We headed north on March 12 to attend the conference. After a five hour delay getting the train out of the station, causing us to arrive late on Friday, everything went very well. Even the train delay wasn't that big of a deal. Someone asked me what I would do for five extra hours in the train station. I replied, "The same thing I would have done on the train: sleep and read." And so I did. Mark and I had packed plenty of food in a cooler, not expecting to get any meals. As it turned out, they gave out some sandwiches and breakfast after all. We ate well and also agreed that we slept the best ever in a coach seat on a train. I guess our colds were really knocking us out. The nasty cold has lasted a long time. I still have it today in fact.
We checked into the Renaissance hotel in Crystal City, VA Saturday late afternoon in time for the opening half hour orientation session and the banquet. From then it was a roller coaster of non-stop sessions all day Sunday and Monday leading up to our visits on Capitol Hill Tuesday. Mark and I had an appointment with our representative, Congressman Alan Grayson, at 10:30. Another of his constituents joined us for that visit. He gave us 20 minutes of his time, which is huge for this sort of thing, and a photo op. We also went to the two senators offices and dropped off materials with a staffer.
Once that was done, Mark and I hopped the Metro over to the other side of town, took about a seven block walk, and arrived at the OPM building to see a new monument inside. Mark has wanted to see and be photographed with the special monument honoring civilian federal employees who were killed in the line of duty since it opened in 2013. Well, we saw it. It's not accessible to anyone except employees of the building, and the security guard wouldn't even let us photograph it from afar. Mark enjoyed seeing it, but the rule about no photography seemed a little arbitrary. He is planning to write a letter about this to the head of OPM.
On the way back we stopped at a fabulous Indian restaurant on I street, Aroma. We had a delicious, spicy vegetarian combo platter. We also enjoyed the rest because our legs were killing us by then. Both of us had terrible leg cramps on the way home in the car. Mark's were especially bad and took him nearly 45 minutes to resolve while I was driving the Beltway. Crazy. My phone app said we walked nearly 7 miles, so I think that was the reason.
Despite all that, we managed to stop at the kosher market on the way home and get a big hunk of corned beef to boil with cabbage and potatoes for a delicious St. Patrick's Day dinner with Cindy.
Today Mark is doing laundry and some NARFE work. At 6:30 we are meeting Phyllis for dinner at the vegan restaurant in Clarksville, Great Sage. Other than, I am having a day of rest! Maybe I can finally stop sneezing and blowing my nose.
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| NARFE's president, Richard Thissen, opened the conference at Saturday night's banquet. |
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| On Monday afternoon, Mark led a meeting of those of us from Florida to strategize our visits on Tuesday. |
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| Outside the Capitol building Tuesday morning to begin our visits. |
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| Arriving at Senator Rubio's office in the Russell building with Rudy, the legislative chair of the Orlando NARFE chapter. |
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| Rubio's office had not answered Mark's request for a meeting, but we showed up unannounced and gave this staffer our materials. |
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| We did the same thing at Senator Nelson's office in the Hart building. |
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| Next stop was at the Cannon House office building. |
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| We had an excellent 20 minute meeting with our Congressman, Alan Grayson. |
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| Next stop was the OPM building to see the memorial. |
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| One last look at the Capitol before boarding the bus back to the hotel. |
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