-| Vacation Time... Once Again|-
[Needing a break after the break]
Vacation 2002 - Now I need a getaway to get over this getaway. Talk about a full 10 days. And I should follow the advice of Babbs, whoever she is.
Once again, it was time for vacation. Like many vacations before this one, Tim went too. We visited friends in Maryland; so we had the opportunity to hit a few nearby spots - Baltimore, Washington DC, and Philadelphia.
While we were waiting for our flight, we got bored so Tim and I decided to have the information desks page us to meet at different locations: "Tim, please meet Aaron at the Newsstand" or "Aaron please meet Tim by the courtesy phone". That was short lived as far as keeping us occupied.
On the flight, Tim wanted to use the Air Phone to call everyone he knew -but wanted to use my credit card; needless to say- that did not happen. So we wasted some time looking at SkyMall magazine (it's the one that has the same type of stuff as the Sharper Image catalogs). It was like watching a little kid looking at the Toys R Us big toy catalog at Christmas. He played with the lights and air nozzle above us for a few minutes, then he got bored and managed to disappear.
While he was gone, I worked on filling out the crossword puzzle in the airline magazine with a bunch of wrong answers, but still coordinated it so the downs and across answers all worked out. At a glance, nobody would notice; until they tried to fill out the remaining squares or read the clues. Eventually, Tim came back to inform me he had been up in First Class. [Thanks for leaving me in coach with the guy with the phlegm problem clearing his throat every fifteen seconds and the kid with his feet on the back of my seat.] At some point in there we had to catch a connecting flight, but exactly where in those events that was is irrelevant enough to leave it out.
We arrived at night and stopped at a diner for a meal, then drove to our friends' home. Cheers to Map Quest for providing us with good directions because the ones they gave us on the phone were pretty bad. We spent the first day there just kind of sitting around and talking. It was raining anyway so that was probably not a bad idea.
When we went to DC, we rented a car so that there was plenty of room for everyone to sit comfortably. It was a weekday, so finding parking proved to be a bit of a problem. Tim was driving, and he had been to DC before. He was looking for a parking lot or garage that had "all-day parking". The people we were with were complaining adamantly about driving around and insisted he just park. They pointed out every street-side parallel parking space; most of which are not intended for all-day parking. Finally, he gets annoyed and just parks the car in one of these spots.
The sign suggested, "four hour parking from 9:30 am - 4:00 p.m.", said our self-appointed navigator. The importance of all of this comes into play later, so keep it in mind. Although I could hear it, most of this semi-heated discussion was missed by me since I was unloading the trunk gathering the cameras and passing them out; getting everyone a water bottle and passing the jackets to those that felt they needed them. [I felt this was kind of unnecessary at 70-75 degrees -- I've never seen anybody be 'freezing' at 70 degrees F in my life.]
To my dismay, we did not plan out a schedule for anything; so everywhere we went, we wasted 15-20 minutes or more debating the best order to see everything. This alone was enough to drive me crazy. Just make a decision. Should we get on the bus? Should we walk? Do you want to go to Arlington first? We have all day to go there, lets see the other stuff. What about ... Should we go... What do you think about?... I finally said, "Well, lets just walk to the Lincoln Memorial and at least get started."
Granted, a person can typically walk around DC all day, see nearly everything, and it's not too bad. My knee held up okay, but it was a little sore towards the end of the day. We walked to the Lincoln Memorial. It was bigger than I realized, and I think it is among my favorite sites, along with the Vietnam Memorial; which just really leaves me speechless. After that we walked to the Washington Monument, which is up a hill. Although it is not steep, my knee at this point was feeling some stress.
I started to worry about the car, and suggested we go back and move it before 2:00, which would be four hours into the four-hour parking. Tim was apparently still annoyed and said he didn't care if they towed the damned car; he wasn't going to move it no matter what.
We stopped at this little concession stand to eat something; dried out hot dogs, chips and watery soda. I've had worse, but I was hungry so it worked. We discussed the tour bus option again. We get to the booth where you purchase tickets and it was closed. We were told we could purchase tickets directly from the driver. We sit around for another fifteen minutes. The bus arrives. One of our group exclaims "eighteen dollars for an all day pass?" To me she sounded like she didn't want (or maybe didn't have) this type of money to spend on an all-day bus pass when half the day was gone already. So I suggested that maybe we should just walk.
We walked two miles to the Capitol Building, then up Pennsylvania Avenue another mile and a quarter to the White House, stopping so Tim could take pictures of the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building. Then we headed back. It was about a mile back to the car; which had been moved from its spot to the median.
