D.C. Gluten Free

The primary focuses of this blog are eating gluten free, and writing, so I am going to combine the two and write about how I ate gluten free in Washington, D.C. I am also going to cover sights we saw, and things I wish I knew beforehand, and generally compile helpful tidbits from books, guides, maps, and websites I used.

We traveled to D.C. on Sunday, and got in to our hotel late in the evening. We stayed in Alexandria, Virginia (not to be confused with Arlington, VA, which is just to the north of Alexandria.)

On Monday, we took advantage of the free shuttle to the Van Dorn Street Metro. Several nearby hotels offer this service to their patrons.

I have to explain the Metro. We were only in D.C. for three days so the week-long pass was not worth it to us. We got all day (paper) passes for Monday and Tuesday because we did not want the hassle of loading enough money on SmarTrip cards. They and paper fare cards are like debit cards in that you load them with a certain amount of money and when you ride the money is immediately deducted. All day passes cost $14 up front and then you are set for the day, regardless of how much you ride. Also with SmarTrip Cards, or ordinary paper fare cards, if we rode during peak time (mornings and 3-7pm) it would cost more than at other times. I used the metro’s website to look up fares, and it would cost us $5 for the plastic card and then approximately $10 for all the fares. Roughly $15 versus $14 worry free.

On Wednesday we were leaving D.C. in the afternoon, so we only needed to go in to the city and then back out the same way, just riding on the metro twice. We got paper fare cards, which add a dollar onto your fare each way. The Metro really wants people to use SmarTrip cards! We paid the extra $2 instead of $5 for the plastic card. In the long run, a SmarTrip card could be cheaper- if you were going to ride the metro six or more times, that’d add a dollar each way using a fare card ($6 or more) vs $5 SmarTrip card.

Click the link to go to an interactive map which you can zoom in on.
http://www.wmata.com/rail/maps/map.cfm?

Directions. The Metro map looks like an octopus, and you cannot just say north, south, east, west, because the lines curve this way and that. Instead, the line goes towards the last station on the said line. It may seem obvious, but that is how the “trains,” if I can call them that, are labeled. For example, look at the blue line on the map. The rails either go towards Franconia-Springfield, (bottom left) or Largo Town Center (right). All the trains have displays on the outside that state their color, (Bl) and final destination, (LrgoTown.)

Photo credit goes to my talented sister.

At 11 am we boarded a train with exactly the same label in order to go from Van Dorn to Arlington Cemetery station. It took approximately 20 minutes, just as the Metro’s online trip planner estimated. From there it was a short walk into the Arlington National Cemetery Visitors Center.  We marched right up to the desk and asked for directions to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The lady gave us a map of the whole cemetery and highlighted the way for us.  It is simple. 

We had unknowingly timed it perfectly, because it was another 20 minute walk to the Tomb and then it was almost noon. (The guard is changed every half hour during peak time, April through September, and every hour the rest of the year.) After the changing of the guard, we walked back out of the cemetery, marveling at the “Sea of stones.”

The Arlington Memorial Bridge, Lincolin Memorial, Washington
Monument, and the Potomac river, again by my sister.

 Next on the itinerary was walking over the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Memorial, but our stomachs demanded lunch. We had packed sandwiches ahead of time, so we plunked ourselves down near the Potomac River and ate. I had a deli sandwich on Canyon Bakehouse cinnamon raisin bread. It is the best pre-made, gluten-free bread I have found. (In the make-it-yourself-mixes category, Pamela’s is the best.) We first tried Canyon Bakehouse when it was on sale at Meijer. Now we buy it in bulk from our food co-op.

Over the river and through the woods to the Lincoln memorial we go! We also strode along the Tidal basin to the MLKJ memorial, still under construction, the FDR memorial, and the Jefferson memorial.

This was not the only quote carved in the granite.

We were still not done with Monday, but this is such a long post I will stop here and pick it up in another post. Please forgive the photo formatting. Blogger is sweating right now trying to handle all these hi-definition pictures!

Apparently, MLKJ owed Jabba the Hutt some debts!