easy travel is even when you are old and don‘t know what you are doing. I arrived in grand Union Station in downtown Washington at about 3:30 and hour and a half late and first looked for the wonderful food market that had been there decades ago. It has vanished, replaced by chain upscale fast food places.
The Metro was down an escalator below the station. I bought a $10 ticket from a machine and was directed to the red line very modern subway train and in five stops, twenty minutes, I was in Takoma. The online instructions were to take bus 17 to Grant and Maple, but I was redirected to bus 18, and when none showed up after five minutes I decided to walk down Maple Street pulling my bags. Luckily it was all downhill for about a mile and I was here in twenty minutes. Again, so easy to get around in a strange town.
I called Sara Mahy, Todd‘s sister, who invited me out to dinner. They formerly lived for ten years close to Takoma Park so this area was familiar to them. We sat outside under an umbrella at one of their favorite restaurants and talked, or I talked, too much, while they listened. We talked about travel, where Sara would like to travel to, Egypt, and where I would like to travel to, anywhere.
And then they brought me back to 127 Grant Park Avenue and I showered and slept off all my weariness from the Amtrak ride to Washington.
Today I am going to do an old man‘s tour of Washington, looking at a couple of museums near Union Station while finding places to sit and have meals or coffee in between whenever I get tired and then coming back early to sit in this quiet place. It is very clean with a nice bathroom and a small refrigerator and a microwave. It would be very easy to stay here for a week and see Washington, making some meals for myself, at $75 a night for either one or two people, much cheaper than a hotel and more pleasant in a very quiet and beautiful neighborhood. I didn’t meet the host yesterday. I was given a keypad number and the Wifi password and checked myself in, but this morning Katrina, the young pregnant host was out on the front porch hanging her clothes to dry on a rack and told me how to get the bus back to Takoma and Washington.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 