Jim, Katie, Katie's friend Maggie and I are in Washington, D.C. to visit Andy and Megan. We arrived Wednesday night. The girls are staying with the kids and Jim and I are at a local Comfort Inn since Andy and Megan don't have a guest bed in their townhouse. There was a heck of a storm at 6 Thursday morning, with thunder, lightening and heavy rain. We heard 3 separate car alarms going off from the thunder-boomers.
Thursday the four of us went down to the city (Andy and Megan live in Gaithersburg, MD) for the day while Andy and Megan went to work. Jim and I went to the Mall to photograph the WWII Memorial for my dad's book while the girls did their thing, and then we met up after lunch at the Holocaust Museum. Wow - what can you so about that museum? Doesn't seem right to say I "enjoyed" the museum, but I can say unequivocally that it is very sobering and thought-provoking. After that we went to the Smithsonian Visitor's Center as I had always admired the brick castle-like appearance of the building but had never been in it. It is beautiful inside, and we also found some great ice cream. Good pick-me-up on a really hot afternoon. We also hit the Air and Space Museum before heading back towards the train. Unfortunately it began to pour, so we ducked under a building overhang for a bit. It was a soggy 45 minute train ride back to the Shady Grove Station where we had parked Andy's car.
Friday Andy took half a day off, so we drove first to Georgetown to try to score some Georgetown Cupcakes (made famous from the cable show DC Cupcakes), and found a several block long line waiting to get in. Passing on that idea we went on to Alexandria to have lunch at one of Andy's favorite restaurants. We stopped at the Jefferson and Roosevelt Memorials on our way back. While the day was cloudy and not great for picture-taking, it was pretty cool with a nice breeze. This time we hit the Georgetown Cupcake location in Bethesda about 4:30. There was still a long line at this location and it took us 40 minutes to get our dozen cupcakes. Wow - people here haven't heard that cupcakes are "out". I will say that the cupcakes are very good, but they have a cream cheese frosting, which is not my favorite. Pretty much ruined the cupcake for me.
Yesterday was spent at Gettysburg. Unfortunately we had to take 2 cars since there are 6 of us, and it is about 1.5 hours from their house to the visitors' center. We spent 4 hours driving the auto route, and it was fascinating! Again we had a gray day, but it was a comfortable temperature. Beats the heck out of the 97 degree temps back home. Today we intended to go to Mount Vernon, but it is very rainy again. Since it is nearly 2 hours away, we didn't want to gamble on doing a walking tour in the rain. We are going to play Yahtzee instead. Jim flies home at 6:55 today to rescue the dog-sitter, so we can't go too far anyway. The girls and I are coming home Tuesday.
On a side note, the storm I mentioned on Thursday apparently resulted in a lot of damage in Gaithersburg. A fairly significant number of people were without power. Lightening struck a tree which crashed on top of an apartment complex and caught on fire. At our hotel are a number of refugees from the complex. It has been heart-wrenching to listen to their stories in the breakfast room each morning. Today the Red Cross arrived as it sounds like the people have only been given rooms through tonight.
1 comment:
Wow, so many adventures you've had in such a short time. Sounds like fun, and I would have eaten that cream cheese frosting. My favorite.
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