Goal #1: I Know Places
Goal #1: Earn Traveler Badge and Visit Washington, D.C STATUS: Complete
DATE (S) COMPLETED: 1990; 2014
When I began the Girl Scout program in 1989, I started work straightaway on two badges: Books (kind of obvious) and Traveler (also kind of obvious if you know me, and especially if you knew me in 1989, at which time I would have traveled to Kuwait itself if it meant getting away from where I was). I completed them straightaway, too, because a quick scan of my Junior Girl Scout Sash shows that these badges were sewn on, as opposed to later badges that were stuck on with hot glue.
What I remember about this badge:
* “Helping” my parents plan a trip to Southern California and keeping a detailed travel log. This must have been when I started scrapboxing, because my log includes postcards, business cards, restaurant menus, a feather from the beach, an early -generation hotel key card, a napkin from someplace called “The Rusty Pelican” and the pink-and-brown wrapper around my ice cream cone at 31 Flavors/Baskin-Robbins.
*SOOO many references to travel agents
*Planning several different trips to Washington D.C: One for a sixth grade class, one for a couple who didn’t want to harm the environment in their travels, and one for a group of college students. I got a bunch of dimes out of my bank and went to the library, where I made copies of city maps and suggested itineraries. All those imaginary people had an efficient, fun-filled trip carefully customized to their needs. I, however much I wanted to, did not get to go along with them.
Flash forward twenty-four years to last month, when I made this dream a reality with my friends Amy and Melissa. In true Em-Dawg form, I kept a detailed travelogue of the day-by-day and saved museum maps and menus and used-up Metro cards (however, places don’t put wrappers around ice cream cones much anymore, so my trip to the Georgetown Ben & Jerry’s goes woefully underdocumented).
The only remaining evidence of my trip to the Georgetown Ben & Jerry's:
I saw other stuff, too, though. First stop Library of Congress, just as I'd planned way back when:
ALL THE BOOKS!
The monuments!
And the next two photos selected by my husband Great Guy Dan, when I was having trouble inserting any more photos into the post. An angry red exclamation point kept telling me ERROR! But from his computer at his office down the street, Dan was getting no such message. So I asked him to choose two more pictures to insert and he chose well-- one from the Air and Space Museum (his favorite) and one from the Supreme Court (everybody's favorite, because justice, yo).
Isn't this satisfying, seeing these goals fulfilled? And we're just getting started!