Our co-travelers started to comment on the ticket on the windshield, which I walked around and grabbed before they could. Tim asked me for it later and I gave it to him. Our cost for them to drag our car less than five feet was $100. Just for them to move the car out of the way so they could make the parking area into a lane [imagine that]?
Then we discussed some more about where we were going; and all 3 of them said we were just going home before getting in the car. Tim was checking the rental car for damage by the tow truck so he missed it when they got in the car and announced we were going to go to Arlington. He got in and started in the direction of their house. They started yelling about where he was going and acted like he ignored them or something. At this point I started considering pretending to be asleep so they wouldn't talk to me. So he turned around and headed to Arlington. I was in the backseat with one of our party, and one of them was up front attempting to Navigate Tim to Arlington Cemetery. They missed the exit; and Tim was going to turn around and then our co-travelers decided that it 'wasn't worth it; never mind let's just go home.' So we did.
As we were leaving DC we heard sirens, so we were looking for a place to pull over with all the traffic. Suddenly a cop jumped from nowhere in front of the car as if his mere presence would cause a gravitational shift and push us off the road. A small convoy of maroon SUVs with police escort passed by and the cop put his "stop" hand down, and turned around and walked towards his motorcycle. Now, would you sit there and wait all day or would you assume it's safe for you to get back on the road? We assumed the latter; and slowly started to pull out on the road. After all, the cop was not even looking at us anymore. Suddenly, he ran towards us and barked, “STOP!” which we did, and he got on his bike shanking his head and zipped away. [Whatever that was about].
I did really enjoy seeing DC; one day I want to go back so I can have an itinerary and I am sure I will enjoy it more. I just like to know ahead of time what type of schedule I am on. Spontaneity is ok to a point but there is a fine line between it and mass disorganization.
The next daytrip was to Philadelphia. We got a late start, once again because the people we were visiting took an hour and a half to get ready every morning. I tried to eliminate some of this downtime by showering the night before and gathering all of the needed supplies for the day; but this didn't seem to speed anything up for them... hour and a half just as before. The forecast predicted showers so I placed two umbrellas in the carry bag our hostess seemed to take everywhere we went; letting her know they were in there in case it did rain. We get there, find parking relatively quickly [Thank God]; and walk only two blocks to the Zoo.
As we entered the zoo, our hostess informed me that she left the umbrellas in the trunk because she took them out of the bag to get her jacket, which my pessimistic mind; this only guaranteed we would encounter one hell of a storm. Philadelphia has a nice zoo; I enjoyed the day very much other than being rained on a couple of times. A few times the same hostess that removed the umbrellas said to me "We should have brought our umbrellas." I kept my comments to myself regarding all of that.
On the way home we stopped for Mexican Food at a place called Don Pablo's. Where the mild Poblano is used [as it is traditional] for Chili Rellenos. They are not really hot; but the person that ordered them kept saying it was too spicy. The food was good and we headed home full and sleepy.
Next, we toured the Baltimore Inner Harbor and the National Aquarium [at Baltimore]. I think this was my favorite leg of the trip. Maybe it's the kid in me; but I loved the Aquarium. I didn't know they had that many types of seahorses. I enjoyed the dolphin show immensely. We ate both lunch and dinner on the Inner Harbor; which has a little shopping center / mall area. By the time we were ready to go home it was dark and we were all pretty well exhausted.
We also spent a day on the Boardwalk at the beach and ate seafood at a restaurant there. I got a huge order of steamed food. I was pretty stuffed but ate it all. I've never been one to let shellfish go to waste. One of the ladies that was with us ordered a salad with blue cheese dressing - on the side. When the dressing came on the side in a plastic container [the disposable kind with the little plastic top]. She then commented on how ”tacky” that was, and proceeded to put the dressing on her salad. Then she LICKED the side of the little container where it had dripped over the edge! I was refraining from making any comments at all and trying not to laugh. Tim said, “OH that is just SO tacky!” mimicking the way she had described the salad dressing container.
After dinner we walked along the boardwalk down to where the water is. During the walk Tim was attempting to discretely shoot random pictures of any woman in a bikini with a borrowed digital camera. Most of these oddly I have not seen.
After the women were done shopping, we all got Ben and Jerry's ice cream and we were sitting on the benches facing the water; there were numerous shops behind us. A woman and her boyfriend sat on a nearby bench with pizza slices on paper plates. No sooner than we notice these people, a pack of seagulls dove from the air, attacking the woman's plate. One of the gulls grabbed a slice of pizza that was bigger than himself and flew to the waterline with it, sending the poor woman screaming and running for cover under the canopies of the stores behind us. He was then attacked by his peers as they ripped the pizza to shreds. We may just be mean but that was the funniest part of the whole trip for me.
I spent two days after returning home resting and catching up on sleep.
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02 June - perotheus.com
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