785. Washington, D.C. (DC1)

Technically, I probably should have gone to the office of the mayor or the Office of the City Administrator to fulfill my need to visit the administrative center of a county equivalent. However, considering that the city is funded by federal budget items, I think a strong argument can be made that the city’s political center can be found at none other than the United States Capitol. In reality, however, I think we can all agree that there is no argument. There are only two buildings in town that even come close, and neither exercises such direct control over the city and its fortunes. There were several reasons I should have waited to come here. The biggest one was that if I was a true man of will, I would have saved Washington for the last county (or, more specifically, county equivalent) to visit on my Great Project. On the other hand, it is an anomaly as places go. It’s the only place in the US that has its existence dictated by the Constitution and is the only place that functions as a city, a county, and a state. Our collective aim was to get to the city late at night so that we might avoid the legendarily horrid DC traffic. The good news was our mission was accomplished. The bad news was that it was so late that even the stouter of us threatened to turn into pumpkins. That meant we didn’t have time to swing by some of the other sites, such as the White House or the Supreme Court (though it is right behind the Capitol) or, more importantly from a caching perspective, the Lincoln Memorial. I could have easily spent an entire day just doing the Virtuals of DC without touching anything else, but that wasn’t why we were there. Along with all the Virtuals and EarthCaches around the National Mall, another special cache had drawn all of us there. Though it was not the Scott Street I was used to (though actually, that’s Scott Avenue in Los Angeles, but that’s neither here nor there), we made our way to Scott Circle.

My vehicle, populated by myself, Razorbackgirl, and Godot, came to a stop in front of the Hungarian Embassy. Razorbackgirl had already gotten it, so she held down the fort while he and I got out to meet Krissy4884, Kittydcota, and 4everlyn, who parked elsewhere. The five of us gathered in the circle and began to look around and walk between the street corners (yes, corners in a circle). As always, we were looking for the right spot. And once we found it, we basically said, “Cheese!”

It took several attempts, but we all managed to get our pictures taken in the Scott Circle Webcam! Webcam Caches are rare enough as it is. For Krissy4884, it was her first. I was happy for a different reason. That one Webcam completed half a dozen challenges for me. Regardless of the reason, we were all elated! We were all pretty tired as well. We mounted back up and headed to our lodgings for the night, welcoming showers, warm beds, and the succor of sleep. We all arose the next morning, ready to take on the day. We knew it would be hard and long, but we were up for the challenge and began in…