A Slice of Brandon: A Trip to the Big City, Part 2

As I left off in last post, we were en route to the subway station just outside Fairfax, VA. We drove through the ground parking lot and found nothing. So, we decided to ask one of the cops that was on the scene. He told us that up around the corner, there were two parking garages and if there was no parking in the first one then try the second one.

Well, we went through EVERY level of the first and second parking garage and nothing was available. Because our time was getting short, my dad was even considering parking in a corner (not a legal parking spot) between two other cars. That wouldn't have been too bad of a deal if we were only going to be away for a few minutes, but I was afraid that someone might be mean on purpose and pull their car into the legal space just enough to where we couldn't get out. Needless to say, we couldn't find any parking at all on the subway parking premises.

At the same time, we thought that we might could find some church or other business to park at (about a mile or so away) since there was nothing else available. Much to our surprise, there was a shopping center and a bank about a mile away from the subway. So, we pulled into the bank parking lot and started getting ready for our trek to the subway station. I happened to grab a couple of packs of Now & Later candies just because I thought I might enjoy them later.

We set off on our mile hike to the subway station and along the way, we noticed that more and more people were following us. My dad, being the conversationalist that he is, asked a few of them if they were going to the protest and they were! He then asked them if they would help us get to the subway and on it since we didn't know what we were doing. Everyone we talked to was very helpful, and we met people from 3 or 4 different states just walking to the subway.

Once we made it into the subway station, we were met with a row of massive ticket machines with numbers all over them (see picture below).

Can you imagine a couple of country bumpkins like us trying to figure out how to pay for a subway ticket? I didn't even attempt to help because I was afraid I'd make matters worse. My dad ended up buying two subway tickets for $10 each, and we hoped that was enough to get us where we were going.

We then waiting for our train (orange line) to arrive and boarded. My dad was extremely loud and proud about us being from Alabama (not that I'm not), and he told everyone we came in contact with why we were there and where we were from. (perfect spot for a movie line--He's just proud of his town. You know that's a $%#& rare thing these days--John Candy, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles) As it turns out, there were a couple of guys on the subway across from us that were from the same district in Alabama as my dad (they were from Gadsden). We both thought that was cool that we were 13 hours from home and we saw some fellow Alabamians. The people sitting across from us were nice enough to snap a picture of my dad and I - we were having a fun time obviously (see below).

We ended up having to ride on the subway for about 30-35 minutes and it stopped about 10 times on the route we were on. When the ride ended, we had about 3 minutes to spare before the rally was to begin.

Here's a shot of us coming out of the subway back into the light!!