Raise a glass to Robert Hugman!

Apparently, a horrible flood in 1921 started the ball rolling and put the city of San Antonio on the path to its current Riverwalk.  That’s when they started taking seriously about damming up the dangerous waterway.  The work began on the dam and bypass channel in 1926, but it was three years later when someone looped in an architect named Robert Hugman, who drew up a plan for a riverwalk.  From there, it was a pushy mayor and a city bond issue- oh, and nine years of wait time- before the San Antonio River Beautification Project launched in earnest. The architect built his office there.  Over many years, more things arrived.  The first restaurant, Casa Rio, opened in 1946, the Hilton Palacio Del Rio went up in 1968.  It’s been a century or so since they fixed their flooding river, and I believe the San Antonio tourism industry owes a great debt of gratitude to Architect Robert Hugman.  Nobody really raises a glass to a heroic architect, do they?  Well, they should.  

We made our way from our amazing hotel to the inevitable Riverwalk last night, spending a lot of our time on the street level.  When we finally selected a spot to be down at the river level, we took the stairs.  Wow, that was a lot of people.  We were trying to head to a place called The Bridge Bar, but when we got there, the music was as loud as it was bad, and the crowd picked that moment to swell in size.  We crossed to the other side on one of those pretty foot bridges, walked a little, then headed back up top.  Time for a little stroll on the streets. 

That can be interesting, too.  There are scads of horse-drawn carriages, all lit up with twinkle lights in pink and purple and decorated with silk flowers.  We joked about how a Barbie doll and Cinderella may have conspired to create these things.  Next, of course, were the low riders.  Self-styled car parades went around the city, and for the life of me, I can’t imagine why.  There was a line of low rider cars with hydraulic lifts bouncing themselves up in the front and back, lifting themselves at impossible angles sideways and otherwise delighting mostly baffled folks walking around the sidewalks.  Additionally, there were, of course, Japanese sporty racers, souped up trucks, motorcycles and other cruisers parading around.  God help any hapless tourist trying to navigate to a hotel parking lot in all of that.  

We spent a little more time strolling, making our way to our pre-selected dinner destination, a bizarre place called the Biergarten down at the river level.  The indoor decor featured many beer steins, a statue of who I can only imagine is Samuel Adams, a moose head on the wall and a few artificial flameless fireplaces interspersed with powerful fans.  The service was mediocre; the decor was… interesting.  The food was very good, though.  We shared a combination platter with different kinds of German sausage.  It was the best, but also the wurst.  I can’t help it- I have to make those jokes, and I’m not even sorry.  

After we wrapped that up, we headed back up top for a few more gawking looks at the parade of transportation methods cruising the streets, winding up with a side trip to the Maverick Distillery.  It was so quiet in there that it nearly felt abandoned.  A nice change from the bustling streets, if you ask me.  We each had a seat, selected a pair of their specialty cocktails and took a few sips just before the bartender let us know whey were closing soon.  Man- just when you find a spot.  Nobody rushed us, though.  We took the time we felt was appropriate and walked out to return to our hotel.  But we approached the Menger from the side, and the best point of entry on that side was the Menger Bar.  Ain’t that a shame?  We went in, and as if by magic, the couple sitting in the very best two seats was about to leave.  The lady offered me the spot right in front of the Carrie Nation hatchet spot.  Well, now we have to stay.  I sat right in front of the spot where they had to replace a chunk of wood because famous temperance activist Carrie Nation smashed the bar top with her signature hatchet.  Nation was her name from her second marriage.  Her first, apparently was to an alcoholic who drank himself to death.  I looked that up, too, as I really wondered about her motivations.  

Cas was to my right, and nearest to the famed Teddy Roosevelt bullet holes.  Those are from his storied recruitment of Rough Riders when he apparently fired off his weapon as an attention-gaining move.  I bet that worked.  

The whole bar is, apparently, an exact replica of the bar at the House of Lords in the UK, and it’s actually quite beautiful.  

But it’s now New Years Eve, and we’re just getting up and rolling.  We have timed entry tickets to see the inside of the Alamo later today, and we have a dinner cruise on the river this evening.  Maybe we can raise a glass to Robert Hugman!  In the meantime, we’re off.  See you in 2024!

The Historic Menger Hotel

Coming to you live from the historic Menger Hotel in San Antonio, Texas!  Whew.  It’s been a heckuva December.  My dad had his second bit of surgery in two months, and being an excellent daughter, I was there for waiting room detail.  We had school right up until the edge of the Christmas holiday- just a weird result of how the calendar worked out this year.  Christmas Day was a Monday, so they let us out on early release the Friday before.  Out at 1:30 on the 22nd isn’t exactly the easiest time for teachers to get things ready, wrap gifts, decorate the house or bake a single freakin’ cookie.  I know, most folks think teachers have it pretty easy, but guess what?  We get used to having two weeks off at Christmas, and when they don’t hit just right, we notice.  

We hosted Christmas Eve for my side of the family at our house, followed by Christmas Day at Cas’ brother’s house and a very small but lovely wedding at Cas’ mom’s house later that week.  She finally married the man she’s spent the past few decades with, and by golly, it was pretty sweet.  

But pile all of that into a month with work and life and everything else, and you earn yourself a little vacation.  Cas and I don’t give each other tangible gifts- at least not that often, and when we do, they’re usually toys or treats.  Never really jewelry or perfume or something.  This year, we gave each other a trip to San Antonio for New Year’s Eve.  We just checked in to the Historic Menger Hotel, but our room wasn’t ready right on time, so they gave us a pair of vouchers for free drinks at the Menger Bar.  We were going to go there anyway.  It’s absolutely riddled with history.  The whole darn hotel is, in fact.  More on that later.  

But we just got here, and we have dinner on the Riverwalk tonight.  Tomorrow, we’ll remember the Alamo.  Again.  But that’s all you get for now.  We have to go have adventures!  Here’s to a celebration with just me and Cas, no weddings, hospitalizations or hosting family in our house.  Sure, the wedding and the family stuff was great; sure, the hospitalization worked out very well, but we need a little down time with just me and my guy and a city to explore!  Like I said, more later.  

Adventure!

Jeff and Reema aren’t entirely unpacked, but they have officially moved in to a house in Austin, TX. Will I forgive them for moving away? Jury’s still out. Will I visit? Certainly. Will my amazing husband scheme with them and figure out an awesome Labor Day weekend event to celebrate my birthday? Turns out, yes. To that end, we arrived in Austin on Saturday via a “luxury coach” (big, red bus) that deposited us a block and a half from our hotel. 

Saturday night, he got the old band back together, so to speak. It was me, Cas, Jeff, Reema and our old pals from the Italy trip, Jon and Nicci. He also got my dad and my other brother, Dan to join the party. Cas and I met up with Jon and Nicci first, stopping at a tiki bar on Sixth Street. A pair of zombies later (rum+juice+fire, for some reason), we were off to another spot. Dad and Dan showed up and trekked with us, eventually heading to Jon and Nicci’s favorite Italian place in downtown Austin. 

More adventuring and a little walkabout landed us at a hotel bar, mostly because the really happening spots were loud and filled with recently released football fans from the UT/Rice game. We stuck around there until it was time to head to one of my Austin favorites, Esther’s Follies. It’s often risqué, sometimes raunchy and always hilarious. Part vaudeville, part magic show and part musical theater, Esther’s is something I came to appreciate decades ago when I would attend a teaching conference with my mom in the springtime.  

The show was a blast, and afterwards, we were all tired.  It may have something to do with the fact that we picked the late show, and it started at nine. For us, it was back to the hotel, down for the count and up for a morning workout on Sunday. We’d developed a last minute plan to head to the LBJ presidential library, but the timing didn’t work. No worries; we’ll be back. Instead, we headed to Jeff’s house. We hadn’t seen it yet, so a trip there was in the offing. Besides, I’m certain their dog missed us. Upon further investigation, I can safely say he did. Fritz is a big, dopey German shepherd who would trip over his own tail if it was long enough. What he lacks in intellect, he makes up for with his uncanny ability to be in the exact wrong place at the exact wrong time. Regardless, he had to give me and Cas a good sniff, so it was clearly a command performance. 

