From Los Angeles to Washington: My America 250 journey
- Rebecca Canales
- 3 minutes ago
- 7 min read
LOS ANGELES — My journey to Washington, D.C., for America’s 250th anniversary began during the final minutes of June 26, 2026. Although the flight was scheduled to leave Los Angeles at 11:40 p.m., nearly the entire cross-country journey would take place on June 27.
From my seat aboard the aircraft, I watched the lights of Los Angeles International Airport pass outside the window. Delta, Alaska Airlines and other aircraft sat near the terminals as ground crews prepared planes for late-night departures.
Blue, green, yellow and white lights marked the taxiways while our aircraft moved through LAX. Beyond the airport, the lights of Southern California stretched toward the horizon.
This was more than another flight and more than an ordinary reporting assignment.
I was traveling to Washington to document the people, monuments, museums and events associated with the 250th anniversary of the United States. I planned to visit the nation’s founding documents, walk among its memorials and report on how Americans were commemorating a quarter of a millennium of national history.
For me, however, the journey was also deeply personal.
A connection to America’s founding
My ancestors played a role in the founding of this nation. Members of my ancestral lines served during the American Revolution and participated in the communities and governments that helped create the United States.
Some of my ancestors were connected to North Carolina’s resistance to ratifying the proposed United States Constitution without a declaration protecting individual rights.
The Constitution drafted in 1787 established the framework for the new federal government, but it did not originally contain the explicit protections for speech, religion, the press, due process and other liberties that Americans now associate with the Bill of Rights.
North Carolina refused to ratify the Constitution at its first convention in 1788. Its delegates proposed a declaration of rights and a list of constitutional amendments before they were willing to place the state fully under the new federal system.
The Constitution had already received the nine state ratifications necessary for the new government to begin operating, so North Carolina did not prevent it from taking effect among the states that had ratified it. However, North Carolina withheld its own ratification and helped maintain pressure for the addition of explicit protections for individual liberty.
That distinction does not diminish what my ancestors and other North Carolinians did. It makes the purpose of their stand clearer.
They were not simply rejecting the creation of the United States. They were demanding assurances about what kind of nation it would become and what protections its people would possess against the government being created.
The First Congress proposed a series of constitutional amendments in 1789. North Carolina ratified the Constitution on November 21 of that year. Ten amendments were subsequently ratified by the states in 1791 and became what Americans now call the Bill of Rights.
Their insistence that individual rights be placed in writing became part of the constitutional system that protects Americans today.
That family connection gave my journey to Washington a meaning far beyond tourism. I was traveling to see the documents, institutions and monuments associated with a national history in which my own family had participated.
Southern California disappears beneath the aircraft
As the aircraft accelerated, the taxiway and runway lights became streaks of blue, green and gold. Moments later, Los Angeles spread out beneath us.
From the air, Southern California appeared to be an almost endless field of light. Highways cut through residential neighborhoods and commercial districts. The industrial and harbor areas near the coast formed some of the brightest and most distinctive patterns below.
The urban landscape revealed the enormous infrastructure required to sustain millions of people: homes, roads, warehouses, rail corridors, ports and industrial facilities all blended into a single illuminated region.
Gradually, the dense lights of the Los Angeles region gave way to darkness. Smaller communities appeared as isolated clusters separated by large stretches of nearly invisible terrain.
The view provided an immediate reminder of the physical scale of the country whose anniversary I was traveling to cover.
The United States is not only an idea recorded in the Declaration of Independence or a system established by the Constitution. It is also a vast landscape of cities, towns, farms, deserts, forests, mountains, rivers and communities connected across thousands of miles.
Much of that landscape remained hidden during the overnight flight. From time to time, clouds reflected the lights of communities below. After several hours, larger concentrations of development began appearing as the aircraft approached Houston.
The Houston metropolitan area emerged as an immense network of illuminated roads, neighborhoods, commercial districts and industrial facilities.
We landed at William P. Hobby Airport before dawn, completing the first leg of the journey. The airport served as the connection between the overnight flight from California and the daylight flight toward Washington.
By the time I prepared to board the next aircraft, daylight had replaced the darkness that accompanied my departure from Los Angeles.
After the layover, the second aircraft moved across the runways of Houston Hobby and began its climb into the morning sky.
Houston looked dramatically different in daylight. Instead of a field of lights, the city revealed its waterways, highways, neighborhoods, industrial districts and areas of green space.
From above, major highways converged in enormous interchanges. Residential communities stood beside warehouses and industrial districts. Bridges crossed the waterways connecting Houston with the surrounding region and the Gulf Coast.
The view demonstrated how geography, transportation and industry helped shape one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
Across America in daylight
Clouds covered much of the country during the flight east. At times, the cloud layer appeared almost solid. Elsewhere, openings revealed forests, roads, towns and waterways far below.
Seen from cruising altitude, state boundaries were invisible. The landscape continued beneath us without the political lines shown on maps.
That view carried a meaning of its own during a journey connected to America’s 250th anniversary. The country has always contained different regions, communities, beliefs and experiences. Yet from above, those places formed one continuous land.
As the aircraft continued east, the clouds thickened and thinned. Communities appeared briefly through openings before disappearing again. Eventually, the aircraft began descending into the Washington metropolitan region.
Forests, waterways, residential neighborhoods and major highways emerged beneath the haze. The dense road network and expanding suburbs signaled that we were approaching the national capital.
The purpose of the journey comes into view
Then the purpose of the entire journey suddenly appeared outside my window.
As the aircraft approached Washington, the Pentagon and its surrounding roads came into view. Beyond them were Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the National Mall, the Washington Monument, the Tidal Basin and the Jefferson Memorial.
These were no longer images in a history book or places marked on a map. They were directly beneath me.
After traveling through the night and across much of the country, I was looking down upon places at the center of America’s national story.
The monuments below represented presidents, wars, founding principles, national achievements and national losses. Nearby were the institutions that preserve the documents through which the United States declared its independence, created its government and formally protected the rights of its people.
For someone whose ancestors participated in that founding era, the moment was difficult to regard as an ordinary arrival.
I had crossed the country to document America’s 250th anniversary, but I had also traveled toward a part of my own family’s history.
Arrival in the nation’s capital
By approximately 12:40 p.m. Eastern time, I was passing the Arlington Cemetery Metro station.
The trip that began beneath the artificial lights of Los Angeles had ended in daylight near Arlington National Cemetery and the institutions of the national capital.
Over the days that followed, I would visit monuments, museums, the United States Capitol, the National Archives, the Library of Congress and Arlington National Cemetery. I would also document the people and events assembled for America’s 250th-anniversary celebrations.
But before that reporting began, there was the journey itself.
Looking down at the United States from the air, I thought about the generations who built the nation, defended it, debated its future and demanded that its promises be placed into writing.
Among them were my own ancestors.
Their generation fought for independence, established new governments and argued over how individual liberty could be protected within a stronger federal union. North Carolina’s refusal to provide immediate ratification without a declaration of rights helped sustain the demand for constitutional protections.
Those protections became the Bill of Rights.
Traveling to Washington for America’s 250th anniversary was therefore more than an opportunity to report on a historic national celebration.
It was a journey across the country, into the nation’s founding history and toward the legacy that my own ancestors helped create.
Learn more
If you want to know more about the Constitution, North Carolina’s ratification debate and the creation of the Bill of Rights, you can get more information here:
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