06.14.06
I’m about to lose all of my street cred.
Because I’m planning on going up to NC over July 4 weekend to hang out with some of my weird internet friends.
Oh, and we’re going to a Kelly Clarkson concert.
What have I become?
Archive for Travels
Vacation in DC
Well, we’re back. In all, a very fun, but very exhausting trip. I guess one day Jeff and I will figure out that we should just spend a week somewhere instead of trying to cram everything into a long weekend. But what’s the fun in that?
We were up bright and early at 5:30am to head to the airport on Thursday. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a bit of a nervous flyer. My condition was not helped by the fact that as soon as we were on the runway and the pilot fired up the engines, Jeff proceeded to compare the sound coming from the engines to the sound his weedeater makes when he’s working on the yard. He earned a punch on the arm for that one. Anyway, once we were in the air, it was a rather smooth flight.
After we arrived in DC, the rest of Thursday was spent at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Probably the most memorable display was a temporary exhibition they had on Americans at war. It traced from the French and Indian war all the way through Iraq and Afghanistan. I teared up a little at the part regarding September 11 - they had a rather twisted and warped portion of a support beam from the WTC, as well as an airphone recovered from United 93 and a military ID found at the Pentagon. (I mentioned that some people just get really sad when they see stuff like that. It just made me very angry again, much like my initial reaction after the attacks).
Friday we were up bright and early for a tour through the Capitol by one of our Representative’s interns. It was pretty cool - we actually got to go down to the House floor and sit and he pointed out some stuff. We also saw the old Supreme Court chamber and the crypt where the had originally planned to bury George Washington. After that tour, we headed back down to the Smithsonian area to finish up at the American History museum since we had to rush through on Thursday. We stopped for lunch at the Old Post Office Pavilion, and walked down to the White House afterwards. We couldn’t get very close, due to the barriers they had erected around the perimeter, but we got close enough for a good camera shot or two.
Once we were done with the White House, we wandered back down to the Smithsonian to tour the Air and Space Museum. Being the geek that I am, I was really looking forward to this one. Jeff was also in geek heaven, snapping photo after photo of the aircraft and displays. At this point, we started to realize just how TIRED we were. My feet were aching, and my back had a knot in it. So, we decided to head back to the hotel for a nap.
We had dinner in Olde Town Alexandria that night, and an EXCELLENT French restaurant called Le Gaulois. Seriously - if I could eat there every night, I’d be a happy woman. A very FAT woman, but a happy woman. Haha. After dinner, we headed back downtown to tour the monuments at night (thanks Dave and Scott for that suggestion). Probably the coolest monument I hadn’t seen before was the Korean War monument - it’s the one with the statues of a platoon on patrol coming out of the trees - very neat. Jeff took some great pictures, and as soon as he has them up on his Flickr site, I’ll have them posted.
Saturday morning we got up and went to Arlington Cemetery - we had originally planned to do this on Thursday after we arrived, but since it was pouring, we decided to do it when the weather was more cooperative. I forget just how peaceful it is there, and just how awesome it is to watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. After the cemetery, we headed up to Baltimore for the rest of the day.
We got into downtown and parked and started to walk towards where we thought the Inner Harbor was. We were wrong - we realized about a mile into the walk that we were headed the wrong direction. At this point, neither one of us felt very good, so we stopped off at a coffee shop for some water and a map. Once we got our bearings again, we headed the right direction and had lunch at Tir Na Nog, a pretty cool Irish pub on the water. (A side trip was made to the mall at the harbor, due to the fact that I had a temporary lapse of sanity and didn’t pack enough shirts to wear during the trip).
After our little jaunt to the Inner Harbor, we headed over to Camden Yards to watch the Orioles play the Royals. It was, quite frankly, a bloodbath. (The Royals are apparently not very good. :lol:) But, the stadium was beautiful, and we had a good time.
Sunday was Mother’s Day, so Jeff and I made the obligatory calls to our moms to wish them a Happy Mother’s Day. (We realized just how awful we are as children. This is the second Mother’s Day in a row we’ve taken a trip out of town for - last year it was up to Chicago to see U2). We also drove out to Dulles airport to see the Air and Space museum’s display near there. It was REALLY cool. We got to se an SR-71, a couple of MiGs, the Enterprise (shuttle, not star ship. Haha), and the Concorde, as well as the Enola Gay. We also hit the monuments again that afternoon to catch a couple we missed on Friday night. We went to the Vietnam memorial, and I found my uncle’s name - it was too high up for me to get a rubbing, but Jeff took a picture. We also hit the FDR memorial and the Jefferson monument.
Monday morning, we finished packing and decided to try to hit another Smithsonian museum before our plane left that afternoon. We headed to the Museum of Natural History, because I figured looking at dinosaur bones and rocks would be fun. 
We had to kind of hurry through it, but we did get some cool pictures.
So, once that was over, we turned in our rental car and headed back down to Reagan to fly home. I was so exhausted that I actually slept during most of the flight home, so Jeff didn’t have to deal with Nervous Adriene again.
Yeah, we had fun. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably add another day or two on, because we still didn’t get to see everything I wanted to (Mount Vernon, the National Cathedral, etc.). Just something we’ll bear in mind if we go back sometime.
(Oh, and does anyone need $10 in Metro fare? We overpaid on our SmartCards. Haha).