How to Visit the Washington Monument

Every day, thousands of people look up at the bright white Washington Monument towering over Washington, D.C.  The building is an awe-inspiring sight, and the tallest all-stone building in the world.  So imagine how thrilled people are to discover that people can actually go inside that impressive structure.  With their children dragging their feet up the hill, parents trudge up the slope to the base of the monument, drawn by the building's siren song and heartened by the sight of a line of people slowly being fed into the massive obelisk, beaming with excitement.  Then, as they approach, they see the sign on the door:  All Tickets Have Been Distributed For Today.

Tickets?  Yes, tickets.  The Washington Monument has an elevator that has an average lap time of about 5 minutes, carrying around 20 people every trip.  Add more than that and people start to panic - I've tried!  The tickets exist because it's more respectful to the visitors who can report back for their ticket time and actually do something fun for the rest of the day instead of standing in a line for the Washington Monument, burning up the hours of their expensive D.C. vacation while they literally burn up in the sunshine.  Someone smart figured it out because the number of tickets for each half hour block take exactly that much time to send through the building.  For the fixed costs involved, specifically elevator volume, the system works as well as it can.

Of course, visitors don't know the logistics behind the ticket system, nor do they care at the point the sweat is beading on their brow in the 100 degree summer heat after trudging up the hill.  For me, it hurts to tell someone they can't do something, but you have to grow some callouses or else you'll be miserable if you have my job.  The same depressing scene plays out a hundred times an hour, and there is nothing I or anyone else can do about it.

Stage 1: Denial

The visitor will approach the nearest ranger, point at the sign and ask, "So, does that mean that all tickets have been distributed for today?"
"Yes."



Stage 2:  Guilt

Realizing they have failed to plan ahead for this moment, a look of pain comes over the visitor's face.  "I didn't realize I needed tickets."
"Sorry."


Stage 3:  Bargaining

So far, no one has tried to outright bribe me, but this phase can play out a number of ways:
1.  "We came all the way from Florida, and this is our last day."
2.  "We came all the way from California, and this is our last day."
3.  "My mother is from India, and this is our last day."
4.  "My wife is in a wheelchair, and this is our last day."

This is the stage where the pretty girls will try to flirt with you, various credentials get whipped out, all sorts of pouty expressions are unveiled, and, yes, people shamelessly exploit disabilities. 
The only recourse for the ranger is to stick to the plan, "Sorry, you need tickets to get into the building."  I am always reminded of my high school swimming coach, who often said, "Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."  Of course I can't say that to them, or else they will get angry.

Stage 4.  Anger

Too late!  Now they're angry.
"Augh!  I didn't know you needed tickets!  Can't we just go in?  This is ridiculous!"
At this point, I just have to weather the storm and wait for them to calm down to the point where I can give them options.  Thankfully, it doesn't always come to this.  If you talk to a Midwesterner, they are much more accepting of hardship.  People in the East find this fact amusing.

Stage 5.  Acceptance

"Alright, kids, let's go."
I don't know what happens after this stage.  By this point in the conversation, I'm already onto the next person back at Stage 1.

It doesn't have to end this way.  How do you avoid all this headache?  No problem.  You don't have to know somebody or a secret code to get into the building.  All you need is tickets.

How to Visit the Washington Monument

Option #1:  Reserved tickets.  If time is on your side and you aren't visiting in the next two months, reserve your tickets online at http://www.recreation.gov/.  For a small fee, you can reserve your tickets ahead of schedule.  It is totally worth the small fee they collect per ticket.

Option #2:  First-come, First-Served Tickets.  Most of the tickets are given out for the same day.  Currently, the ticket window opens at 8:30 AM Eastern Time.  The line forms well before that, especially on weekends, but most of the time the line isn't too long before 8:00 AM.  You can only get tickets for the same day, not tomorrow or any other day, in this method.  The tickets are free, and one person can pick up a maximum of 6 tickets.  Tickets run out within 45 minutes in the winter, when the Monument is open from 9 to 5.  Otherwise, the tickets run out within the first two hours when the Monument is open in the evening.  Get there early, bring coffee and a box of donuts, a crossword, and enjoy the sunrise.