From Jeff and Reema’s house, we went to the Oasis on Lake Travis. I love the Oasis. They call themselves the sunset capital of Texas. The place has terraced balconies, and they all aim toward the setting sun. The blockade of large umbrellas is gradually removed as the sun sinks lower in the sky, so by the time of actual sunset, everyone can see. And everyone claps when the sun dips all the way down. They used to ring a bell to mark the event- not sure when they stopped doing that. 

Here’s the whole dang crew: 

And that brings us back to doe. We’re on our luxury coach, headed back to Dallas.  Something happens when you travel and meet new people. You pick up things and add their words to your vocabulary. You assimilate pieces of language and expressions. You become a proper Star Trek Borg, and you add the words to your own collective- resistance is futile. Nicci gave us the habit of enthusiastically saying,“Adventure!” when heading off to play. That was this weekend. Adventure! I’ll hop back on here in a while and update when Cas makes a photo album, but until then, have adventures of your own, and we’ll catch up next time! 

Okay, okay- we’ll go back to work

It’s certainly time to head back to Dallas and get back to work.  I know it seems crazy-headed how school starts earlier each year.  This time around, the kids come back on August 14th.  I have to go in on August 3rd.  That was a concession the District made- on the original calendar, the teacher return date was August 1st.  Unconscionable.  I know.  All I can say is it’s a darn good thing I like my job.  

So, with that in mind, we’ve jammed our dirty t-shirts into our backpacks and we’re headed out of the hotel door in a few.  Yesterday was the big reunion.  I saw again or met for the first time a whole bunch of my dad’s cousins.  There was way too much food, complete with cousin Rita’s homemade pies made with the berries her husband picked.  Most of the folks present were in my dad’s generation, but there were a few younger than me.  That part of the day was really not for me, though.  It was for Dad and his siblings to catch up with the cousins they saw every summer as children.  My grandpa was a teacher, and for two weeks every summer, he’d load up all of his kids in Rochester to head to the farm in Indiana.  

After the cousin time, Cas and I needed to decompress a little, and a few folks were talking seriously about a nap.  It’s been a big weekend.  We all went our separate ways for a bit, returning for a meal and a fireworks show.  Apparently, Jane and Doug were the ones setting off the rather impressive display out in the field.  I was back at a safe distance with other observers.  Regardless, it was a whole lot of fun.  Cas has some photos of the fireworks, and I am sure they’ll get into the photo album- they were from a roadside stand, and they were really elaborate and impressive.  

But, like I said, we’re headed back now- mission accomplished.  We discussed the trip, and we agreed on the following:

Best part: The Cubs game

Most surprising thing: The burlesque dancer

Best food: three way tie between the potato pancakes, the Chicago style hot dog and the very fresh Indiana corn on the cob

And because there’s always a photo in these things, enjoy the very green drive we took to dad’s cousin’s house:

We just have to give back a rental car, head to the airport and return to our regularly scheduled lives.  This was a fun trip, and I am happy to have seen everyone.  Until next time, folks- and of course, enjoy the photos: https://tinyurl.com/DunlapChicago

Little pink houses

We have a rental car, and we didn’t spring for any extra frills, so we were exploring local FM radio.  It was pretty much what you’d expect.  We found a station that played music suitable for our Gen-X ears, and just after we crossed the border from Illinois to Indiana, a John Mellencamp song came on.  That was just about perfect.  We drove past corn and soybeans, popped into a truck stop for a coffee and a snack, then found our hotel just off the highway.  It’s about ten minutes away from the farm house where dad and all of his siblings are staying.  They were in Indianapolis picking up one last sibling from the airport when we got into town, but it wasn’t too long before we were all assembled.  The six of them came to this house and left their spouses at home, so what Cas and I got to see was the original crew.  Just listening to the flow of conversation and watching them as stories bounced from brother to sister and back was truly something to behold.  Each of them- my Dad, my aunts and my uncles- is impressive on his or her own, but assembled together, the six of them are something entirely different.  The two words that came to mind were comfort and joy.  From where I was sitting, they seemed truly happy to be all together and completely comfortable settling back into their brothers-and-sisters routine.  We had a nice dinner, complete with the required corn on the cob, then sat for a while around the fire pit.  

This place is lovely- green and lush and bursting with vegetables sprouting up from the ground.  When we checked into our room, I opened the shades and looked out the window.  A field was behind the building; I think it was a field of soybeans.  Right next to that was a John Deere dealership.  If you need a new tractor around these parts, I suspect you come to this neighborhood.  I half expected to look out the window and see Jack and Diane outside the Tastee Freez or little pink houses for you and me.  No dice.  Still, in terms of Indiana views, the tractor dealership and a field of soybeans pretty much fulfills my expectations.  

We’re headed to one of my dad’s cousin’s houses today, where I suspect I will see many people who look a lot like me.  After that, we hit the hay, get up early and take the rental car back to Chicago.  We’ll head back to our house and get ready for the school year.  Here, though, is a pretty neat picture of Cas, checking out the weeping willow tree at the farmhouse.  Can’t you smell the fresh air from here? 

As always, the photo album: https://tinyurl.com/DunlapChicago

Pirating ain’t easy- but it’s not that HAAARRRD

Okay, we’re in a rental car on the way to Crawfordsville, Indiana.  Now, I have a moment to talk about piracy.  When the Cubs game was over, we shuffled out.  There’s no other way to describe it- the crowd moved at a shuffle, not a walk or a stroll.  We shuffled right up to Murphy’s Bleachers, a spot we learned about on our last visit to Wrigleyville, but since there was a stream of people flowing in the door and nobody leaving, we kept walking.  Too crowded.  In fact, everything nearby was too crowded.  We walked a bit down the road, found a spot that sold margaritas and the Americanized version of Mexican food, and we had a seat to plan out our next moves.  

We made our way back to the train, then to a bus, then to the Navy Pier.  We spent a moment at a rooftop bar, then grabbed a few street tacos on the way to the boarding location.  We had to be there 15 minutes early to board the Tall Ship Windy for the Pirates Pub Sail.  The staff was appropriately pirate-ish in its attire, and the ship looked the part.  We boarded and waited for departure, then we got our complimentary rum drinks.  There was a moment when the crew asked for volunteers who wanted to hoist the mizzen sail.  Cas and several others complied, and I volunteered to film him doing it.  By the time the sail really got going, though, it looked a lot like Cas was doing it himself.  He said it wasn’t Haaarrrd.  Yar!  

The ship had a DJ, an addition to the crew that I found entirely unnecessary.  He played a few sea shanties, which were fun and silly, but he moved on to songs blended with other songs- Fleetwood Mac with a hop hop beat.  Eurythmics with whatever pop princess that was- it was just not very good, but we were encouraged about a dozen times to come and dance, and we were also instructed to follow him on Instagram.  The trip would have been a bit better if we’d given the speakers the old heave ho.  

Regardless, the view was pretty spectacular.  It was a two hour sail with a look back at the city, and we were there for it.  It almost got chilly toward the end of the voyage, as we wrapped it up around 11.  It’s hard to wrap my brain around chilly weather in July.  I guess I am a real Texan, after all.  

When that was done, we were, too.  We took a bus back to a train station, and after a little bit of maneuvering, we were back to our hotel.  

This morning, we had a bagel sandwich from a really neat shop near our car rental spot- The Chicago Bagel Authority was good food, made quickly to a soundtrack of Metallica and Black Sabbath, which we did not expect.  We’re on the path to see my dad’s side of the family, now, but I wanted to backtrack and tell you about Cas’ favorite moment from the game.  I had him dictate it to me, so these are his exact words: 

There was a moment in the top of the eighth- the Cubs were leading 4-3 and St. Louis was batting.  They got the bases loaded with one out. They brought out a designated hitter, and you could just feel the tension- and almost dread in the air as St. Louis was about to take the lead. Then, he hit a grounder that the shortstop got to in mid-stride as he went to tag second, then he whipped it over to first for a double play, and the crowd went berserk.  It was just something about the tension in the air and the heroic save. 

So there it is, Cas’ favorite moment from yesterday at Wrigley.  I wanted to get his voice in here, as he tells it so well.  

