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

HOHO-a-gogo

Yesterday was the day we scheduled the Hop On Hop Off bus tour with a trip to Arlington Cemetery.  We started the day at the local Gold’s Gym, then we cleaned up and headed to the start point of the Old Town Trolley Tour.  The tour started out pretty great, with an engaging young woman telling us all about the sites and scenes we were passing.  Lots of folks hopped off and still more hopped on at each of the stops, but we were waiting to get out at the Lincoln Memorial stop, as that was the transfer point for the extra part of the tour that went across the river to Arlington Cemetery.  We booked that, as well.  Our Arlington Cemetery tour took us around to the important sites of the hallowed ground, and we stopped off at two specific places. We stopped to see the the US Marine Corps War Memorial (the Iwo Jima flag raising one) and the Changing of the Guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier.  

Both were breathtaking in their own way.  The Iwo Jima statue is so much larger than you think it would be.  People standing at the base of the statue are only half to a third as tall as the pedestal on which it stands.  It’s really quite impressive.  And I was taken with the detail, as I often am with sculpture.  Someone took the time and effort to chisel into stone the folds of fabric when a pair of pants has a bended knee.  There was detailing on each pair of boots.  Color me impressed- especially since the stitches on the boots were probably each bigger than my hand.    

That was pretty amazing, but the changing of the guard was the most impressive thing.  There is a video in the photo album, and though it is over six minutes, it’s worth a watch.  Every thirty minutes, the precise, crisp process begins.  There is one member of an Army Honor Guard there, and another two come out.  One inspects the weapon that the other will wield to guard the tomb of the unknown.  When the very thorough inspection is complete, the precise movements occur to replace the old with the new, and the tomb remains guarded.  

When we left Arlington, we made our way to some of the monuments we either hadn’t seen or probably only briefly glanced at in prior visits.  The Thomas Jefferson monument is enormous, but is not in the main drag as these things go.  It’s on the other side of the tidal basin from the White House, and the view is pretty fantastic.  We spent a good amount of time there, then we headed to the Franklin D. Roosevelt monument.  That is laid out in four distinct sections, owing to his four terms in office.  Each section (term) has a water feature, and each one focuses on the challenges he faced in that portion of his very long presidency.  This was a rather unique monument, as the statues weren’t as large as most, and everything was at ground level.  You walked through the sections as if they were rooms.  The statue of Roosevelt at the beginning of the first term space was actual size.  It was just a man, wearing glasses and sitting in a wheelchair.  We managed to go through it all backwards, though, so we began at the end of the fourth section where the water feature was more elaborate than the first three.  I suppose we began with the finale.  Fun fact, they do have a statue that features his Scotty dog, Fala.  I’d need to research a little and verify this, but I suspect it’s the only monument in DC where a Presidential pet is so honored.  

I had seen a bit of the FDR memorial before, but somehow, I never made it past the very beginning.  I didn’t know it was so large.  It was pretty great.  From there, we went to the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial. I want to like that memorial more than I do.  He was such a great and looming figure in American History, and certainly, a special person to be honored in this space amongst so many Presidents and high ranking government officials.  The idea of the sculpture and its execution, though, really fall flat for me.  The idea was derived from a statement of his, wherein he spoke of a Stone of Hope from a Mountain of Despair.  I get it.  There’s no need to show his statue as a chunk of rock hewn from a larger chunk.  And the overt symbolism doesn’t stop there. The statue itself, while expertly carved with great detail shows his legs descending into unfinished rock with rough edges, as if to signify that the work of equality is, as yet, undone.  I like a good metaphor as much as the next kid, but this one is all just a little too spelled out for my taste.  I like a little more nuance.  To each his own, I guess.  I’m happy it’s there, but I just wanted to like it more.  

As we were leaving the MLK memorial, we heard a few thunder claps, and so we decided to find one of the city buses to take us back to a Metro station.  We stood at the bus stop, and who should show up but one of our trolley drivers.  She was clearly about 45 minutes behind schedule, but since she was going the right direction, and since our passes were all day, we hopped on and learned a little more about stuff in DC.  Bless her, too, because it was very informative, and the ride took us back to a spot that was right across the street from a very cool bar.  We stopped in there for a little wine until the majority of the light rain dissipated, then we walked to a metro station.  