Option #3:  Alternatives.  The Old Post Office Tower has a nice view of downtown D.C.  True, it's only half the height of the Washington Monument, but you can still see the whole downtown area and the building has an interesting history.  On a humid day when the pollution is bad, you can see just as much from either building.  You don't need a ticket and there is rarely a line to go up to the top of the bell tower.

I'll see you on the hill!

Assateague Island National Seashore

Living a bachelor lifestyle this week while the rest of the family is away allowed me some flexibility in my weekend travel plans.  I decided to take advantage of the no baby situation and drive as far as I dared in a day to visit a park.  The night before I was settled on going out to the mountains to cool off, but cooler weather arrived and at the last minute I chose Assateague Island National Seashore.  Sure, it was farther, but I figured there was an off chance I might see a black skimmer or an American oystercatcher, two unique American birds.

The Atlantic Ocean and hordes of people with nothing better to do on a Thursday afternoon.

After fighting my way out of DC traffic, my GPS sent me through Delaware, which was unnecessary, but I guess it thought there was going to be traffic to slow me down.  The weird thing was there wasn't a sign that proclaimed "You are now entering Delaware!  The ____ State!"  (I'm sure they're known for something other than being the "first" state.)

I stopped by the visitor center to find out about any birding hotspots.  Armed with a nonspecific answer and a map, I did my best to find a parking space, which was impossible in a couple of the lots at the time I arrived in the early afternoon.

I started with the Forest Trail, which went through - you guessed it - a forest on the way to an overlook of the a marsh.  From the overlook, I saw green herons, sandpipers, and yellowlegs.  I paid for it in blood courtesy of onslaught of salt marsh mosquitoes, whose bite, for some reason, transcends the traditional itchiness and goes straight into a full-on burning sensation that had me growling and clenching my teeth and fists by the time I got to the car.  This is coming from a guy who used to sit out on the unscreened porch all evening in Montana and catch mosquitoes on the wing. 

A green heron hunts for fish in the marsh. Here, fishy fishy fishy.

"Seriously, you will probably die on this trail."  The threat of poison ivy is a joke to me now that I work in a park with its own SWAT team and high-tech surveillance equipment.

After I gave up on the mosquito habitat, I went over to the main beach to hang out for a while.  I saw a huge, apparently dead, horseshoe crab that was probably two feet long from nose to tail.  I didn't stay too long because I didn't want to get sunburned, but mostly because sitting on a beach by yourself is boring.

 

 My bird book says the ring-billed gull shouldn't be here in the summer.  I assume people and garbage have something to do with it.

 

The laughing gull is, I think, a handsome gull, if very common along the seaside.  It gets its name from the sound it makes.

I talked to one of the rangers there about alternate birding spots, and he sent me on the Marsh Trail.  "Yeah, that doesn't sound buggy," I thought.  Luckily, the mosquitoes weren't a factor there; the too-loud kids and a  grouchy woman I presume was their aunt trying their hand at "fishing" drove me insane enough.  I did manage to spot two little blue herons there, which was a first for me.

An overlook on the Marsh Trail.

Tiny fish in a pool.  I also saw some pipefish, relatives of seahorses, swimming around.

Similar to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, one of the big wildlife attractions is the feral horse population.  The horses look very different from those at TR; they are smaller, rounder, and look almost like they are groomed.  I would say they do not have the charisma that the horses of Theodore Roosevelt National Park have.

Obligatory horse photo.

After I'd had enough, I asked my GPS about restaurants, and it delivered me to a barbecue joint near Ocean City.  Southern barbecue hinges on vinegar-rich sauces, very different from the savory sauces you might expect back in Kansas at my favorite restaurant.  I got a pulled pork sandwich and some sweet tea and headed home.

Unfortunately, I visited the park on a busy day and so my experience was somewhat dampened that.  To truly get to know and enjoy Assateague Island National Seashore, I am convinced a person has to go hiking into the interior of the park and backpack into some of the backcountry campgrounds.  Then you could get away from the people.  Next time.

Independence Day on the National Mall

A couple months ago, I was literally cornered in an office and asked to be the Public Information Officer for the 4th of July on the National Mall.  Of course I agreed, but I thought it sounded like a little too important of a job.  The Independence Day event is attended by thousands and thousands of people, is a logistical challenge, and takes months of planning built on years of experience.