We’re driving past cornfields and so much green.  We just passed as sign for a buffalo viewing area.  We’re in Indiana, all right.  So, for now, have a look at our photo album, and we’ll catch up later. https://tinyurl.com/DunlapChicago

The friendly confines

Legendary Chicago Cubs first baseman Ernie Banks was the one who came up with the nickname.  He called Wrigley Field “The friendly confines,” and the name stuck.  Signs, t-shirts, sportscasters- you’ll see and hear the clever turn of phrase all around Wrigleyville.  The last time Cas ad I were in Chicago, we had a tour of Wrigley, but there were no home games on while we were in town.  This time, we remedied that, returning to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field to see the Chicago Cubs take on the St. Louis Cardinals.  We went all in on a fully Chicago experience too.  We went to the station for the red line train, where we were greeted by a Cubs-logo branded crowd of people waiting to head the same way.  There was a man singing for tip money at the station, and when his song ended, he loudly announced which direction the train to Wrigley Field would go, telling everyone that the train the other way would take you to a Sox game, and they were not playing any home games for several days, if you went that way, he warned, you’d have to wait quite a while to see a baseball game.  The train came and we all piled in. Every seat was full as we pulled away, but at subsequent stops, I saw the passengers uniformly exhibit kindness.  Here’s an empty seat- would you like it?  No, I’ll move so folks can sit together.  Sir, here- have this seat; my stop is coming soon.  The sense of community that I felt all afternoon at the ballpark was there on that train.  There is some magic about the friendly confines- I felt like part of the community during that game.  

And what a game!  The complaint I hear over and over about baseball is that it’s too slow.  This game kept the whole crowd interested.  It was dramatic, bringing the crowd to its feet on several occasions.  The last inning had me holding my breath.  The score never got lopsided.  There were great, amazing plays in the outfield that you thought were impossible followed by a series of drops and misses that I called a comedy of errors.  The Cubs starting pitcher was followed by four relievers.  Four.  The whole time, the game kept us guessing.  There were two home runs- the ball went way out into the stands, which I honestly haven’t seen that often in my baseball-watching life.  The Cubs fans were good-natured, too.  There were plenty of folks in the crowd wearing St. Louis jerseys and t-shirts, but they were subject only to the gentlest of ribbing and sass.  

And of course, there’s Wrigley FIeld itself.  The second oldest ballpark in the Major Leagues, it felt like baseball is supposed to feel.  I big-puffy-heart-loved the old ballpark in Arlington where the Rangers played for years, and when the team announced they were building a new one, I was both puzzled and devastated.  I suspect the players are appreciating the retractable roof and the climate control these days, but Wrigley is a lesson in preserving what is good and proper.  Wrigley felt as cozy as a 40,000+ seat ballpark could feel.  And for a Friday afternoon, regular season game, it was pretty full.  There were over 38,800 people there with us.  Entering was hard.  Exiting was crowded.  Being there in our seats, though, was magical.  We were on a row where the family with lots of kids apologized on the way past our seats for the number of kids they had along and the inevitable bathroom trips that would come.  The couple next to us was all decked out in Cubs gear.  The family in front of us were in Cardinals attire, but nobody seemed too bothered.  They just cheered at the wrong times, that’s all.  

We stood for the National Anthem, and a local woman sang it beautifully.  I don’t love it when folks put too much flare and warble into the rocket’s red glare.  She was good.  We got hot dogs- proper Chicago dogs.  I found myself referring to the Cubs as though they were my team.  We need this out!  We’re changing pitchers again.  In the seventh inning stretch, we had a former player lead us in Take me out to the ballgame, and that was great, too.  At the end, when the Cubs won, it was after a very nail-biting top of the ninth where the last out was at the plate, and he got a base hit!  The next batter was poised to really screw things up for Chicago, but the ball was caught in the infield and the batter was thrown out at first.  This would normally bing a crowd to its feet, but we were already there.  What I didn’t know was the song- not that it was hard to learn- but the whole crowd sings along and most folks stay put until it’s over.  They lyrics are 

Go, Cubs, go / Go, Cubs, go / In Chicago, what do you say / The Cubs are gonna win today

Sure, it’s not Shakespeare, but the poetry of the song lyrics wasn’t the impressive part.  The impressive part was that the entire crowd was on its feet, singing along and for the most part, not moving toward the exits until the song ended.  I caught a little bit of audio here, have a listen: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rdQKNY6s05-4PnPZrcouYq6cqgZqp8gq/view?usp=drivesdk

We streamed out after that with the rest of the crowd.  What a game.  In the words of Harry Caray, Holy Cow.  

I jumped right into the Cubs game, didn’t I?  Sorry, but it was pretty great.  I failed to mention breakfast.  We started our day at Lou Michell’s, which is nearly as old as Wrigley Field.  The breakfast was good, the atmosphere was exactly perfect, and the portions were way too big.  It was a proper diner- booths and counter service, check and check.  The waitress we had did her job with such fluid motions that it seemed she may have been born there.  They bake all their own pastries, boast the best coffee (In Chicago?  In the world?  I can’t remember.)  and do it all very well.  The sweet roll came highly recommended, and with it, Cas and I have had all of the sugar we need for the rest of July.  Maybe August, too.  We shared that and a breakfast sandwich, and everything was great.  Lou Mitchell’s boasts it location at the end of Route 66, which was interesting, as we had been to a much farther down the line point of Route 66 on our spring break adventure heading to the Grand Canyon.  Very cool.  

I need to wrap for now on this entry and leave you hanging about the pirate ship.  It’s not a deliberate effort to build suspense; it’s just time to work out and shower so we can get to the next thing.  I promise, I will tell you all about our pirate adventures on Lake Michigan soon.  We have a three hour drive to Crawfordsville coming up in the late morning, so that should be plenty of time to hoist the sails and tell the tales.  

For now, here are photos: https://tinyurl.com/DunlapChicago

Ship shape

Yesterday, we decided to have a breakfast by the river.  There are restaurants that face the Chicago River, but aren’t quite on the riverwalk.  They do have a great view, though, and we found one called the Land and Lake Kitchen.  The portions were a little too big, but the whole thing was amazing, right down to the last crumb of the homemade biscuit.  

Once breakfast was accomplished, it was time for another adventure in big-city public transportation.  This time, it was a city bus to the Museum of Science and Industry.  That was a cool museum, but Cas and I agreed on two things walking out.  First, They needed to divide the whole place into two or three different museums.  It was too much to take in.  Second, we’re done with museums for 2023.  No knock, but after a week and a half of unfettered Smithsonian access followed by this jaunt into another spectacular museum, we may have reached maximum knowledge and culture input.  

We started out walking through an exhibit largely about modes of transportation.  There were train cars, modern and historical vehicles and airplanes from days gone by.  They took a page from the Smithsonian and hung some of the aircraft from the ceiling.  We went there on the way to an exhibit about the coal mining industry.  This one took participants on an elevator down to show what the inner workings of coal mines looked like.  There were large, heavy mining machines and other tools of the industry, and the tour guide switched them on and off for us, so we could see what the work was like.  It was interesting, but all things being equal, I will stick to my school library, thank you.  

After that, we wandered other exhibits, including the one about the farming industry and the one with the fairy castle, which is essentially a giant dollhouse that’s been in the museum since 1949.  The duration of that exhibit is a curiosity on its own, but when you go have a look, you see that it’s something interesting an unusual.  Dollhouses were never really my thing, but this one was pretty grand.  No time to linger, though, because the time for our timed-entry tickets to a very interesting exhibit were coming right up.  We were going to walk around inside the only captured WWII German U-Boat.  

When you go to see the U-505, you’re sent through a series of displays that tell you how the German boats did their job during the war and what Herculean efforts the Allies went to in fighting them off.  The Germans were having tremendous luck with their submarines, and the Allies were having real trouble fighting them off.  The story of the capture and recovery of U-505 is really museum-worthy, but the big draw is the boat.  They have a massive hall in the museum with a high ceiling and a cutout in the floor where they have parked one entire German U-boat.  I wondered how they got it in there.  They had to either build the room around it or retrofit a massive hall and tear out a wall to put the boat in.  It was impressive- shaped specifically for a ship, in fact.  

After leaving there, we hopped back on bus number 10, switched to number 29 and headed to Navy Pier.  We’re getting the most out of our $15, three-day CTA passes, I can tell you that.  I wanted to ride the giant Ferris Wheel at the Pier- seemed like a great way to look at the city, the water and the pier itself.  But first, a very late lunch.  Or was it an early dinner.  Either way, it’s a good thing breakfast was so big, because we were good and hungry by the time we got to the Harry Caray Tavern.  

