Unfortunately, my wifi access has been sketchy at best in our hotel room in Washington,D.C. On the one hand, it’s rather irritating because we’re staying at a very nice hotel that ought to be able to provide decent access. On the other hand, we are on a vacation of sorts (even though Annette and I are both working quite a bit), and we at least have the iPhones. I actually started this post on my iPhone, and thanks to it, I have been able to check my mail, post a few things on Facebook, etc. But it looks like I’m going to have either wait until I get home, get better internet access, or figure something else out before I can upload any significant amount of photos to Flickr.
The short version of the trip to date:
- We’re taking it mainly because we can. This is the first time ever in which our break from EMU lined up with Will’s teaching. Since we didn’t have a parental visit of obligation and since we had been in warmer climes this past Christmas, we decided to take a family trip our own.
- Our first stop was in middle of no-where, Pennsylvania. Light snow the whole time, which added that extra wang to driving on the turnpike.
- The first day, Will had a fever just around 102 or so. I’m happy to say (skipping ahead a bit) he recovered fine, though it made for a bad day and a half for him.
- Went to dinner ridiculously early on Monday because of travel, a sick kid, and generally tired parents. Had Ethiopian food at what I swear was the same restaurant where Annette (who was just pregnant with Will) and I had with some Southern Oregon folks when I was working for them way back when. Good stuff, and, in another weirdo twist, we ran into an Ypsi neighbor/friend of sorts. The person in question does lobbying/environmental activism stuff in Michigan and comes to D.C. on a regular basis. It was a weird and small world event.
- We were awoken last night by what I thought was a group of young and drunk people but which Annette thought was an angry couple arguing. Other than that and the sketchy internet service (which seems like it works better early in the morning), it’s been a nice place to stay.
- Got up unnecessarily early to get to our previously reserved U.S. Capitol tour, which was also unnecessary– the reservation, that is. The place wasn’t empty, but close. We got a chance to help break in the posh new Capitol visitor center, which opened this past December.
- The Capitol tour was so-so. The group was too big, the tour guide not very good, it included lousy audio equipment, and you didn’t really see much. The intro movie in the new visitor center was pretty good, and the highlight was our tour ran into Speaker of the House Nancy Poloski on the way back to her office.
- We went to the Natural History Museum, which was a must for Will but kinda boring for me, personally. Seen one dinosaur, seen ’em all.
- Went to the American History Museum, which I think I enjoyed more than the rest of the group. They did a nice job restoring the “original” flag that inspired the “Star Spangled Banner,” and I very much enjoyed seeing Julia Child’s kitchen.
- By this point, we had walked for what seemed like 12 or 15 miles, so we took a cab to the Lincoln Memorial/Viet Nam War Memorial area. Both were very nice, of course, but also over-run with high school kids.
- Got to a metro, grabbed a quick bite at an okay Irish pub (Annette had her last bit of chocolately goodness before giving up sugar for “lent”), came back to the hotel, watched Obama, who was speaking that evening very close to where we were this morning.