America 2013: Day Twenty-Four - December 15 | Las Vegas Los Angeles Washington D.C.

Kisses sweeter than Tupelo honey, little bit crazy like New Orleans, Memphis blue and Daytona sunny, soft as cotton in some cut-off jeans. Don't you know, ain't nothing in the whole wide world like a southern girl.

- Tim McGraw

It's getting to the end of our trip. In fact, we have a week to go today. Late next Sunday evening, we'll be back on a plane, heading across the Pacific Ocean to Australia. Yet, there's still so much we have planned to see and do. 

Our final segment, over on the east coast of the United States, began with an early-morning wake-up in Las Vegas - it's cool to watch the sunrise over the casinos on The Strip - and two flights, one from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and another, longer one, to Washington D.C's Reagan-National Airport, which sits close to the capital, on the banks of the mighty Potomac River.

Vegas sunrise

In Los Angeles, I did a bit of shopping, buying, my Christmas gift to myself: a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, which I got for a much cheaper price than I ever would have back home. These things are amazing. When you turn them on, you can't hear anything outside the music in your ears, even during take-off and landing. I had an aisle seat from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and pretty much the only way I knew that the plane was taking off, other than the obvious steep ascent from the runway, was the thrum of the engine vibrating through the floor. Impressive! As Lauryn said, it was a solid purchase.

To get cheap flights, we were on two different airlines today, American from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and Alaska Airlines/Delta from Los Angeles across to Washington D.C. - a 5-hour flight - so we had to collect our bags in LA and check them again to the capital. It meant two trips through the TSA security checkpoint, too, but that wasn't too bad. Leaving Las Vegas, Lauryn and I got in the TSA pre-check line, which meant that we didn't have to take our shoes off or take our laptops out of the bag. We lucked into that, and were through the checkpoint in about 3 minutes.

We landed at Reagan-National about 9.00pm and took a taxi to our hotel, the Washington Court which is only a stone's throw from the domed Capitol Building. The American capital is one of my favourite cities. I love the history that seems to follow you everywhere here. The weather's supposed to be sunny and cool tomorrow, which is pretty much perfect sight-seeing weather, and D.C's a great town for sightseeing. The plan is to visit the White House, the Capitol Building, Arlington National Cemetery (across the Potomac River, in the Commonwealth of Virginia) and a few other places. Can't wait!