Harry Caray was, of course, the closest thing to Chicago royalty.  He was the voice that accompanied televised Chicago Cubs games for a very long time, and he was quite the character.  No doubt, we will walk past the statue of him later today when we head to Wrigley Field.  Out on the Pier, though, there is a restaurant bursting at the seams with autographed memorabilia, photos and other artifacts from a lifetime of baseball.  We sat outside, and I got a Chicago-style hot dog.  Cas got what they were calling a “Holy cow” burger.  We even used the Harry Caray photo filter that lets you don his signature glasses.  And, of course, there was a spot for a cute photo right out front.  Cas and I took advantage, and just because it’s me writing and not him, I get to make the corny joke- here goes: 

Look at this handsome guy I married!  What a catch!

I know, it was a corny joke, and what’s worse, I’m not even sorry.  

Moving on…

We went from there to the end of the pier, then halfway back to the place where the giant Ferris wheel sits.  We got our own carriage and a decent amount of time to rotate around the giant metal wheel and look out at the lake, the river, the skyline and the pier.  It was pretty great, and I really do appreciate that they let each group have its own carriage, even if it’s a group of two.  

When we got down from there, we decided to take advantage of the margaritas-to-go stand near the small live music stage.  With beverages in hand, we actually did both of the things we were trying to decide between.  We wanted to stay and enjoy the weather and the pier, but we also wanted to check out a blues club.  I can only speak for myself, but I was pretty wiped out, so when it turned out that we could listen to a Chicago blues band right there at the pier without getting on a bus or a train, it was a win.  

After an evening at the Navy Pier, we were done.  It was a little early, but our hotel has a terrace, where we could order a little bit of food and enjoy the weather.  I know I am making kind of a big deal about enjoying the weather, but after the walk-through-a-raincloud feeling we had the whole time in DC, we went home to Dallas where every day has been over 100 for what seems like ages.  Today, the high here isn’t even supposed to reach 80.  

So it’s Wrigley Field today, and a ride on a tall ship this evening, then we are off to Indiana tomorrow.  Considering we’ve only been in Chicago for under 48 hours, I feel like we’ve made the most of this visit so far.  

So, before I leave you here and go off to the next bit of adventure, let’s try out the experimental photo album, shall we?  The videos aren’t playing correctly from here, but that’s a problem to work out when we get home.  No time like a quick trip to sort out the details before we go on a much longer one next spring or summer.  Regardless, here are our photos: https://tinyurl.com/DunlapChicago

Now, it’s time to play ball. 

Queenie the cutie

One of the nonsense theories I once heard about why people are how they are has to do with a person’s earliest memory.  It went a little something like this- your personality is formed, to some extent, by the first song or story you can remember from childhood.  I don’t have a clue what that means if you grew up with Cinderella as the first story you recall versus The Wheels on the Bus as the first set of song lyrics that stuck in your head.  For me, though, this whole nonsense theory has a bit more intrigue, because the first strong memories of songs or stories I have are from my mom’s mom, Grandma Alice.  First of all, she had a movie star-sounding name.  Alice Faye DuBois.  It only stopped being super-glamorous when she married Louie Cushing.  Alice Faye, though- it’s a heck of a star-power-sounding name for that era, and she was quite entertaining.  She sang songs for me and my cousins, and they were almost always very silly.  In fact, the first one I remember was Queenie the Cutie.  

It was actually a song popularized but the Andrews Sisters called Strip Polka, and you can have a listen here, but it’s all about a burlesque show where a lovely lady named Queenie removes almost everything she’s wearing for the entertainment of a crowd.  

But Heather, why the bizarre childhood memory about your eccentric (if awesomely named) grandmother?  I know, I’m getting there.  It’s a slow-start kind of morning.  Here’s why- Cas had looked up several awesome Chicago activities prior to our departure from Dallas.  One of them was a historic pub crawl, but the official tour that takes you around town from one historically significant bar to another doesn’t get rolling until next month for some reason.  However, they posted their itinerary online.  Silly, silly tour group- we can read!  So we hijacked their itinerary.  We started where they would have- the Adams Street Brewery at the Berghoff Restaurant.  This one made the tour because the Berghoff Restaurant was opened in 1898, making it the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Chicago.  It was really pretty- the place had inlaid wood features, a beautiful floor and even furniture that fit the atmosphere.  Cas and I have been trying to lay off the carbs and sugar, but since they have a brewery that makes beer and cider, we had to give it a go.  And they had a potato pancake appetizer like I haven’t seen.  The pancakes themselves were about two inches in diameter and garnished with brie cheese, apples, fig marmalade and bacon.  I mean, wow- right? 

From there, we went to The Brehon Pub.  This one was called The Mirage when it opened in 1977, and it was the ground zero for a large piece of investigative journalism about kickbacks and payoffs in the city.  Apparently, if you wanted inspectors, city officials or other power-wielding folks to look the other way, you could make that happen with money, and to end that corrupt practice, journalists had to hang out at a bar and ask questions.  Two of journalists’ favorite things, from what I can tell.  The temperature was in the mid seventies, though, so at the Brehon Pub, we sat outside.  Fresh air may have been more elusive than you’d think, though.  For our one-drink visit, we somehow sat downwind of three separate people’s cigarette breaks.  So it goes.  

Next on the agenda was the Green Door Tavern.  That’s where we get to Grandma Alice and the Andrews Sisters.  This one was built in  1872, a year after the Great Chicago Fire.  It apparently opened as a tavern in 1921, which is interesting, as I am pretty sure prohibition stretched from 1920 to 1933.  They may have served something else in the main part of the tavern at the time, but I suspect the speakeasy downstairs could have been a proper source of income for the tavern’s owners.  We had bacon wrapped figs (we kind of had a self-styled tapas dinner last night) and asked about the speakeasy, then we went down the path behind the bar and downstairs to see what the fuss was all about.  There was a “hidden” door.  Kind of hard to hide it, really, when there’s a doorknob and it’s very loud inside.  When you arrive, you are handed seven drink recipes on tarot cards, so we picked two cards, and with them, our beverage future.  The place was very cool- dark, but with its own personality, and we were really enjoying it, but they had more in store.  As we were sipping our very fancy cocktails, a song cranked up and a woman in very skimpy attire came out with two feathered fans.  She did a provocative dance with the fans, eventually revealing a little bit more as the song progressed.  Gotta say- I wasn’t expecting that.  And so, I’ve had the Strip Polka song in my head since then.  Thanks, grandma.  

The last stop on the pub tour was optional at this point.  We just saw a very enthusiastic woman do a fan-dance, for Pete’s sake.  We were nearly at flip-a-coin time for this one, but we decided to round it out and go to the Monk’s Pub.  I honestly can’t remember the reason that particular bar was significant, but it was a very cool bar.  And with that, we wrapped it all up and headed back to the hotel.  It’s time to get moving on our next adventure.  Cas has a Farmers Market in mind, and I saw a little something about a Ferris Wheel when I went digging for ideas.  We should do something cool- after all, a week from today is our seventh wedding anniversary- may as well start the celebrating now.  

As for a photo album, Cas is trying something different.  Google is wonderful, and they make a good album, but if you want to post as many things as we have, they eventually tell you you’ve used up all of your free space.  While we could easily cheat the system and use a new account when the old one gets full, he thought he’d try a new method.  I’ll post a link when he shares one.  Photo album: coming soon! 

So, that’s it for Wednesday.  See you on the other side of Thursday, and raise a glass to Queenie, the Andrews Sisters and the good people of the Chicago restaurant and bar industry.  

Airplane Wine

Surprise!  We left the house again.  School starts way too soon, and we had an opportunity to get out and go one more time before it all gets serious.  My dad is the fourth of six kids, and he meets up with the other five every year, if possible.  This time, they’re hanging out with their cousins in Indiana.  I know, I know- I am a proud Minnesotan, but the reunion is allowed to take the show in the road, and sometimes, they meet up in Indiana.  Since we had the time, we booked tickets into and out of Chicago with a rental car to carry us over state lines on the weekend.  It wasn’t too pricey, and we’re doing some cool stuff in Chicago over the next few days.  