Although I wasn't too involved with the planning, I got to watch and learn as the rest of the team planned every detail of the event at regular meetings.  Where to get fences, where they'd be installed, and who would do the installation?  Who was going to play on stage?  How to manage security?  There is so much to do.

Thankfully, I felt much more comfortable in my media role than as a planner.  As part of my job for the 4th, I wrote a public service announcement.  I joined up with a videographer from the regional office - within walking distance of our office - and recorded the audio and video at George Mason Memorial between aircraft landing at Reagan Airport.  I felt pretty good about the recording, but it turned out that the lens fogged over because of the humidity and the footage was unusable.  The audio was re-recorded in the studio so I didn't make the final cut.  That's show business.  The video team did all the work putting the film together and I thought it looked really nice when it was all said and done.    Watch the public service announcement.

I had a hand in editing the press release and I attended the press conference at the Netherlands Carillon prior to the event, which mostly dealt with logistics and visitor safety.  I also produced some informational materials for the ranger staff to use the day of the event.  I also had a hand in developing recycling messaging that will continue to appear throughout the park and in a couple of Metro stops.

Other than that, my work was pretty much done by the time the event came around.  On the 4th, I had my own golf cart (with my name on it!), which I used to tool down the closed streets to get to the places I needed to be.  It was fun going the wrong way down usually busy streets.  I never made it to the parade; I was stymied by the fences at every turn.

A couple of days before the 4th, my coworkers asked me to participate in the "Vignettes" part of the stage production, sandwiched between the Air Force Band and Jo Dee Messina.  All I had to do was read some announcements, a role that might have been brought about by joking around with my baseball announcer cadence: It's a high fly ball to left center field, he's back, way back, at the warning track and he MAKES the grab!  So although public speaking is part of the job, and I've given programs to over 100 people at a time before, this was something else.

Peeking out from backstage, a view of a tiny sliver of the crowd.

A view from the production RV / "Green (and Gray) Room"

I helped put out some fires in the afternoon, such as writing some last minute lines for the announcer, scratching them out on a piece of yellow, lined paper in my best handwriting.  Otherwise, there was a lot of waiting around as we waited to get our mic levels adjusted on stage and then for the Air Force Band to play its set.  When it was our turn to go on, I wasn't particularly nervous, but I also tried hard not to look up at the crowd.  The whole program went well, to everyone's relief.  The crowd responded well, clapping and cheering.  The only glitch was that my podium mic didn't come on when I first went out, so the stage manager had to bring out a replacement.

The vignettes team - Don, Jasmin, Jeff, Chris, and Nicole - portrayed moments of self-doubt and crisis in the nation's history and the positive outcomes of those crises.

I stuck around after our vignette to assist any way I could, since I didn't have to be anywhere and I seemed to be useful in the stage area.  Jo Dee Messina played her set.  While the audience was enjoying that, rangers in the production RV were counting down to the fireworks using an electronic timing system that syncs up the music and the fireworks launch.  It was fun to be in the RV as the coordinators counted down the seconds for the other production personnel from the launch site all the way to the Capitol grounds (there were two separate concerts going on), and so I was in a unique position to listen to the actual countdown and watch the first shots go up.  The live music wound down just as the first shots launched.

Rangers Don and Jeff count down the seconds in the final minute of the countdown.

With the fireworks underway, there was a mini-celebration and round of congratulations inside the production RV.  Then we all ran out to enjoy the show.  It was the most impressive display of fireworks I have ever seen.

Of course, a couple of pictures doesn't do it justice.  I found plenty of videos on Youtube, but the best I found of the finale so far was this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2IKDSJkPps.  I asked the Pyro Boss what he meant by "A finale that will knock your socks off," which is what he said at the press conference.  I told him I was sworn to secrecy, but I wondered what exactly that meant.  He told me it was 45 projectiles every second for the last 30 seconds.  During the show, the concussion from the blasts actually made my clothes move.

Think I can breathe a sigh of relief?  Not yet.  We've got the opening of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial next month.

Here's a rundown of the Independence Day event in the Washington Post.