Our plan was to ride the metro back to the Virginia side of the river where our hotel is, head to a grocery store to restock on breakfast food and sunscreen, then grab a bite on the walk back to the hotel.  So, we closed out the day with two bags from a local Safeway in our hands, walking into a really neat, little taco shop.  After that, it was time to sleep.  It was another long one.  Today, we don’t have a spelled-out plan.  Instead, we have a list of options.  We’ll wake up slow, check the weather, take stock of how much we want to cram into a Sunday and make our way from there.  In the meantime, as always, here are our photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA

They even had the Star Spangled Banner

This morning was the morning we needed after the oh-so-full day we had yesterday.  We started at our own pace with absolutely nothing on the schedule.  We decided to spend the majority of our day in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.  That’s the one I most wanted to visit.  It has all of the cool American things you hear about- Abe Lincoln’s hat, Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, Dallas’ own frozen margarita machine- the first of its kind.  We saw the original Kermit the Frog, Archie Bunker’s chair and the original George Reeves Superman costume from the old TV show.  We stood on a part of the stage from Woodstock and held a replica of Prince’s guitar.  It was very cool.  The first thing we saw was the original Star-Spangled Banner.  It was very, very large, and surrounded by a flurry of kids on a summer field trip.  

It was such a long day there that we ate lunch at their cafeteria.  It was actually very good, but if I can offer one pro tip- they sell food by weight, and apparently, items on a salad bar weigh a lot.  It was just what we needed to launch into the afternoon at that same museum.  It is so much, that you need to spend a lot of time there.  

We wrapped it up at that museum later in the afternoon and headed to the hotel for a nap.  It was a lot of walking, and our feet are almost used to the stand-and-shuffle move of museum visits, but naps are, indeed, magical.  

Dinner was to be in Chinatown.  I had been to Chinatown in my last DC visit back in 2012, but the neighborhood has changed.  After we went through the amazing decorative gate, there was a scene unfolding in front of us with a series of police officers and some folks (probably) breaking one or more laws.  There were roaming people who truly looked up-to-no-good.  We made our way to the restaurant we wanted to visit quickly, and at the close of what was a wonderful meal, our waiter confided in us that the neighborhood isn’t what it used to be.  Covid killed their business and it hasn’t recovered.  I felt bad for the guy- he seemed nice, if totally exasperated.  

Nevertheless, we walked pretty quickly to the gate when we left the restaurant, as we weren’t interested in lingering.  We made our way to the National Mall, and we visited exactly two amazing things before we decided it was time to pack it in for the night.  It’s another day where the step-counter on my watch has topped 20,000, so I will not be responding to accusations that I need to go to bed early due to my advanced age.  It was a big day, that’s all.  

The two things we had the opportunity to really check out were the Washington Monument and the World War II memorial.  The WWII one is relatively new, having been completed in 2004, and it’s absolutely stunning.  It’s a big ellipse shaped thing with pillars for each of the states and territories.  One end of the ellipse has a balcony that says Pacific and the other says Atlantic.  The center is all fountains.  It’s beautiful.  

The Washington Monument is exactly what you have come to expect, but when you get up close, it’s so much more impressive.  The bricks you see when you look at photos are about as wide as my arms when I stretch them all the way out.  It’s kind of amazing.  We have been trying to book entry to the inside of the Washington Monument for a while, now.  There was a promise online when we were back in Dallas that we could get tickets 30 days out.  That didn’t happen.  There are allegedly tickets you can get online for next-day visits, but you have to be a real quick draw at 10 am.  We’re trying again tomorrow.  I set an alarm on my phone for 9:45.  There are also a batch of same-day tickets that are released at something like 9am each day, so we will try that as a last resort.  We’ve got time, so we’ll see if any of that works.  