But what, you ask, is airplane wine?  Good question.  It’s the quality level and price point you can expect from most airlines, big and small.  It’s a middle-of-the-road pocket sized bottle, served in a plastic cup.  You know.  Airplane wine.  We had airplane wine way back in row 31 of our plane today.  It wasn’t the best seat, nor was it the classiest airline, but we’re did a few crossword puzzles together, drank a glass of airplane wine each and got the heck off of row 31.  From there, we made our way on the orange line L train to our hotel for check in.  

Anyhow, we’re here with a zillion options for this evening’s food and entertainment.  We’ve unpacked the backpacks, taken a moment to regroup, and now, it’s time to get out and see what there is to see on a Wednesday night in Chicago.  

Cheers!  

Hey, Ebbitt!

We got up, packed up, cleaned up and headed for the front desk of the hotel to check out.  Our plan was to have the hotel watch our bags while we enjoyed one last day in DC.  Breakfast was actually going to be brunch, and brunch was at the Old Ebbitt Grill, right in the thick of downtown DC.  We had scoped the place out earlier after our Segway tour guide told us it was where you could get the true DC experience.  He may have been on to something, too, We walked in- and back out of the Old Ebbitt Grill after our Segway tour, in fact, because it was so crowded at lunchtime that we felt it may be best to come back later.  Today was that later time, and brunch was the best moment to visit. They make an omelette with crab and corn, and I know it sounds a bit unconventional to anyone who wasn’t raised five feet from Maryland, but go eat that as soon as you can.  

Oh.  My.  Gosh.  Omnomnomnom.  

Fun fact- the Old Ebbitt Grill is (technically) the oldest bar in DC.  Sure, it’s been open in a bunch of different places- like one spot close to the gate near Chinatown, one in a former haberdashery, and the current (former-theater) spot- but the continued operation is (according to their website) well documented.  

The restaurant and bar are large, and we were in the corner bar portion, which featured carved decoy ducks and statues of hunting dogs.  The bar in the main part of the restaurant had a bizarre collection of taxidermies.  There were heads, including a walrus and  a beast that Cas and I both supposed was a warthog.  It was absolutely bizarre.

From there we needed to find our refrigerator magnet, so it was time for a souvenir shop.  We headed to the White House gift shop- the one we skipped after our official tour on day one of the trip.  We got the perfect magnet, of course, and we spent a few moments shopping for T shirts.  Apparently, when you go to the White House gift shop, you are offered the opportunity to head around the corner and take some pretty great photos of presidential scenes.  We posed behind the fake Resolute Desk in the the fake Oval Office just before we posed behind the fake podium in the fake press briefing room.  We posed for the photos and selected the one we wanted them to print for free.  This was the winner: 

After that, we headed to the sculpture garden that was part of the National Gallery of Art.  We checked out a few sculptures until the rain got ugly, at which point, we went inside the museum.  Nothing like checking out Monet and Rodin to kill time while the storm clouds pass.  We enjoyed the art museum, but at a certain point, you can actually achieve a condition I call being “museum-ed out” and reach maximum art or culture.  

That’s when you need to call it quits and go back to the house.  We’re at that point.  We saw some great art, but when we left, we marched through the rest of the sculptures and made our way back to the Metro station so we could retrieve our luggage.  Cas said we had to make a call- a closer station with a transfer, or a farther-away station with one last view of the monuments.  We walked one last time through the space between the Washington Monument and the Capitol building.  Certainly, there’s a chance we’ll return to DC, but there’s no telling when, so I guess the order of the day is soak it in!

Back to the Metro and back to retrieve our bags, we headed for the airport.  We made our way through security and found seats at the very long bar in the center of the terminal where we shared wine, pizza and a lovely chat with a young couple who had a 14-month-old child.  Turns out, babies love Cas.  Every time. Hey- I get it- he’s pretty neat.  

But the impromptu double-date had to end.  The couple (we didn’t get their names, but the baby was named Eleanor) are headed to their destination, while Cas and I are in mid-flight as I am typing this.  I’ll post it when we get to the house, where I can switch everything off of airplane mode.  That’s it for DC, and that’s it for the big summer trip of 2023.  

When Cas and I decided to go to DC this year, we were pumped.  Our peers and colleagues asked where we were headed, expecting something on the same scale as Spain or Italy, and both of us found that, when we said DC, our cherished friends seemed disappointed on our behalf.  Allay your fears, folks- this was one for the books.  We did our DC trip correctly.  We left without regrets, and without a single thing leftover on our must-see list.  Also, that was the best Independence Day I’ve ever heard of.  Just sayin’.  

So, that’s it for this summer.  We’re done and out.  We have a few teeny tiny things to do before school starts back up, but nothing on the scale where we feel the need to write about it all.  As always, it’s been a blasty-blast.  I love to travel with this guy, and he loves that I write everything down, so the blog rides on.  Please read about all of our adventures.  We had a great time doing the things worthy of writing down.  And for one final time, here are the photos from this trip: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA

I am Donelab, Libaryn

So, I work in a middle school as the school librarian, and kids are hilarious.  One day, a pair of students were late coming back from lunch, and they asked me for a hall pass to tell their teacher that they were excused.  I didn’t write one, because they shouldn’t have been excused.  One of these sweet children took it upon herself to write a pass and forge my name.  

I don’t know which kid did this, because she handed it to a substitute teacher, but that sub left it for the regular teacher, who photographed it and sent the picture to me for a laugh.  It said: 

“Librarian hall pass. -Ms. Dunlap”

Wait, that’s not entirely accurate.  It actually said:

“Libaryn hall pass. -Ms. Donelab”

I was so amused that I wasn’t even mad.  I took the image of the forged post-it photographed against the background of other papers on the art teacher’s desk and had it printed on canvas with a five dollar Groupon.  That piece of art sits behind my desk at work today, and I shall, from here on, refer to myself in my professional capacity as Donelab, Libaryn.  

Whelp, yesterday, Donelab, Libaryn went to the LIbrary of Congress.  That was the coolest thing, but it was the tail end of a very long day, so once again, let me back up.

The first thing we had scheduled today was a Segway tour.  We have done these before- so often, in fact, that they feel kind of routine.  New place in the US?  See it on a Segway.  Look like a giant dork on a Segway?  Of course you do- but you don’t live there, so who cares?  The same theory applies in DC.  Our Segway tour had a great guide and a solid two hours of information.  We rolled around and recapped what we had visited at a bunch of different points earlier in the week.  You always learn something cool or see something new on a tour, even if you’re touring a place you’ve been before.  

Any tour guide you get is an expert in a different thing.  It’s really cool.  Today’s new statue was the Vietnam War Women’s Memorial.  Lots of women served in non-combat roles during that war, including my mother.  Several of the women were nurses, and a few of them actually died serving in combat zones.  My mother served at Dover Air Force Base, so she was pretty far from the action.  That was a cool statue, though.  And we saw the US Park police, mounted on their horses.  They were riding in formation and doing drills in front of the White House.  Presumably, they wanted to be a feature in everyone’s July 6th photo albums.  

The Segway tour was supposed to wrap around noon, and with dark clouds gathering while thunderclaps sounded off in the distance, we ended pretty much on time.  Cas and I looked at weather forecasts and radar information on the phones, eventually deciding to find a nice lunch before heading to the Museum of African American History and Culture.  

Yesterday's tour guide was about the tenth person locally to tell us that particular museum was really, really good.  Fine.  We relent.  Show us your amazing museum.  The Museum of African American History and Culture is one of the two for which you’d need a timed entry ticket, but there were still a few for yesterday.  The four days after that, though, are all booked up.  

This museum goes down a few floors and up several.  The idea is to start a the bottom.  The events are set up on a timeline.  You get crammed into a dark part of the museum with a bunch of other people while you read and learn about the trans-Atlantic slave trade  You work through that, up to emancipation, then you wrestle with Jim Crow and move to the current day.  It was well constructed, if distressing and upsetting.  

