Tag: Vacations

Washington D.C.

D.C. Trip – Day One

Karen

Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five

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We’re here, it’s gorgeous and I’m pooped.

We caught our flight out of town at 9:45 a.m. Everything ran like clockwork and we didn’t have any problems on our way to St. Louis. There were only about 12 people on board so it was like we had the whole plane to ourselves. It was a quick and uneventful flight. We arrived in St. Louis, had just enough time to grab a soft pretzel, make a bathroom break and then we were boarding a plane for Washington D.C.

The plane was packed. And the ONE baby on board? Sat directly in front of us and whimpered and wailed the whole trip.

*SIGH*

Finally, a flight attendant gave the man (it was a single father traveling with his son) … something to help the baby’s ears from popping. I couldn’t see what it was, but whatever it was did the trick and the baby stopped screaming.

My ears were grateful. Poor little guy.

When we landed, we had to wait on the runway for about 15 minutes because our gate was having some sort of technical difficulty. The baby started getting restless.

I started praying.

Finally, the tower re-routed us to another gate and we disembarked. We stumbled our way down to the baggage area, retrieved all of our bags (we were glad to see our bags made it) and we walked aimlessly trying to find the rental car agency.

We looked … and saw nothing. Finally, the husband spotted a sign – a shuttle bus would take us to our car rental place. We hopped on board (well, I say hopped, but we had four large pieces of luggage and three carry-ons slowing us down) and we drove another mile to rent our car. We ended up with a white Dodge Journey. This thing is a monster. The seats are hard and the air conditioning sucks, but hey, we had wheels.

And then? The REAL fun began. We exited the airport and PROMPTLY took a wrong turn and got COMPLETELY LOST … in a town where the streets that run north and south are named after states and the streets that run east and west are letters of the alphabet, literally run in circles and where NOTHING makes sense … yeah, that one.

I’m afraid I got just a TAD cranky. Word is, I got juuust a BIT irritated because I had visions of us ending up on the wrong side of town, out of gas and living in our expensive, but useless rental car.

I mean, you MIGHT hear that was the case but the fact was, I laughed it off and said, “Oh well, kids. This is a part of Washington D.C. I bet you never thought you’d see.”

Or … that could have been the hubs talking. That whole episode is a bit fuzzy, if you want the truth. 😀

Somehow, the hubs, through all of my bitching helpful navigational tips, finally got us back on course and our trip to our hotel, the trip that was only supposed to take us four minutes, actually took us 40 minutes.

I have to be honest. I was a bit freaked out and was, er, maybe, but I wouldn’t swear to it, just a tad … er … difficult to be around at that time period.

*blush* I’m not proud of my behavior. I have a tendency to be a little … tense whenever I go someplace new. But I’ve since calmed down and have gotten my bearings.

This is not say that I understand this place, but I’m certainly learning.

Our hotel room is nice, but certainly NOT worth the money we’re paying for it. I suppose the real reason for the price is because it’s in the HEART of Washington D.C., just down the street from The White House, as a matter of fact. We have a pretty nice kitchenette and an awesome view from our balcony but we’ve stayed in better places.

The first thing we did after checking in, was search for a grocery store. We arrived at our hotel room about 3:00 and were ravenous. We asked the valet, who directed us to Trader Joe’s.

It was like entering a foreign country. For those that don’t know, Trader Joe’s is an organic grocery store and everything costs about three times more than we’re used to paying. But we were starving and ended up buying some breakfast food, some deli meat, juice, bread and a couple of pizzas for dinner.

I about had a cow when our total rang up. Uh yeah, we’ll be hunting for another grocery store tomorrow.

After eating our pizza (that was actually pretty good, quite frankly), we left our hotel room to locate the Foggy Bottom Metro Station. After taking a few wrong turns (the streets here – they are INSANE), we found it. It’s literally just down the street and will be VERY CONVENIENT to use for the next several days. In fact, we won’t even have to drive most days – it’ll be great. The boys are looking forward to riding the train and I’m looking forward to not having to worry about getting lost.

Again.

We plan on heading to the National Museum of Natural History and the Old Post Office Tower and Pavilion tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have lots more to talk about then.

In the meantime?

The Most Uncomfortable Chair in the World

I need to tuck someone into bed. 😀

Life

Damn Weather

Karen

Oh. My. Freakin’. Gosh.

What the hell is going on with our weather? Excuse my profanity (trust me, I’m holding myself back here), but seriously, WTH? We received three more inches of rain last night. I’ve heard thunder rumbling the heavens for 48-straight hours now. If you watch our radar? Ugly little green blobs keep REFORMING, just one on top of each other and right over Springfield.