Other National Mall visits will certainly come later in the trip.  We haven’t made it to the Vietnam Memorial wall or the Lincoln Monument.  We have a lot to go and see, but we also have time to do just that.  Tomorrow, we will take the hop-on-hop-off bus tour we booked back in Dallas.  Cas is calling it the HOHO bus.  I like that.  This tour company has a bus that will take you all around to different sites of interest, including Arlington Cemetery.  From there, for a few more bucks, you can book a bus of theirs that runs through Arlington and tours you around the Cemetery.  We forked over the few bucks.  Why not?  I love that the former home of Robert E. Lee was where the Civil War dead were buried, and that’s how we got to where we are.  Serves him right for seceding and leading the rebel army.  Talk about the wrong side of history.  But more on that tomorrow.

For now, here’s a photo of some very fancy drinks you can get in Chinatown:

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

See you after we ride the HOHO bus! 

Buildings, boats and Bullfeathers

Wow.  Yesterday was a very full day in our nation’s capital.  Cas and I woke up and went for a workout.  This is a recent plot twist- we hadn’t prioritized working out in previous trips, but our Italy voyage left us both heavier at the end than when we started, despite the insane amount of walking.  Workouts are probably in order.  And something happened at our hotel- nobody has been to clear on what.  Some kind of water damage or other happened prior to our arrival, so they made a deal with a very nearby Gold’s Gym to get all of their guests access to that facility.  So, for the first time ever, I worked out in a Gold’s Gym this morning.  It was exactly as much fun as any other gym on the planet- pretty much what you’d expect.    

We made our way back to the hotel for showers and a little get-ready time.  We started all of this pretty early so we could get out the door for a scheduled tour of the White House, so when the time came, we were back out and ready to get on the Metro.  We hustled a little bit, but we got there in time for our scheduled tour.  We did exactly what we were supposed to do- we wrote to our congressman and asked for tours to all of the pertinent things, but our guy only followed through with the White House tour, and I suspect it was because he needed only to forward that to the Executive Branch.  The FBI building, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and the Congress building- we’re on our own.  We broke down and booked most of those things ourselves, too- we just don’t have an adorable intern shuttling us around.  Last time I was around these parts, it was 2012, and I had a bow-tied Alex P. Keaton lookalike showing me and my younger brother the senate floor and the crypt.  I digress.  Every Capital visit is different.  This time, I saw a TON more of the White House and a lot less of Congress, but it was all very cool.  

But back to the start- the White House- where to begin?  It was great.  We saw the rooms that were available on the public-facing tour.  The dining room and the East room were huge, but I gravitated toward the hallway with the literal red carpet where I remember distinctly Barack Obama walked up to a podium and announced that Osama Bin Laden was dead.  I also remembered a very specific scene from a movie I liked with a staircase I saw today.  If you ever watched The American President, I walked past the staircase where Annette Benning and Michael Douglas walked into a very public fist date.  I know their actual staircase was a Hollywood replica, but it was a very good replica.  

From there, we decided to head back to our hotel.  There are rules to the White House tour, and they pretty much mean that you can’t bring anything with you.  As a result, we needed to retrieve my purse, our sunscreen and all of the bottled water. On our way, we walked through a farmers market, locating the best empanadas I have ever had.  Fun fact- the Farmers Market in DC has to sell only handmade goods.  Bottled water is rarely handmade.  We had the promise of an amazing lunch in our hands, but nothing to drink until a block or two away when we popped into a sandwich shop and bought water.  Once we finished our lunch on a bench at Franklin Park, we were back at the hotel to regroup.  Time for tour number two.

Tours of Congress start in their visitor’s center, which is underground with some very large skylights for a little bit of sunshine.  We went in and were processed through their lines for our tour.  The whole lot of us in the time-stamped group were ushered into a theater and shown a film about congress, then divided into five groups.  To join a group, you had to select a tour guide from whom you would retrieve a headset, then enter a line of people to tour around with.  We picked the guy you couldn’t really see well, because he was concealed behind two other people.  The first thing he said once we got our headsets on was that his group appeared quite small.  Perfect!  He took us around the building from the downstairs Crypt, so named for the unrealized intent to bury George Washington in it, to the rotunda where the portraits and paintings stole this show.  It was a pretty good tour.  Here we are after the tour ended: 

Afterwards, we felt less time pressure.  The timed-entry tickets to these things kind of put us on a clock, and when we accomplished them, we were a little more free.  So free, in fact, that we went exploring a bit.  We ended up at a place called Bullfeathers, which I am convinced I had heard about before, though I can’t remember where.  It must have come up in a movie or been a part of some political scandal.  Regardless, it was a very nice bar and restaurant with breezy patio seating and a nice happy hour.  I really think we were in the spot where all the interns and aides went for post-workday beers.  The clientele was young, they all seemed to know each other, and they were all dressed better than Cas and I were.  It was actually very cool.  I felt like a local- just for a moment.  