For a little pick-me-up, we headed to the top floor after that and looked at the music exhibit.  That was really cool, and the soundtrack as we walked through was pretty great.  There were spectacular outfits, legendary guitars, trumpets and other artifacts, and the largest object of all, the actual mothership from George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. Actually, now that I think about it, Chuck Berry’s bright red Cadillac Eldorado convertible may have been just a little larger.  Either way, it was a very cool museum, and I am glad we made our way through the music portion.  It was very cool.  It was also just what we needed to once again hide from the storm clouds.  There has been a bit of rain while we’ve been in town, but most days, that rain has been avoidable if we just strategically visited museums or stopped somewhere for a snack or a drink.  Yesterday was no exception.  The thunder was making a lot of racket as we walked from a Metro station to the Museum of African American history and culture, but the actual precipitation waited to fall until we were well inside the building, and it wrapped up all of its action before we hit the front door.  

From there, we hit up a wine bar for a glass of Lambrusco.  Lambrusco is a sparkling red that is served cold, and the first time we had it was about a year ago in Italy, so when the wine bar we visited had that by the glass, we had to get a glass.  That, coupled with a rather unusual  “muhammara” dip, which is made with roasted red peppers, walnuts and pomegranate molasses.  It was a first for both of us.  That was just the right-size snack to tide us over for our scheduled visit to the LIbrary of Congress.  We apparently booked our entry on a special evening when they were open late, which was just fine by me.  It was a grand building with museum displays, but walking through some of the classic library spaces felt like being on sacred ground.  Hey, I am Donelab, libaryn, right?  

We got to see Thomas Jefferson’s library- an enormous collection by any day’s standards.  We very quietly walked through the main reading room, trying to soak it all in and leave the folks doing actual research undisturbed.  The architecture was stunning.  The decor was over the top.  And remember how I said we landed there on an open-late night?  I don’t know what kind of event we managed to crash, but there was a catering table set up selling beer, wine and snacks.  Sure, we had seen the P=Funk mothership earlier in the day, but to a librarian, the Library of Congress is the real mothership, so if they were going to let me raise a glass to my own, personal mothership, I was going to do just that.  

It was fantastic.  While we were in the reading room, Cas was talking to a librarian in a whisper, and she asked if we were librarians.  He told her that he was a teacher.  She said she could tell.  (Librarians are sharp people, you know.)  He told her that I was a school librarian.  We took the whole conversation as a complement, as I am certain it was.  

We really did take time in the Library of Congress to soak it all in.  It was pretty great.  After that, we realized just what a long day we’d had, and we headed back toward the hotel by way of a restaurant.  We needed just a little bit of dinner so we could wrap up the day and get to sleep, and a pair of tacos each sounded about right.  With tacos done and a very full day winding down, we headed back to the hotel and reflected on our trip a little.  Today is the last day we have in town, so we need to check out and have the hotel stash our bags for a while before it’s time to head to the airport.  It’s back to summer in Dallas for us, so that’s this weather plus heat minus humidity.  Honestly, as much as the summer heat in Dallas is often miserable, the humidity in DC is almost worse.  You look at the weather app on your phone here and see 89.  Your brain thinks it will actually be okay- but you fail to account for the fact that the dew point is something like 75.  Ugh.  In Dallas, when the weather app says 98, I know what to expect.  It’s not great, but I get it.  Regardless, we won’t have much of a choice.  At the end of this day, we’ll be back home, where today’s predicted high is 97.  Not great, but not out of the ordinary.  Today, I have no idea what final adventures we’ll squeeze in.  We each have a few options to present, and we will make a determination from there.  We both agreed over dinner last night that we both feel like we saw all of the things we wanted to make sure we saw.  Staying in one space for a whole vacation and really getting to see it is a new vacation style for us, and one we could certainly repeat, if a destination is robust and interesting.  But for now, it’s time for breakfast and a little pondering about our last hurrah.  

Take a gander at our photos, and we’ll see you all soon: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA

Order in the court

Very close to our hotel, there is a building with an observation deck on its top floor, which rises 400 feet up in Rosslyn, Virginia.  It has floor-to-ceiling windows, and the ceilings are very tall.  Those windows curve all the way around the entire building, so you get 360 degrees of peering out at the world.  From the top, we saw the very big difference between DC itself, where the tallest things are monuments and museums, and Virginia, where office buildings are the norm and things stretch up to parallel our observation deck’s 31st floor vantage point.  

That was a cool experience.  We were there with very few other people, but we could clearly tell that there was a group planning an event in that space.  I looked, and it is available as a space you can book for corporate events, parties and weddings.  That would be pretty cool- I bet the photos are pretty great at those weddings.  

When we left the 31st floor, we headed out to see the Supreme Court building.  The plan was to head there, take a look around, then get a hot dog for lunch on the way to our next spot.  When we got into the Supreme Court, it was absolutely beautiful,  Here’s a first, too- we were in a very old-timely elevator that actually had an elevator operator.  The building itself was completed in 1937, and that is about the time period the elevators make you feel you’re visiting.  We went up to the main courtroom, where unfortunately, we were told not to take photos.  It’s a shame, too, because I don’t quite know how to express the feeling of that room.  I can’t imagine how intimidating it would be to stand there and try to persuade nine justices of any era that you are on the right side of an issue.  

We didn’t linger at the court building too long, though, as it was definitely time to locate a street vendor and have a hot dog.  We walked toward the Museum of Air and Space to the on-the-way vendor Cas had scoped out earlier, but apparently, he stayed up way too late selling hot dogs to Independence Day visitors the night before, and he decided to close yesterday.  So much for the best hot dog in DC, but fear not, there are vendors on every block.  We had a hot dog, then lined up for our timed entry to the Museum of Air and Space.  It took about a half hour of shuffling around and clearing security to get in, but we entered the museum near the time on our tickets.  Each exhibit hall was jam-packed with people, but they were all interesting.  (The exhibits were interesting, not necessarily the people). The first one (if you go around clockwise) was about the Wright brothers.  You always think of them as a unit- inseparable brothers who were always together, but Wilbur died at age 45 from typhoid, leaving Orville to carry on well into his seventies without his partner in crime.  

We made our way though several exhibits, learning about travel to the moon, different airplanes, and eventually, we visited their planetarium.  There were two half-hour shows, and we saw them both.  The second one was, of course, narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson.  It had started raining outside, so the plan was to stay inside until the museum threw us out.  Well, another exhibit or two after the planetarium, and they did exactly that at 5:30.  The sun had returned just in time to greet us when we left.  Unfortunately, the larger part of the museum was closed off for some kind of redesign.  It had been closed for so long that the wall maps were updated to reflect the closure.  Last time either of us were there, we got to see so much more.  In my list visit he place felt practically overflowing with airplanes hanging from the ceiling and vessels that had been outside of Earth’s atmosphere.  This time, over half of the building was off limits.  A no-fly zone, if you will.  I suspect they’ve moved a lot of stuff out to their auxiliary museum.  There are 19 Smithsonian museums in all, and three of them are outside of DC proper.  Two are in New York, and one is in Virginia.  The Virginia one is a second Air and Space museum.  That one has some very cool stuff- a real space shuttle, the Enola Gay airplane- we had considered a visit, but it is a bit off the beaten path.  

Regardless, when they Smithsonian folks threw us out, we reapplied sunscreen and headed to a metro station.  A bus driver a few days ago recommended a spot for a really nice happy hour, and we were ready for a little break.  We spent the rest of the evening wandering.  We went to happy hour, then back to the hotel to drop off our sun hats and a few things we picked up.  We did check out a gift shop or two, but we still haven’t found the perfect T shirts to commemorate this trip.   Actually found the perfect one for Cas- almost.  The color and design were exactly what he wanted, but they didn’t have it above size medium.  Probably a popular shirt.  Figures.  Neither of us is particularly fond of shopping.  

We called it quits and went to dinner.  We picked a spot in Virginia so we wouldn’t have to deal with more crowds.  Nothing like visiting one of the most popular museums in DC to make you crowd-averse.  

Today, we have the oh-so-dorky experience of a Segway tour booked.  Nobody (I mean nobody!) looks cool on a Segway.  Knowing that, we actually have done a few of these in different places, and they’re really fun.  That’s later this morning, and late this afternoon, we have timed entry tickets to the Library of Congress.  Mid-day is kind of wide open, though we’ll probably find a way to fill it up.  