HELLO?! *knocks on heaven* It’s now officially summer. Could we please have some summer-type weather? I mean seriously, what is up with this cool, moist air? Do you NOT realize that I just paid $50 on swim coupons and that I only have until August 17th to use them? That works out to 10 swims for me and the kids – 10. And if this stupid weather continues it’s spring-like behavior, I’ll be lucky to MAKE three trips, let alone 10. Which means I won’t be able to cash in those coupons … and that money will be wasted because the coupons are only good for this summer only …

And we all know how CRANKY I get when I pay for something and then don’t get my money’s worth. *major, scary growl*

I seriously need to stop watching radar because it’s seriously pissing me off. Want to know what I’m talking about? Go to Accuweather.com or weather.com, plug in Springfield Missouri and just WATCH the radar – you’ll see what I mean! It’s maddening to get my hopes up because things LOOK like they are clearing away, only to check it ten minutes later and WTH, where did that angry green and red blob come from?!? And … and … is that *gasp* THUNDER I hear in the distance … AGAIN?!

AARGH!

And yet … and yet … I sort of HAVE to watch the weather right now. Why? Because we’re leaving for Washington D.C. tomorrow and I have a schedule, a touring strategy, that MUST be adhered to because God forbid I have to rearrange our sight-seeing schedule.

Here’s our TENTATIVE touring schedule:

Saturday: Arrive in late afternoon (to isolated t-storms – OF COURSE!). Settle into hotel room, hunt down a grocery store and stock up on breakfast and lunch foods to put into our kitchenette. Get our bearings, recoup from traveling all day.

Sunday: Go to Arlington Cemetery at 8:00 a.m. (the earlier we arrive at these places, the less likely we’ll have to wade through a sea of touring bodies). Tour the cemetery for about two hours. Cross the Arlington Memorial Bridge (and this is assuming pedestrians can cross the bridge, if not, we’ll take the Metro) to the Lincoln Memorial, then the Vietnam Veteran Memorial, then stop somewhere for lunch (hopefully we’ll find someplace cheap), see the Washington Memorial and the White House, head back to our hotel room. Notice that Sunday will be spent all day outside – there is a 40% chance of rain Sunday, so I’m thinking I may have to shuffle some days around here.

Monday: Get in line at 8:00 a.m. at the Bureau of Engraving and nab tickets for a tour between 5 – 7 p.m. (The Bureau of Engraving only holds tours in the morning and evenings and if you don’t grab a time ticket, you don’t get in). After we get our tickets, head over to the National Air & Space Museum and spend a few hours there. Go back to hotel room, have lunch, rest up and go back to Bureau of Engraving for our evening tour.

Tuesday: Sleep in. Go to National Museum of Natural History at 10:00 a.m. Spend a few hours touring the place and then go to the Old Poll Office Tower to see the tower and have lunch. After lunch, to go the International Spy Museum (because I will most likely reserve some 3:35 tickets and we’ll need to go at that time).

Wednesday: Sleep in. Go back to the National Air and Space Museum (because apparently this place is huge and this is the ONE place my husband really wants to spend time at so I want to make sure we see everything) and spend a few more hours. Then head out to the National Geographic place because I think the boys would really enjoy walking through the exhibits.

Thursday: Is open. We only have the morning to do something as our flight takes off in the afternoon. So we might not really get to do anything other than check out and head to the airport, but we’ll see how it works out.

Friday: Unpack, do laundry, catch up on email/blog/sleep.

We actually have quite a few gaps between exhibits that we can probably squeeze in some other stuff, but I don’t want to make this trip TOO taxing so we might just head back to our hotel and veg by the pool. We’ll see.

This is a tentative schedule, of course. I’m not as rigid as I make myself out to be. But I do like to have some sort of tentative plan so we’re not running around, bumping into each other, like the three four stooges and saying, “What should we do now? Where should we go now?”

I hate that. It’s such a waste of time.

I’ll be spending the majority of today cleaning house, running errands (must remember to take movies back to Blockbuster – hate late fees), doing laundry, emptying camera cards and making sure all cameras (we’re taking FOUR! Our Canon, Powershot, Pentax [I use that one to shoot short videos] and our video camera) are fully charged and have extra batteries, and of course, packing. I used to get so carried away with the clothes but HELLO, most places have a washer and dryer somewhere and it’s just so much easier to throw a load of laundry in as opposed to lugging around extra clothing. As long as I remember something nice to wear to dinner and our swimsuits, we can wear the same pairs of shorts and t-shirts all week (that sounds gross, but you know what I mean).

Uh oh, I just checked our hotel’s amenities – it doesn’t list laundry options. This could be bad. Oh well, I can’t worry about that right now *makes a dismissive gesture*.

I plan on blogging our adventures. I have a few blog entries set to pre-post, but I’m apologizing in advance now because posts might be a bit sporadic this week and will most likely not appear until the evening when we’ve stumbled gotten back to our hotel room for the night.

I’m really looking forward to our trip! I’m NOT looking forward to our flight. Though I’m not exactly afraid of flying, it’s not something I would choose to do on a regular basis. We’re flying out of Springfield, which is always sort of an iffy venture because we’re a small airport and things inevitably get delayed (mostly due to equipment problems, but we won’t dwell on that).

