November Getaway Part I: NY-Washington, DC

I’ve found that two marks of a good vacation are 1) you are ready to go home and 2) you don’t feel you need a vacation to recover from your vacation.  While I can’t honestly say that I’m ready to be home, I do feel refreshed and that I won’t need to “recover” from this time away. 

We ran away on Thursday of last week and spent the evening with Emrys’ mom and family friends for dinner.  It was a wonderful time of delicious food and story-telling.  Friday we meandered down to the Reston, VA area and visited with a couple we knew in passing while we were at Fuller and since have connected with recently over topics of life, family and new babies that are expected within weeks of each other.  It was a wonderfully relaxed drive and we ended up in a shopping mall so I could walk out the kinks in my back and so we could finish up some Christmas shopping. 

After a wonderful evening of visiting and a great night’s sleep we were off to do some sight-seeing in Washington DC.  I hadn’t been to DC in, well, a very long time. I know we went when I was in 5^th or 6^th grade but I’m not sure if I’ve been back since.  I have a vague recollection of a week there in college but I think most of my time was spent interviewing for post-undergrad jobs, not sightseeing. 

Any-who, we met up with one of Emrys’ friends from McGill for lunch then it was off to wander the town.  I tried to keep up but ended up crying “uncle”.  Carrying around the Kid in the belly took a lot more energy than I planned on.  So I hiked it from the train station, to lunch, to the White House

to the Washington Monument, to the WWII Memorial, 

and to the Vietnam Memorial. 

I didn’t spend much time closely inspecting the sights.  Instead, I’d sit in the middle, soak up the warm fall day and the sights, while Emrys went off to do the close inspection and photos.

The warm fall day gave way to a crazy down-pour that was kind enough to start while I was making one of my many restroom stops.  So we waited for it to pass and wandered through the drizzle to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.  The Smithsonian Institute had recently finished a remodel/restoration/update of the museum and the finished product was pretty neat.  After a stop in the snack-bar for a brownie and milk (really, really good brownies!), we explored the exhibits on ocean life (giant jellyfish model)

 and geology (lots of really cool formations).

            By the time we were finished with those exhibits, I was done.  So we headed for the train station (where Emrys took this photo of the Post Office building)

and took the train back to our car and headed south towards Richmond, with only one stop on the way.  Romano’s Macaroni Grill – one of my favorite chain Italian restaurants that doesn't do business in our neck of the woods!

~sjt