Posted on 08/12/2005 11:33:54 AM PDT by Modernman
IF YOU WANT A VISION of hell, look here: the national mall in Washington, D.C., at noon on a summer's day. Mom and Dad and Buddy and Sis stand on the treeless expanse, baked by the pitiless sun, looking lost. Dad wears a muscle-beach T-shirt stretched over a Cheesecake Factory body, his hair matted in shiny ringlets round the crown of his head. Sweat begins to show at the waistband of Mom's stretch pants. The air is hung with scrims of haze. To one side the Capitol building shimmers in ghostly outline. To the other, the Lincoln Memorial looms in what might or might not be Hellenic grandeur; it's hard to tell through the waves of heat. Both landmarks seem unreachable, impossibly distant, in opposite directions. Buddy's fanny pack won't stay hitched up, and the intense physical discomfort is the only thing that keeps Sis from dying, like totally dying, of boredom.
To be an American family in such a situation--on your first trip to the national mall, where (your textbooks taught you) those monuments of creamy marble rest among vast squares of green, set nobly along America's grandest promenade--is to be primed for indignities, one after another. Mom and Dad and the kids have driven the minivan in from the Motel 6 where they're lodged, way out on Route 1 in suburban Virginia, but they've discovered too late that the parking lots on the mall have all been closed. Street parking is beyond the dream of anyone who doesn't arrive at sunup or after sundown. Tickets for the mall's only bus service, the Tourmobile, cost $17.50 for adults, $9 for children.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
I often see tourist families trudging through DC in August, where the temperature is akin to the surface of the sun, but humid. I feel pity for Mom, Dad and the kids, fresh from Idaho or Alabama (or somewhere else outside the Beltway) as they tredge through the overheated hell that is DC in the summer.
Invite them to come back to see the Cherry Blossoms in the Spring, and maybe Presidents Day as well when they can visit Mt. Vernon and step inside Washington's tomb.
Yeah, it NEVER gets hot and humid in Florida........
Oh, absolutely. I just wonder who plans a vacation to DC in August. Don't these people do research on what the weather is going to be like?
Yeah, but would you plan a vacation in Florida during August that involved dragging the family around through miles and miles of mid-day sun?
Yet people from placed like Florida and Georgia who should know better come up here and walk all over this town, risking heatstroke everywhere they go. I don't get it.
---- Oh, absolutely. I just wonder who plans a vacation to DC in August. Don't these people do research on what the weather is going to be like?
Folks with school age kids have somewhat limited vacation schedule options.
The weather is like this most anywhere in the summer. That's just the way it is. This guys writing style is nothing short of mean spririted. I enjoy family vacations, we have a great time. And if this guy is some how put out at my Cheesecake Factory body, he can kiss my grits.
I was there for the Inauguration in January. Heat and humidity was NOT a problem. Brrrrrr.
You ever been to Disney in August? It's packed. Not everyone can pull their kids out of school to go in the fall.
(Waiting for comments from the homeschool brigade...)
The first few paragraphs are pretty tongue in cheek, playing up a stereotype of tourists in DC during the summer.
I think the bigger point is that the Park Service (and the other government agencies responsible for the Mall) have seemingly gone out of their way to make the Mall inhospitable.
And let's not even talk about what's going on at the Smithsonians these days....
DC winters are actually pretty mild, but Inauguration Day this year was pretty cold by DC standards (and GA standards too, I imagine)
I watched the festivities from home. One of the benefits of living in DC is you get a lot of extra days off due to government events.
Sorry, I couldn't get past the first few paragraphs. I get tired of the constant ridiculing of what really is average America by the so-called elitists.
True, that. I went to Universal Studios in July once. That was rough.
Andrew Ferguson's generally a very good writer. He just has a bit of a sharp-edged wit.
The temp here at lunchtime was 91°F, the humidity was so thick I could hardly breathe. The Heat Index was 108°. I've been to DC in the summer and walked all over the mall from Arlington to the Capitol and the WH. It was just like home!........
We were in DC last in April. That MALL!! It is huge. There should be shuttle-buses from one end to the other. It is a long walk, it was already hot and humid. Takes all the pleasure out of a visit. And there are people from all over the world there, little children and old people too.
It would take such a small effort to make it pleasant and inviting. If there were shuttles -- get on/ get off -- it would mitigate the parking problems. And a bit of food out in the grass would help too. They could talk to Disneyland about how to make it work.
That's what I think.
But most of the sites are free - that's alot cheaper than any amusement theme park you might take the kids to ...
Then they wonder why they are sunburned, and why the National Archives was so cold.
Their women arrive without proper foot attire and next thing you know have bloody feet.
Since almost everyone will have to take a train or the bus to get to the area of the Mall, they have to get it in their heads that this is not a little hop downtown!
My father-in-law says the only place he's ever experienced that was worse was Vietnam in summer.
Why do you think we have so many bars in DC? It's not just because politicians are drunks but because you need lots of air-conditioned places with cold beer during the summer.
I have a theory- the reason the Federal government didn't get big until around WWII was because air-conditioning wasn't commonly available before then. So, Congressmen didn't want to spend that much time in DC, especially during summer.
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