Destination: D.C.
Difficulty: Easy
Distance: 45 miles
Time: 1 hour
Your Mission: Visit every monument
Can't miss food: Ben's Chili Bowl
You're new, you're young and it's your first Intersession. Visit D.C. and map out the trip you'll be dragging your family through twenty years from now. Take a day and make the requisite visits to all the monuments and memorials.
Lie down at the base of the Washington during the day, atop the lights that illuminate the structure at night. On a clear day, look straight up. You'll see a marble highway that seems to shoot straight to heaven, American flags furling back and forth into your line of sight.
Take a walk along the Tidal Basin and visit the Jefferson Memorial, before all the tourists turn it into a zoo during the Cherry Blossom festival in March. If you're lucky, you might find yourself alone in the dome, face to face with his tall black sculpture. His words are etched all across the building, and if it's silent enough, you can almost hear them echo back and forth. It is by far the best monument to visit.
Have someone take your picture in front of every waterfall in the FDR memorial and you'll forever be part of The Greatest Generation. Impress your friends by noting that the rapidity of the waterfalls seem to connote the turmoil of the country during the time period each of them represent. The Lincoln Memorial seems like a bit of tourist trap, but it's a fun game to see if you can get a picture with just you and the statue, without having fifteen tourists walk by. Visit the Vietnam and you will no doubt witness family members tracing a loved one's onto a piece of paper, a scene that never loses its emotional edge. Finish up your tour with a stop at the brand new WWII memorial, but don't expect to be that impressed. It's perfectly average as far as these things go.
By the end of the day, you'll be so tired from walking that you'll want to grab a hot dog at any of the innumerable stands along Constitution. Resist this urge and check out Ben's Chili Bowl on U St. for the best dog in the East. Expect to take your kids there one day; it's been around for ages.
Destination: Shenandoah National Park
Difficulty: Medium
Distance: 110 miles
Time: Two hours
Your Mission: Descend to Dark Hollow Falls
Can't miss food: The Cracker Barrel outside the park
Most of the park is closed in the winter time, but Skyline Drive, which snakes through the Appalachian, is always open. The road will put you on a steep ascent, climbing the nearly 3,500 feet of the park. It's not Everest, but it's the closest you're going to get out here.
The drive itself is a beautiful one, but the real treat is a hike down to the Dark Hollow Falls. The descent is not particularly tough, or precarious, but follows a small stream that eventually floods into the modest falls. By December, the cold will have stopped the Falls, freezing them over in a beautiful show of ice and fog. You're allowed to get impressively close, so feel free to climb the rocks and touch the falls, frozen in time.
The drive is not bad -- just take the Washington Beltway to the 66 West and follow it for a couple hours. You'll see signs to turnoff to the park in no time. Eat before, though. The lodges don't exactly offer the latest and best cuisine. Check out the fast food, or settle down to a nice meal at the Waffle House or Cracker Barrel nearby.
Destination: Chicago by way of Springfield
Difficulty: Hard
Distance: 1,030 miles
Time: 16 hours
Your Mission: Lincoln's Tomb
Can't miss food: Renaldi's Pizza
Got a few days and a car, but not sure what's worth checking out? Get to packing, buy some Cheez-Its and set out for the Windy City. The drive itself can easily be split over two days, with an overnight stop by in Cincinnati or Columbus. Best of all, you'll get to avoid Cayohoga County, know known for West Nile Virus outbreaks, and not delivering enough votes to oust President Bush.
On your way to Chicago, take a detour to visit Springfield, site of the best Presidential tomb in the country. And I've seen President Polk's. The tomb seems somewhat isolated, trapped in the middle of nowhere. But reach it and you'll witness a large spire in the middle of a modest graveyard, housing the Great Emancipator and members of his family. Inside the tomb, it's completely silent, with Lincoln's sarcophagus resting in the middle. "Now he belongs to the ages."
After that pitstop, it's another three hours to Chicago, really the only urban salvation within hundreds of miles. There's too much to do to list here. Popular favorites are retracing the steps of Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition, as he ventures into the city to confront Al Capone's underlings. Visit the American Institute of Art to see the best American art museum not in New York, housing such modern masterpieces as Edward Hopper's "Nighthawks."
At nighttime, you could rush to Navy Pier like all the tourists, but you'd be better served trying some of the cities best pizza places. The double-decker at Renaldi's may eventually leave your system, but it will never leave your heart. Or arteries.
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