So, it’s time to get Segway-ready and head out.  This should be a good recap of what we’ve seen and what we may have missed.  In the meantime, here are the photos again: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA

All we missed was the apple pie

We have been starting our days at the hotel with a banana and a breakfast bar so we can get moving faster in the mornings, but since yesterday was America’s birthday, we decided to step out for a fancy breakfast.  Hey- we’re on vacation, right?  We had cappuccinos and sandwiches with eggs, meats and cheeses while sitting at window-facing spots, watching people walk by.  Not a bad way to start a morning in DC.  

After we finished our sandwiches, we made our way to the parade.  There was a pretty great July 4th parade with about a zillion high school marching bands, a half-zillion dance troupes and a whole bunch of other attractions and oddities.  It was all very wholesome.  A strange favorite moment for Cas came when the spyder riders rolled by.  These are three-wheeled motorcycles, and one rider had what was probably his grandson on the bike with him.  The grandpa stood on the foot pegs.  (Or maybe those things have floorboards?)  Anyhow, at this exact spot in the parade route, he looked right- the White House was there.  He looked left.  The Washington Monument was there.  What a spot to be!  Cas just enjoyed watching that man soak it all in.  I really enjoyed the sheer number of high school marching bands.  It was like a study on the whole range of teenagers.  We saw every kind of kid- short and tall, fat and thin, and about every ethnicity you could conjure up.  There were kids who were obviously thrilled to be there and soaking it all in, while others were clearly bored with the whole ordeal and some who were visibly nervous with each step.  At one point, we found ourselves standing next to the most enthusiastic band mom I’ve seen.  She jumped up and down and cheered, pointing at her child and shouting her encouragement.  Like I said, it was very wholesome.  

When the parade wrapped up, we had a little cool-down time before our next activity, so we found a spot to duck in and enjoy some air conditioning.  Since about half of the people in the DC area were in the main part of the city, we took a Metro ride to a stop just outside the city limits and went to a less-populated spot for a quick drink.  It was the perfect crowd-control solution.  We also employed our new favorite trick for Metro travel- if you know which way the train is coming from when you arrive at the platform, walk all the way to the space where the first or second car will arrive.  The ones at the middle and end are always way more full.  Also, while I am at it, if you are planning a visit and want to ride the Metro, know that standing still happens on the right side of the escalator.  Lots of folks (mostly locals, I assume) walk up and down the escalators, and they do that on the left side.  This concludes your DC public service announcement.  

Anyhow, we had a concert to get to that necessitated more of Cas’ confident navigation of train transfers and public transportation.  The US Navy Concert Band was doing a show in a beautiful park, and we had tickets.  Turns out, nobody checked the tickets, but no matter- the park was reasonably full, but not too crowded.  The band was extremely good, though Cas said they were more orchestral and less big band than he had expected.  

We listened to them for a while.  They had a version of the classic poem Casey at the Bat set to music, then a more patriotic march-like song, then a medley of Disney tunes with some very talented singers, followed by God bless America.  It was a good mix.  

With that wrapped up, our next event was the thing we’d both been looking forward to- watching the fireworks from a boat on the Potomac.  Apparently, any company with any floating thing was selling a similar experience, so boarding was a little chaotic, but when we got on our sightseeing vessel, it was decidedly much more calm.  There were tables and chairs, and while we were too far back in line to maintain our spots as up-front-people, we were seated on the starboard side, which we were told would be the correct spot for the best view.  I tell you what, it was a good question to ask, because we were kind of parked so that everyone on the port side came over to join us, and while the whole boat tilted a little, it wasn’t bad.  We cruised around for a while before the start of the show, watching a beautiful sunset with a heck of a view, then at exactly 9:09 pm, the fireworks started.  The people who ran this operation had been playing a mix of older rock and roll songs and very patriotic country songs, but when it was showtime, we got what we all expected, patriotic marches.  Lots of John Phillip Sousa.  Tons of rousing music that makes you want to stand and salute, although you shouldn’t, lest you block someone else’s view.  

It was, hands down, the coolest fireworks display either of us had ever seen.  A few years ago, we did a fireworks cruise in Boston, and that was pretty great, but this time, we were closer to the action, and we had the Washington monument in view while the show happened.  I don’t think you could ask for a better experience.  

With that all wrapped up, we were still a bit hungry.  We were hustling to get to the boat a little early- I didn’t know how they organized things, and I wanted a good seat.  With Independence Day traffic and a bit of a bus delay, we decided to quickly split a sandwich before departure.  We had a place all picked out for after the big show that was open late, and for extra fun, it was one that Cas marked on his area map.  When we’re headed somewhere and we get recommendations about restaurants or attractions, my very organized husband pins those places on his Google map.  This place was called Tony and Joe’s, and it was one of those map-pinned spots.  We split a meal and a little bit of Prosecco before walking to a Metro station in some pretty decent weather.  The humidity during this trip has been pretty intolerable, so last night’s walk, though humid by Dallas standards, was almost pleasant.  

Today, we have one scheduled thing to do- a trip to the Air and Space Museum.  One of our HOHO bus drivers told us that two of the Smithsonian museums are so popular that you need to go online and get timed entry tickets, and those are the Museum of African American History and Culture and the Air and Space Museum.  That was a great tip, too, because we instantly got online and booked the first tickets we could get.  Those are for 2 pm today.  We booked them on Saturday, and today is Wednesday.  Popular spot.  

We’re thinking of doing a self-guided tour of the Supreme Court in the morning and hitting the line (yes, there is a line, even with timed entry tickets) for the Air and Space Museum at 1:30.  I kind of want to have a hot dog from a street vendor for lunch.  It feels so American, and that is the whole point of our DC-on-the-4th adventure.  Because Cas is exactly who you expect him to be, he researched a little and found that the best reviewed hot dog vendor in the area is actually really close to that museum.  Serendipity!  

So, that’s our day today.  We have a few things tomorrow and absolutely nothing on the schedule for Friday except an evening flight home.  Somehow, I suspect we’ll manage to fill the day.  

An update on the Washington Monument, by the way- tickets are nearly impossible to get.  We were on the website 30 days out, as they promised you could get tickets that way.  No dice.  They release next-day tickets each day at 10 am.  We have tried every morning at 10 am, sharp, and they all go long before we can refresh the page and click the options.  It was closed yesterday, open today, closed tomorrow, and open Friday, so Friday is our last chance to go up to the Washington Monument observation deck.  If we make it, great, but if we don’t, it’s not for lack of trying.  We should know by 10:01 tomorrow morning about our desire to visit Friday.  It’s frustrating but at least we saw the view from the old post office tower.  That was very cool.  

As for now, it’s nearly time to wake up and get moving. Things to do, you know.  So here, again, is our photo album, and we’ll get back to you later with airplanes and space stuff: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA

Somewhere over the rainbow

Yesterday was a great day.  If there was any confusion, let me assure you that Cas told me so on the Metro train back to the station where we got out to come to the hotel.  He said, “Today was a great day, and I’m not just saying that because I have just had the best meal I can remember,” to which I replied, “Yeah, but it couldn’t hurt.”  

Let’s rewind.  Yesterday was our scheduled time to visit Mount Vernon, the historic home of President George Washington.  It was a lovely plantation, and to be sure, pretty impressive for its time.  It would still be a real estate dream for its grounds, its large number of bedrooms and its waterfront view.  Today, we saw the whole thing.  We got into the mansion.  We saw the final resting place of the first President of the US.  We checked out where his food was cooked, where his horses were stabled and where his vegetables were grown.  It was quite the spot.  Interesting side note- the place looks like it is made of large stones.  They are actually wood cut to look like stone.  The beveled edges make the look work out, and the paint they used had sand in it to make the panels appear stone-like.  It was kind of a neat trick.  

For our Mount Vernon adventure, we had booked three things- a grounds pass to visit, a tour of the mansion and a sightseeing boat trip.  Well, the boat trip was cancelled.  There was a problem with the boat, and our money was refunded.  We decided to take that as a sign.  I’d hate to go out in a boat that wasn’t ready to sail.  If it was unworthy of the water, I don’t want to argue the point.  We took our refund and headed to the more upscale of the two on-site dining options.  There was a food court where all families with strollers and small kids seemed to gravitate, and there was a decidedly fancier restaurant where Cas and I spent our lunch dollars.  We had a brie cheese appetizer followed by a pair of crab cake sandwiches.  Forgive me if I go straight to the SpongeBob SquarePants references, but every single time I see a crab cake, it’s immediately a crabby patty.  Go ahead- convince me it’s not a crabby patty.  Regardless, that was one spectacular crabby patty.  We’re pretty close to a whole lot of crab laden Maryland water, here, so crab has been a food goal of mine since we booked this trip.  

