I remember in August of 1984, the fancy hotels in Washington DC had weekend specials. This was the year my Air Force husband was on a year long remote assignment to Sicily. So my sister, Donna, and I decided to take my three children and a niece to our nation's capitol. Jennifer, my daughter, and my niece, Nancy, were eight years old. Megan, my middle daughter, was six. My son Jon was 3 years old.

We were driving from Scranton, Pennsylvania, about a five hour trip. When we saw the welcome to Washington DC sign my sister had the kids cheering. Little did we know it would be quite awhile before we got to the hotel. This is before everyone had GPS in their car or on their phone.

Washington DC was designed by P. L'enfant. The design was to make it difficult to get to our elective government. There were many traffic circles with huge statues that blocked the direct route. We finally found our Avenue which had a traffic circle with a huge statue.

We started down the Avenue, and came to the circle. This circle had many spokes like a bicycle wheel. I asked my sister to watch the street sign. We took the wrong spoke and ended up near the capitol building. At a red light my sister would roll down the window to ask a taxi driver how to get back to our Avenue.

We made it back to the Avenue and faced the circle a second time. I pulled over to the right hand lane, going as slow as traffic would allow. My sister Donna was reading the street signs. We missed our turn. I did not want to end at the Capitol again, so we went back the way we came. Still on the Avenue but going the wrong way. We stopped at a Seven Eleven to take a breather. I was not use to this amount of traffic. There was a policeman in the Seven Eleven. Knowing the answer, I asked him how to get to our hotel. He pointed to the Avenue outside and said, "Go down that road."

I took a deep breath and pulled up my big-girl pants. Hoping the third time would be the charm. Off we went down the Avenue again. At this point I thought prayer was in order, so I sent up a silent one. "Dear Lord, please get us to the hotel this time."

To add just a little more stress, "Mommy I have to go Pee Pee," said three year old Jon. There was no place to stop so I asked my daughter, Jennifer, to hold a cup for him. She was reading a book and did hold a cup but he ended up peeing all over himself.

I am on try three to get to the hotel. I hit the circle again, kept to the right, going as slow as traffic would allow and... we made it to the Avenue. We found the hotel and as I pulled up in front, a man in a uniform came out to help with our bags. I was embarrassed to tell the very formal man that I needed to get clothes out of the suitcase for the kid who smelled like pee.

I parked the car in the hotel's underground parking, with a sigh of relief.

On to the next adventure...