Mrs. Major H and I will be driving up from Florida to attend the U.S. FreedomWalk Festival which runs from 19 – 21 October. On the way up we will visit and do volksmarches at the Civil war battlefields of Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania and the Wilderness. We might work in the Manassas battlefield walk as well. Then we’re up to the Philadelphia suburb of King of Prussia for a couple days to visit family. Then we head to Alexandria for the festival. We will have one whole day and one or two free afternoons to explore the Alexandria / D.C. area. We are staying in Alexandria near the Roslyn Metro stop.

Areas we are interested in include the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum and the National Arboretum. I understand the hard Rock Café is near Ford’s Theatre, so we might work our way around there. Would really like to leave the car at the hotel and use the metro. Is the metro easy to use? Can we get a daylong pass?  (We’ve done the metros in Rome, Paris and London, but I’m still a bit apprehensive the first time.) Are pickpockets bad?  What other tidbits of travel advice can you offer? Thanks in advance.