Today was mostly a day with just Russ and me. We decided that we would try to do things that the girls probably would not be as interested in doing. We left the Hostel to go to the National Mall. Ironically, Russ, who prides himself on having a great since of direction, was off by 90 degrees for most of the day. He kept thinking that we were going south when we were going west, east when we were going south, etc. This wasn't solved until the sun began to get low on the horizon, providing him with a good western reference. I don't think it would have been as funny if he didn't feel so certain that we were going south.
We made a quick stop by the White House because it was kind of on our way (and I felt that it would get us into the DC spirit). Here are a couple of pictures from that:
Russ did a great job at making me look unhappy.
After that we went to the Natural History Museum. I will not bore you with additional pictures of the Hope diamond or taxidermied walruses (walri?). If you want to see examples of those things, see my posting from spring break. I will content myself with a picture of us in front of the museum:
From there we went down by the Federal Center Southwest and ate lunch at a local deli. Then it was off to the Air and Space Museum. There I didn't take many pictures (I might get some from Russ later), but we had fun walking around looking at everything. I hadn't been there since my mission, but I still felt like the guide since I have the Mechanical Engineering background.
It was fun to have someone to show around the exhibits, and I hope that Russ didn't get frustrated by my incessant commentary. I think we both enjoyed it. By this time it was about 5:30. We decided to walk around a little and found out that most of the other museums closed at 5:30. We did spend some time in the Freer Gallery, which had an Asian art exhibit.
This is where things got interesting again. The original plan was to pick up the girls from the Dulles Airport at about 8:30 PM and then maybe get dinner or something. About 7:00, as we are headed back to the hostel to make a reservation for a Zipcar (an hourly car rental service), we got a call from Whitney. She was calling to let us know that her plane was going to be late. In the conversation, however, I found out (and Whitney realized) that she was NOT arriving at Dulles, but at BWI. This made things interesting. We then had to find out if E'leesha was also arriving there or if she was going to Dulles. We couldn't do this, however, until her plane landed because no one seemed to know which flight she was on.
Her plane landed about 8:15 and we found out that she was at BWI as well, so I made the reservation and headed out there. I wrote down directions from Google Maps so I could find my way. Stupidly though I did not bring along my map. I got out to the airport just fine. I made it there by 10:00, picked up the girls, and then got back onto the Baltimore Washington Parkway. The way back was a little more complicated because the girls are staying down in Arlington, VA. I'm not familiar with that area. It's probably easiest if I describe it using maps. Here is how we were supposed to go:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Baltimore+Washington+Int'l+Airport&daddr=1500+Arlington+Blvd,+Arlington,+VA+22209+to:1050+17th+St+NW,+Washington,+DC+20036&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&sll=38.894173,-77.064757&sspn=0.027723,0.06609&ie=UTF8&ll=38.901721,-76.983261&spn=0.221761,0.528717&z=12
And this is how we ended up going:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=Baltimore+Washington+Int'l+Airport&daddr=Pennsylvania+Ave+SE+%4038.876290,+-76.976860+to:Pennsylvania+Ave+SE+%4038.868917,+-76.959515+to:38.824463,-77.016392+to:1500+Arlington+Blvd,+Arlington,+VA+22209+to:1050+17th+St+NW,+Washington,+DC+20036&hl=en&geocode=1877406973472349442,38.876290,-76.976860%3B17620546173300651621,38.868917,-76.959515&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mrsp=3&sz=13&via=1,2,3&sll=38.873394,-76.986694&sspn=0.110925,0.264359&ie=UTF8&ll=38.8913,-77.037163&spn=0.221794,0.528717&z=12
Basically, we ended up missing a turn and since I didn't have my map, I couldn't really correct it. We ended up driving in circles for a while, got on the right road, thought it was the wrong road, went onto the wrong road, figured out too late that it was the wrong road, ended up on the beltway, got off somewhere in Alexandria. From there I knew that, in general, Arlington was north of Alexandria, so we went north. It turned out to be a good road because it took us almost exactly where we needed to go.
So I got the girls to their hotel, and we got to take a scenic route through historic Alexandria. I then got the Zipcar back 7 minutes before my reservation expired. It was a fun night. Well, I should go to bed. We are having breakfast at Eastern Market tomorrow morning.
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