Post-PAEMST Tuesday: NPR to Trolley Touring

After a nice breakfast at a Golden Triangle sidewalk café, we traveled to National Public Radio's DC headquarters at 635 Massachusetts Avenue. We were a bit early for the Tuesday public tour. But that gave us time to gather a few photographs.

NPR Weekend Edition Saturday host, Scott Simon, probably thought he was safe from pestering fans when he arrived to his workplace at 10am to conduct an interview for Saturday's broadcast. But as he tried to fly through security, I recognized his voice. His face was turned away from me, and he was wearing sunglasses, but he's a radio host and I do have bionic ears. Knowing what a big fan Jean is, I bellowed out—more as a declarative than an interrogative, "Is that Scott Simon?"

Jean leapt into action, accosting Mr. Simon with praise and appreciations. Since I am such a hep youngster, I snapped a few groupie pics on my iPhone during the assault. In fairness, he was very gracious and slowed down enough ask where we were from and remove his stylish Ray-Bans. I felt bad keeping him from his work, so I didn't try to get a groupie shot, myself. Jean's a much bigger Scott Simon fan, so we got the right pic.

By the time the tour was set to launch, the group was up to about 40. Unwieldy holiday crowd, but our guide made it work. You start at the top floor (6th) via elevator, and work your way down through the triangular building. (Triangular buildings are not so uncommon in DC due to the layout of the streets.)

The group encountered Political Junkie (Talk of the Nation's political trivia wünderkind/ScuttleButton curator), Ken Rudin, Morning Edition (NPR West) Host, Renee Montagne. It's always funny to see the people that these very familiar voices come from.

We were allowed to paw through and purchase some of the "employee swag," an opportunity likely prompted by the size of the group and NPR's impending move out of 635 Mass Ave. I bit on a quirky, hand-died orange All Things Considered T.

One of our group was allowed to play the piano under our guide's talk in Studio 4A. She was quite good. It was nice to see NPR's impressive setup and know they're readying for the future.


We navigated our way to a Five Guys Burgers & Fries for lunch. There was no shortage of construction cranes at work in the downtown. We hopped onto a trolley to see some city sights.

We jumped off at Jefferson Memorial. I like its circularity and proximity to the water.

Next we spent some time at the Lincoln Memorial with the rest of humanity. That one looks good day or night.

The it was back on the Metro to Farragut North on the Red Line. We stopped at Nando's Peri Peri (Portuguese bistro) for dinner before heading back to The Beacon.