Crossing the International Dateline also means that I land at LAX on the same date that I left, about three hours earlier in the day. The flight is scheduled to take five and a half hours. Bad weather in DC keeps us circling over Richmond VA for an extra hour. I made sure I would have plenty of time for the body clock to adjust before the event started and had two days to have a look around Washington. I'm booked into the Renaissance, right across the road from the convention center and close to everything else as well.
Passengers can get out at any point and resume their journey when they're ready to see more.
Buses are about 10 minutes apart. Luckily there was room when I got one. Not so for many hapless tourists left standing at stops as the last bus sped past fully loaded. I have been privileged with having access to National Geographic magazines since before I could read. I can now say that there is not a lot in these museums that the Geographic has not covered, albeit over more years than I care to state here.