With the mansion visited, the crabby patties down the hatch and the garden next on our list, we were nearly ready to move along, so when we saw what we came to see, we were off to the next destination.  Cas had told a few of his colleagues we were headed to DC, and they had recommendations.  Two of them apparently recommended a part of Alexandria, Virginia called Old Town.  Specifically, an Irish pub came up.  Why not, right?  The place was called O’Connell’s , and the drinks were good.  The bar looked too ornate to be American.  We asked, and the wood features and detailing on the bar were imported from a bar in Ireland.  There were pieces that came from libraries and churches, as well, leading us to jokes about hearing confession and pondering if they’d let us preach a sermon. It was a very cool bar, and it was our spot to ride out the first little wave of rainy weather we had in the evening.  

After that, we headed to the wharf in Old Town Alexandria.  We wandered for a moment, then we located an artists’ community called the Torpedo Factory.  It had, in the building’s past, been a place where torpedoes were manufactured,  Today, it’s segmented into storefronts where, in the working hours of the daytime, each one houses an artist who creates and sells from that spot.  It was all very cool.  We wandered there until the rain let up (and until they closed the building).  When we walked out, there was a distinct rainbow in the sky.  I mean, how cool is that?  A real, honest-to-goodness rainbow.  Hello, selfie! 

After we left there, we walked up a cobblestone street (careful walking on that stuff!) to the spot where we could hop over to the restaurant where we wanted to eat dinner.  We had picked out a place in Old Town Alexandria called The Wharf.  It’s on King Street about a block or two away from the water.  I am writing that down because everyone ought to go there.  The food was amazing.  We started with their crab cake, even though we had crabby patties for lunch.  The waitress recommended we try that and the she-crab soup, and she was absolutely correct.  After the appetizer, the soup arrived, and it was also spectacular.  Our entree was one we split, as we usually find a full plate of food to be a bit much following an appetizer and a soup.  That was baked stuffed jumbo shrimp with mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables.  Cas is so nice, too, because he let me have all of the broccoli.  He always does.  

So that was the day today.  Sounds like a great day, doesn’t it?  

Something I find particularly interesting about traveling with Cas is that he has a natural intuition about public transportation in any place we seem to go.  Today’s mass transit adventure took us from the blue in train to a yellow line train to a $2 city bus ride that went straight to the front of the Mount Vernon Visitor’s Center.  When we left there, we had another $2 bus ride to the Metro station, where we took the yellow line to Old town, then a free “circulator” bus to the neighborhood we wanted to visit.  After dinner, we went back to the Metro station via the same circulator bus and took the blue line back to the stop that is a block and a half from our hotel.  When Cas and I got married, I did’t know he had such a natural ability to confidently figure out mass transit, but it is a nice bonus.  

Anyhow, today is the big show.  It’s July 4 in Washington DC, and we have a few things in our lineup.  There’s a parade, a celebration with the US Navy Band (we pre-booked tickets) and a boat ride on the Potomac from which we will view the fireworks.  There were about a zillion people at the National Mall on Sunday when we went to see the Lincoln Monument, so we figured it must have only gotten worse yesterday, and certainly, today is the day most of our fellow tourists are here for, too.  I get it.  I don’t blame them, but I am also very glad we’ve got a guaranteed spot on a boat where they had to sell tickets.  Certainly, there are rules about how many of those tickets they can sell and how full they can pack that boat.  We’ll tell you all about it later.  For now, Happy Birthday, America!  

And of course, here are our photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA

Carved in stone

This day started with a quest for bicycles.  We were going to get a pair of rental bikes and ride the trail that takes folks to Roosevelt Island, which is in the Potomac River.  After some searching, we were able to locate a pair of eBikes to rent, and after the not-too-steep learning curve, we were off.  Fun fact- you can’t ride a bike onto Roosevelt Island.  You can ride one up to the entrance.  Next fun fact: eBike rentals have certain spaces where you aren’t allowed to park their bikes.  This company had the whole trail area leading up to Rosevelt Island marked.  So our morning was dominated by a very nice technology-assisted bike ride along a nice, wooded trail.  It was still very cool, but perhaps Roosevelt Island will have wait for our next visit to DC.  

From there, we made our way back to the room for a moment.  It is very humid in the area today- more than it has been I think the whole time we’ve been here- and that makes the air very sticky.  It was so miserable that we wanted a moment in the hotel room air conditioning to regain our composure.  From there, it was getting on toward lunch time, so we ventured out to the Foggy Bottom/GWU area.  We found a very nice restaurant where we split an appetizer and a sandwich before moving on to the next stop in our adventure.  We had scoped out the Old Post Office tower as a great place to get a view from the top.  It was constructed before there were height restrictions placed on buildings in Washington DC, so its status as the third-tallest thing is pretty great for those of us who want to go up and look out.  And we did- here we are with the Capitol in the background

The tower is attached to the Waldorf Astoria Hotel that occupies the old post office building.  That had previously been a Trump property, but when he left town, his company sold off the remaining years of their lease to the Waldorf people.  

After the clock tower (which later became a bell tower- what a useful tower!), our next mission was to get to the pedal boats in the tidal basin.  We have done foot-powered boat rides before, but this one was a first.  We had never pedaled through humidity that bad, then through the rain, all while surrounded by stunning, historical things.  The view of the Jefferson Monument from the pedal boat was spectacular.  It did start to rain a bit about 30 minutes into our prepaid hour, though, so we headed back, missing out on about fifteen minutes of pedal time.  So be it.  It was fun while it lasted, but Cas was more than just a little concerned, as the weather forecast said there may be lightning headed our way.  Perhaps a storm is not the best time to be on a pedal boat.  Fine.  We got out to hoof it.  We were partially wet because it was rainy, which was a good cover for how we were also very sweaty.  The guy with the ice chest full of Gatorade made a few dollars off of us today, that’s for sure.  

Our next stop was the Korean War Memorial.  It had a wall similar in style to the Vietnam Memorial, but it also had statues of soldiers and a fountain.  It kind of felt like they were trying to combine too many elements.  Still, it was a very nice memorial.  That was on the way to the Lincoln Monument.  We had both been there before, but certainly, you need to see that when you visit, right?  What I hadn’t known about the last time I was around these parts was the type-o.  Or was it a chisel-o?  On the right when you walk up, there is a chiseling of his second inaugural address, and the word FUTURE was originally chiseled as EUTURE.  Someone had to come in and fill the bottom leg of the E with something to make it an F.  Hey- we all make mistakes, right.  Just when I make them, they aren’t literally carved in stone.  

The monument was very full of people, and when we left, we walked away just as a very energetic young woman started a protest chant advocating for the Equal Rights Amendment.  At least that’s what I think she was talking about.  It was ERA, All the way!  She could have been a baseball fan who thought pitchers should be judged solely on their Earned Run Average and nothing else.  Either way, she was energetic.  

Our final stop before we succumbed to the heat and the dampness of the air was the Vietnam War Memorial.  We had both been there before, but this time, we came with the knowledge of what happens when people leave objects and artifacts at the base of the wall.  One of our HOHO bus drivers yesterday told us that the National Park Service collects and catalogues all the left items at the end of each day.  People leave medals, letters, trinkets and other artifacts as remembrances of the fallen soldier.  I am glad these things are picked up and catalogued.  I’d hate for them to get stolen or blown away.  

That started us on our path back to a Metro station.  There were way too many humans at the National Mall today.  I think all of them flew in this weekend for the holiday.  Cas and I agreed we’re both glad to have passage booked on a fireworks-watching Potomac River cruise for the fourth.  Space on a boat is finite, after all.  

We did swing past the Albert Einstein statue on the way to the Metro station, and Cas needed to photograph the statue, as well as the formulas on the statue’s notepad.  Raise your hand if you’re surprised.  

From there, we took a train back to the hotel, cleaned up a little, and headed out to a very nice dinner.  It’s time to turn in early, as tomorrow will take us to Mount Vernon, and we need to get started a little more quickly than we did today.  

For now, though, enjoy our many, many photos.  It was another great day! https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA