Visits Galore II - Saturday

The plan was to pick Tim up from Dulles airport at 9:00 Saturday morning. He was technically done at 8:00, but since Dulles is hell and gone from here, I figured 9:00 was the best we could do. Daniel and I got there about 15 minutes late, which was pretty good since we left a solid half-hour later than we planned. I drive to Dulles and back all the time by myself for business, so what's the first thing I do when we get back on the road? Why, miss my turn and get us lost in Arlington, of course! That's the first time I've gotten lost on the way back from Dulles, and luckily I had two guys there to witness it. Actually, that's not true- a few years ago I was completely stuck on the beltway and was about to wet myself (this is when I learned that you always go to the bathroom before leaving the airport, no matter what) so I had to get off at the nearest exit and got totally lost. I don't count that though- those were extenuating circumstances. Thank you, GPS!

Anyway, we found our way back to the beltway and drove to the Huntington metro stop, which only gets about a 6 in convenience, but an enticing 5 in shady-ness. Since this is where I was leaving my car for the weekend, it was worth the extra bit of driving to not get my car stripped. Not that there's a real high demand for 2004 LX Accords. From there it was a quick jaunt on the metro to the hotel. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown, which was pretty nice. I've stayed in nicer places (not when I was paying, but when the bill was on Uncle Sam) but apparently this was much better than the places Daniel's employers have put him up in, because he had nothing but nice things to say. It was across the street from the McPherson Square metro stop, but only if you go out the right exit. The one we took was about 4 blocks away. In any case my only gripe was that all they had was 1 king bed suites, and a rollaway bed was an extra $15! That's not cool for three dudes.

Our first destination was the Air & Space Museum. After a lunch of overpriced but welcome McDonalds we set out to see some history. Of course, the Air & Space museum is by far my favorite. Tim took this opportunity to take lots of pictures, and you can see him doing his thing in the photo. I guess this is good place to explain: Tim's thing is photography, and he's really pretty good at it. He does nature and other artsy shots, and you can see some of his stuff on his Fotocommunity web site (Which I have added to the link bar on the right). It's a German site, but you can pretty much figure it out. A word to the wise: the tabs at the top take you to pictures from all the people on that site, and "Akt" apparently means "naked ladies" so don't click that at work.

From there we proceeded to the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden to get pictures of the crazy statues and stuff. My favorite was the Needle Tower- I wanted to see it from the angle in this picture but was afraid to get that close. This is a good place to mention that it was hot as fudge outside- while Tim was taking pictures Daniel and I mostly were trying to find shade. We marched across the mall to the other sculpture garden near the archives (here's a decent map). While we were there, I was seriously fighting the heat stroke. I can't believe that I used to throw on a 4-layer wool uniform, strap on 75lb drums and run around all day in this kind of heat! By the time we were done there, we decided to go into the Museum of Natural History long enough to cool off and buy a $3 bottle of water. And to think I thought it was atrocious to pay 3 dollars for a gallon of gas. Oh well. Necessity is the mother of ridiculous spending. We wandered around long just enough to soak up some ac and see a few exhibits. Namely the dinosaur bones (as a tribute to 8-year-old Marc) and the gems and minerals (as a tribute to my dad).

From there we hit one of the lesser known sites: The Old Post Office. It has a great old clock tower that's not as high as the Washington Monument, but a lot less crowded. The picture taking is a little obscured by the wires that block the windows, but there were some missing ones where Tim could get his lens through. On a side note, check out the bike things that they rent outside the Post office! Next time I head to DC I think I'll round up 6 friends and get one of those bad boys. Actually, better leave at least one seat open because we'd certainly be picking up some ladies.

Next we hit the classics. We walked to the Washington monument, and just as we got there it mercifully started to rain. While other people ran for cover, I looked up and saw a single dark cloud moving quickly and we decided to ride it out. All in all, the rain didn't last long and was actually pretty nice. Here Daniel took the one and only picture of me (up top) from the whole weekend, and you can see that everything got damp pretty fast. We proceeded down the mall to the WWII Memorial, which is actually very well done. I had read years ago (I swear in USA Today) that the individual state pillars would have their openings sized proportionally to how many people from that state died in the war. However, they all looked the same to me. I asked the helpful park ranger (who looked like a miniature Mark McGwire), and he said that was never the case. I don't think I'm crazy enough to make that up on my own, so maybe that was a preliminary thing.

It's worth mentioning that the WWII memorial was our first encounter with Lead America. After finding their website, I think they could be the subject of future column. I know- big talk from a former People to People Student Ambassador (see previous blog). I told Tim and Daniel that you can't cross the beltway without seeing at least 3 student tour groups, and we had already seen a few- one with matching hats, one Asian group with matching messenger bags and really tiny cameras, but Lead America was by far the most immense. They were everywhere. The best part about seeing these groups is realizing that high-schoolers never change. You can watch their groups and go "Ah hah, there's the Steve, that's the Megan, there's the Me, and this must be the Josh (always accompanied by the Adam)." Oh yeah. Good times. There were all well behaved though, so it was cool.

We marched on down to the Lincoln Memorial, which is always fun. Since Tim was taking pictures, I actually took the time to read that whole long inscription on the inside. A while later we found poor Tim halfway down on the steps, camera at the ready, trying to get a clear shot of honest Abe. I'm pretty sure that will never happen (especially on a Saturday in July) so we just chilled on the steps like a couple of beltway insiders until he gave up.

Next was the Vietnam Memorial. It's a stark contrast to the WWII memorial in just about every way. Besides the obvious architectural differences, the whole feel is different. Whereas WWII has a sort of celebratory, feel good sense to it, the Vietnam memorial is much more somber and sad. Even the visitors openly talk and admire at WWII, but over at the wall it's almost silent. It's just so much more personal when you can stand and read off the actual names. Often people will leave personal artifacts or short life stories of the men and women memorialized there. They help you realize that each name was an actual entire life- then you realize that there's 58,000 names on it. I get choked up.

We walked home by way of the White House, but you really don't get very close to it. After that it was back to the hotel. I think we all could have collapsed right then and there (especially Tim, whose was still on German time), but we were starving. The front desk people sent us to Old Ebbit, where I had a delectable parmesan crusted Trout, and Tim won the award for "first person to officially fall asleep at the table while waiting for the food." It's also worth noting that they have posted the dress code on the website, where they say anything goes. However, in our shorts and t-shirts, we definitely stuck out among the suits and prom dresses. Luckily we were way beyond caring.

After that, we headed back to the hotel and crashed. The next morning we got 2 complimentary breakfast buffets, so we had to pay $16 for the third. I decided that if I was paying 16 bucks for waffles, oatmeal and fruit I was going to make it count. We headed to Union Station and got Daniel and Tim got on their train without incident. I took the Metro back to Huntington and was on my way home.

It was a fun weekend all around. I really wish I'd thought of taking a picture of the three of us, but once I saw the kind of shots Tim was taking I sort of lost my photo motivation. Daniel made it home fine and Tim is currently wandering around New York City taking pictures until he heads back to Germany Thursday, so look for those on his site.

Trip Overview- I wanted this to be in the title link but it was too long. Still neat thought!