Road Dispatch -- Washington, D.C.:

Today I find myself in Washington. Surprisingly, things in the District don't seem as orange as I expected. Several things did, however, stand out:

The police presence has certainly increased in the train stations ... more evident in Philadelphia than in D.C. 30th Street Station had significantly more Amtrak police than usual walking about, and two K-9 teams with burly German Shepherds on short leashes (one of which decided it wanted to play and started barking at the other ... which made all the nervous types in the station jump and spill their coffee).

A number of government officials were making their way to the District on "special business" ... my train had at least two politicos/bureaucrats on-board (members of the New Jersey congressional delegation, perhaps?) who were heading to (my presumption) the Hill, one for some type of intelligence briefing.

I sat next to a Navy Captain from New Jersey who was also heading into the District ... "for some stuff," he said (after telling someone on his cell that he had "responded to that email on the secret website." I remember thinking, "I hope he means 'secret' as in 'for classified information only' ... otherwise, how much of a secret could it be?").

Another Amtrak first on the way back ... an armed and very burly Amtrak police officer made his way through the length of the train as we left the station ... just walking the isle, checking out the passengers.

With the exception of these notables, the District itself was remarkably normal ... more so than I thought it would be. In retrospect I'm not certain what I was looking for. I just expected a different vibe ... more tense ... more coiled ... than I felt.

There was one exception. At one point during lunch, the peal of sirens rang out as an ambulance made its way down H street. As it did, many people stopped, or dropped their conversation an octave, and made a side-long glance out the window. Sirens in the streets of Washington are not unusual ... this collective pause at hearing one was. I remarked on this to my colleague, who's worked in the District for 40 years.

"Yeah," he said, "Now when you hear a siren, you expect to look out that window and see a column of smoke."