Last time I knew, "The Wheels on the Bus" didn't include curse words

 Memories of yesterday's long drive and agonizing hotel parking process have faded in light of today's long tour and agonizing sunburn. There is nothing like experiencing our nation's capital with teenagers to underscore one's own sense of civic pride and nationalism.

"Where are we going next," mumbled Morgan around her Italian sub sandwich as she sat in the shadow of the iconic Washington Monument. She thoughtfully contemplated my answer before responding, "Oh...but what do you SEE at the White House?" I admit I was a bit befuddled about how to address this. "You would see The White House."

It definitely has been an educational trip. We've learned a lot. Why...just yesterday, Sydney had been busy learning the subtle differences between what constitutes a hill from a mountain as she enjoyed the Pennsylvania landscape. Miss Samantha then astutely observed that the sunset time seemed to differ from her home in Wyoming County. She and Sydney had had what outwardly appeared to be an intelligent conversation about time zones until Savannah couldn't suffer their idiocy any longer and gave them a lesson about the equator. "Are we headed towards the equator," Sam asked while Savannah gripped the van's steering wheel and screamed.

A hard-earned two-hour stop at Perkins (after getting off on several wrong exits to achieve this goal) gave us a rare glimpse into the bizarre eating habits of native Alaskans as Brianna carefully deliberated her menu. She finally confessed, "I want to try the ham and cheese omelette but I've never had one before." We stared at her...horrified and astonished. Surely this was a matter for Social Services. Happily, it turns out that she likes omelettes and all is well with her world. We also learned that she can be an aggressive little thing when it comes to the equal distribution of spreading butter on her pancakes, forcing me away from my own delicious meal of potato pancakes to carefully balance each already-applied layer of buttermilk goodness in the air to reveal the next one for her to address.

As Sydney and Sam got up to leave the table, Sydney blurted out how Sam had her pants on inside out, calling everyone in the restaurant's attention to Sam's tagged "tail." Naturally, Sydney's "thoughtful" behavior is a reflection of years of good parenting dedicated to the sport of humiliating your friends in public whenever possible.

It was smooth sailing from there...well, at least until we actually spotted our hotel and then lost sight of it..."It was by a Wendy's," a helpful navigator pointed out as we careened down one-way streets, through Industrial Park back alleys ("Is that a rave," someone asked as we inched through a crowd of questionable people who looked like they'd rather tip over our little van than perform The Electric Slide) and past the scaffolded Capital building. "There's the Wendy's!" someone shouted. We cheered as we saw our hotel. We groaned as we were swept past it again. One-way street...back alley..."rave"..."There's Wendy's!"...the hotel..."Awwww"...repeat cycle a ka-zillion times. Shouldn't a hidden rear entry with costly valet parking be mentioned SOMEWHERE in the literature? Plus the Mosiman girls don't know what to do with valet parking as our new friend Eric stood by in wonderment as we unloaded all of Morgan's bags, pushed our own cart to our room, delivered it back empty to him and offered to park our own vehicle to save him the trouble before tipping him ten dollars and then worrying that it wasn't enough. Eric is now on our Christmas card list.

As midnight approaches, I sit typing in my darkened 12th floor hotel room, glancing up to see the Washington Monument and the Capital building out my window. The sounds of sleep fill the room. What a day, We shared a bruised banana in the cool shade of trees that stand sentinel at Arlington. "So, ALL these graves are empty," we were asked. "No, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier for the Vietnam War is empty because DNA testing revealed his identity so he could be returned to his family," we explained, realizing that perhaps the headphones on our double-decker tour bus may have been malfunctioning. I made up a morale-boosting song to help us identify our bus from the slew of competitors:

 Hop on, hop off

Hop on, hop off

We're waiting for (held long for four beats)

(echo) We're waiting for...

(finish with a flourish) The Burgundy Bus!

I added more stanzas as the day progressed (We're riding on... We're getting off...). By the end of the day, some members of our party began to show a marked aversion to our ride. Shocked, I even heard someone say, "Do we have to get on it again?" There was a whispered rumor that another less-than-ladylike adjective had been used to replace the word "burgundy." Despite being slapped in the face by branches several times and a mortifying strike to the forehead by flying debris as we barreled down the highway...I loved our bus to the end.