Bullfeathers was a stop on our way back to the waterfront.  We decided the best way to wrap up our day of touring was a water taxi tour on the Potomac, so we found a boat and got out on the water.  The ride was great, but the recorded tour information was pretty quiet, and we refused to go back into the enclosed part of the boat.  We’re right-up-front people.  Regardless, we saw the Jefferson memorial and the unusual looking Watergate Hotel, along with a hazy view of plenty of other things.  The haze was no joke, though.  There are some nasty wildfires roaring through parts of Canada right now, and the smoke has traveled south.  If you look at our photos, the ones from Thursday evening are fuzzy, and not because of our cameras.  

With the boat ride in the books, we were pretty wiped out.  It was time to find our way back to a bed, so we opted for a bus that took us to the Metro station.  We hadn’t used a bus until that moment, but the walk to the Metro station from the Wharf was a long one, and we had already topped 20,000 steps each by that point in the day.  (Whew!)

Today, we have nothing in particular scheduled, which is a nice change from yesterday.  We’re sleeping in and adopting a more leisurely pace.  I suspect there are museums in our near future.  More on that later.  In the meantime, Cas has our photo album up and running: https://photos.app.goo.gl/i5YWxcScDLHgbJqLA

Here we go- day three…

When you’re a tourist

If you never watched Burn Notice, I can assure you it’s a cute show.  The protagonist is a former spy trying to make his post-spying life work out, and each episiode starts with him explaining some feature of his old job.  He begins each narration, “When you’re a spy…”

Apropos.  Our only scheduled thing today besides a Southwest flight from Love Field to Reagan National was a time-stamped entry to the International Spy Museum.  That one was Cas’ idea, and he wanted to do that first, in case there was some content we learned that would help us interpret the things we’d see the rest of the time we’re here.  Spy museum accomplished.  Here’s how it all shook out: When you’re a spy, you land and take the Metro to your hotel.  Wait, that’s when you’re a tourist.  Regardless, we are all in for public transportation.  We got a seven-day pass, and we plan to wear it out just before we get a three-day pass for the rest of our time here.  

Still, when you’re a tourist… you have to eat lunch.  After being allowed an early check-in, we headed to a sandwich shop called the West Wing Cafe.  It’s a half-block off of Pennsylvania Avenue, and they have pretty great paninis.  That was along our path to the Spy Museum, and we forged ahead.  We actually walked through the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History on the way, too.  The greatest thing about the Smithsonian Museums is that they’re all free.  If you have five minutes or five hours, you can walk in and see something amazing.  We looked at the dinosaur bones for a bit, as well as the skulls that represent earlier versions of humans before we headed up to the second floor to check out rocks, gemstones and the oh-so-famous Hope Diamond.  

Weird girl confession time- I have never preferred Diamods over other stones.  In fact, I prefer Sapphires, then Rubies, then Emeralds long before their pale cousins, the diamond.  Still, the Hope Diamond is a very pretty blue, making it inherently more interesting to me that anything that those folks at the engagement ring store tried to persuade me to want just over seven years ago.  I know, I am not girl-ing correctly, but since when is that a surprise?  