Oh look, it’s pouring rain again.

Damn weather. We’re going on vacation, PLAY NICE, will ya?

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Life

A New Addiction

Karen

I have found a new addiction. It’s going to be expensive and time-consuming, but I’m afraid I just can’t help myself. I can feel myself being sucked into the sheer habit of it and I’m powerless to stop it.

I don’t want to stop it.

My new addiction?

Reading “Unofficial Guides” to fun new places.

Okay fine, just one unofficial guide for now, but I can see many more trips to the bookstore for these babies! I can just feel the heat from my pocketbook searing a hole in my purse right this very minute.

The hubs and I went to Barnes & Noble last night. Actually, it was his idea. In fact, he has a bad habit of just suggesting off-the-wall spontaneous things all the time. “Let’s go play tennis … Want to have a nightcap at that new sport’s bar? … Let’s fly to Vegas … Let’s go for a ride on my motorcycle …” and on and on.

Most of the time, I just laugh him off. He’s rarely ever serious, he just suggests those things because he’s been programmed to think that if every single waking moment of his life isn’t filled with something to do, or if he’s not being productive, then he’s not making the most of his time and to him, that’s one of life’s most deadliest sins.

RELAX DUDE! Enjoy the fruits of your hard work. The man doesn’t know HOW to relax – it drives me batty …

Where was I …

Oh yes, my new addiction.

After dinner, the hubs and I started talking about our upcoming trip to Washington D.C. What were we going to do? What sites did we absolutely have to see? So of course, we sat down to research places online when he suggested, “Why don’t we just go check out the guides at B&N?”

My spine immediately stiffened. My eyes lit up. My breathing became erratic. Make a run to the bookstore?!

Are you insane?

I grabbed my purse and panted like an eager dog for a long overdue walk.

I think my husband had time to get in a blink or two before I zipped out to the car and impatiently waited for him to catch up with me.

I’m quite sure that will be the last time he suggests an impromptu trip to the bookstore. *big grin*

I had to force myself to slow down once we got there and wait for my aging (HA! Kidding honey!) husband to catch up with me. When I’m anywhere NEAR a bookstore, my pulse quickens and I find myself having to consciously slow my speed-walking stride down to a more normal pace. My husband laughs at me when I get like this. “Are we in a hurry?” he asks.

At which time I laughingly shrug him off and say, “Well duh! Of course! There are BOOKS to buy.”

Silly man.

Where was I …

Sorry. I’m getting sidetracked just THINKING about making a trip to the bookstore. That’s how pathetic I am when it comes to books. Oh heck, who am I kidding, I’m just pathetic, period.

So, we’re at the bookstore … *Homer Simpson voice – Mmmmm, bookstore* and we head to the travel section.

I must admit, the travel section is not usually where I hang out when I go to the bookstore. We don’t travel much. In fact, it’s safe to say, we DON’T travel. We’re homebodies and are quite satisfied to BE homebodies. So the one time a year we DO go anywhere, my usually organized, controlled mind takes a vacation because I’m out of my element. I’m not a seasoned traveler and yet, I want everything to go smoothly and of course, I want to make sure we get our money’s worth and aren’t blowing money on unnecessary things …

It’s a nightmare for someone like me – having no idea what to do or how to control the situation. So I like to arm myself with all sorts of information whenever we go anywhere … just in case we find ourselves in a horrific travel-induced situation we have a backup plan, you know? Of course, then we DO have a terrific story to tell afterwards. Like that time we got stuck in Dallas …

ARGH! I’m getting sidetracked again. I’m having trouble staying on target today. I have so much on my mind right now I’m having trouble compartmentalizing it. (Whew, that was a long word to type).

SO, WE’RE IN THE TRAVEL SECTION AT BARNES AND NOBLE. And we’re looking at the half million travel guides to Washington D.C. Now we have a fresh problem, which one do we want to shell out $20 bucks for? They all look the same. I pick out the “Unofficial Guide to Washington D.C.”

handbook and start flipping through it. I’m liking the tips I’ve seen thus far when my husband holds up a book, his face animated and eager and says, “Let’s get this one. It has pictures!”

*SIGH*

I swear, men are such children sometimes. So, in my consoling mom voice I say, “That’s great honey. But does it have any useful information in it?”

He shrugs and like a dejected puppy who has been denied his favorite chew toy, he reluctantly puts it back on the shelf. He nods to the book I’m holding, “I’ve heard the Unofficial Guides are pretty good.”

And I have to admit, I like the tone of the book. It’s informative, but not stuffy and I really dig the little tips sprinkled throughout the book.

We buy it. And I’LL be the one to read it because you see, there are too many words for my husband. He requires … visual aids when he reads. *cough*

I devoured half the book last night. And I would have finished it if I my family hadn’t physically pried my butt from my chair and forced me to go to bed.

It was fascinating. I learned so many things about Washington D.C. that information is oozing from my ears and dribbling down my neck. For instance, here are some fun facts:

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