Fortunately, Congress (and Senate) were not in session. Like the rest of mortals, they were on break.
What to say... Lots of digital cameras, especially at the National Zoo, where I saw a slew of Nikon and Canon DSLRs with the often sold kit lens and the quite common 75-300 zoom glass (slow stuff, but if you have digital gear, slow glass doesn't slow you down). Some things made me smile, like the people who cannot turn their flashes off and suddenly pretend to illuminate the entire Washington monument at 5:00 PM (when darkness sets in).
I tried to do some night photography, hand-holding the camera while leaning on traffic lights or posts, but we'll see later if the shots turned out fine.
One last word: the TSA people were incredibly cordial. I requested a hand-inspection of the ultra-fast film I had with me (a roll of Ektachrome 1600 and another of T-max 3200) and they kindly obliged without pestering or objecting to anything. However, I did have to take off my shoes and you should have seen the scandal it was to get into the Holocaust Museum with a pair of film (metallic) rolls in my coat pocket. I had to step aside and be "scanned" with a wand-detector...
I learned that even the foil of chewing gum sets those things off! 😱
Otherwise, it was a good change in the routine: nice hotel, good meals, decent books, long interviews... So I came back with lots of unused film, which I'll keep for my next trip (to Puerto Rico) in March.
BTW, it's another conference... 🙁