From there, we walked over to the International Spy Museum.  Cue the When you’re a spy references, because we sure did.  It was a very cool museum.  There were spy gadgets, features about famous and infamous spies, explanations about why spy craft is still necessary in today’s world- and each person was assigned a cover story to “be” through the exhibits.  I was pretending to be a photographer from Puebla, New Mexico named something like Christine.  I had to collect intel as we went through and help capture the bad guy.  The staff there upon entry told us it typically takes two hours to get through all of the exhibits.  They clearly haven’t strolled through a gadget-laden space with Cas.  We showed up about two hours and 45 minutes before they closed, and we walked out of the inevitable gift shop with the rest of the folks being shooed out.  It’s a pretty great museum- I can recommend it, though I think the interactive portions are so popular that they should build additional ones.  Also, a few more benches wouldn’t kill them.  It was nearly three hours of stranding.  I digress.  When you’re a tourist, you can do that.  

From there. We went to the Potomac and found a nice bar for a light dinner with a few celebratory glasses of Prosecco.  We learned after a years-ago balloon trip that you should always follow a successful flight with a few sparkles, and we wouldn’t want to buck tradition.  

From there, we headed back to the hotel by way of a drugstore where we picked up breakfast bars and a few bananas.  I do so enjoy not rushing about in the morning in the mad dash to find breakfast.  

We’re turning in early tonight.  It was a very big day, and we have an early appointment tomorrow to take our White House tour.  We’re going through the rules and regulations now to make sure we don’t screw up.  No aerosols.  No water bottles.  No box cutters.  You get the idea.  Bring your ID, your flash-less camera or phone, and try not to touch anything.  

We’ll see what we can do, but maybe they can see if they can invite us in to chat.  I have some great ideas, especiallly about the education system, and specifically, the teaching profession.  I think they’d love to hear from me.  

More on our trips to the White House and to Congress tomorrow after we get there.  In the meantime, we’re getting our toothbrushes out and hitting the hay.  

Cas will have the photo album ready tomorrow, so go ahead and hold your breath.  It’s on the way.  Our hotel Internet leaves something to be desired.  

And here is a nice picture of us walking through a Smithsonian-adjacent garden on the way somewhere today: 

Good night, and wish us luck in our lobbying efforts- I mean in our tour- tomorrow.  When you’re a tourist, sometimes, you get confused.  

Carpe-ing the Diem

Three weeks ago today was the first day of our summer break.  Cas had to go in for one more half-day after I was done, so he says it’s now been three weeks and three hours since school ended.  That makes today the one-week-out mark for this summer’s adventure.  We leave in a week.  Hooray!  

This time, we’re off to see our Nation’s Capital.  Or is it Capitol.  Actually, (Thank you, Google) I believe it’s both- we will go to the Capitol building in the Capital city of Washington, D.C. 

Nevertheless, it may be of note to share what we’ve been up to while kicking around in Dallas for these three weeks.  Just because we haven’t yet traveled out of the immediate area, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve just been staring at our four walls, playing Mario Party and waiting to head off the the airport.  In the past three weeks, we have:

• Driven GoKarts
• Been to two movies
• Seen a minor league baseball game
• Taken a sunset cruise on Lake Ray Hubbard
• Taught our niece how to make gnocchi noodles
• Booked an impromptu room in Grapevine and enjoyed the wineries
• Been to a distillery and a brewery
• Been out on three double dates with three different couples
• Bowled with and without bumper lanes
• Celebrated my older brother’s birthday with a sufficiently fancy dinner
• Been out for a fancy dinner of our own with smoked old fashioneds and elk steak
• Played a round of indoor miniature golf
• Attended a comedic play called How the Other Half Loves
• Played a game of pub trivia 
• Seen a Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado about Nothing

If that list is three weeks in Dallas, I am very excited to see what happens when our flight lands in DC.  Oh, and we have an idea about a short trip to Chicago working, as well as the possibility of a quick jog down to in New Braunfels so we can float around on a pair of inner tubes.  This summer, we’re not doing a grand European tour, so we can really make some cool stuff happen stateside.  Turns out, this is the summer that the rest of the US is actually booking European and other international travel, though, so everything related to visiting someplace foreign is much pricier.  I guess we accidentally picked the exact right moment to skip international travel.  

We’re seizing the days- all of them- until they make us go back to work.  Stay tuned- we’ll share the Capitol in the Capital amongst other sites and scenes.  In the meantime, here we are, at the Pocket Sandwich Theatre: 

Carpe Diem, everybody!  Happy summer!