2020-01-19 Sunday
Expected to arrive in DC around 3pm, but flight delays and problems in both Toronto and Montreal meant that we didn’t arrive until 10 pm, 7 hours late. By this time, the Metro was shutting down and we had missed our first walking tour (Scandals).
Uber and Lombardy hotel were both awesome.
2020-01-20 Monday
Up early in order to make it to Library and Capitol buildings tour. An hour walk in -3 degrees and wind. We were 10 minutes early, and then as everyone else was 10 minutes late we had started to think that the tour wasn’t going to happen. Then Dan showed up, and a few more customers.
We all froze outdoors for the first portion of the walking tour. I think we were dressed okay for walking, but standing/sitting in the breeze was chilling. Dan was enthusiastic and fun and knowledgeable. We listened to stories as we quickly walked past the Capitol buildings, then the Supreme Court. Finally, we made our way indoors into the Library of Congress. Warmth. Amazingly ornate. Once indoors, we stayed there, and took the tunnel over into the Capitol buildings, where Dan got tickets for us, and passed us to the “RedCoats” for a tour of the old Supreme Court in the basement, then through the rotunda? with paintings, then the statues.
On our own, we visited Union Station for lunch, then made our way back down the mall to the Holocast Museum. Sobering. We just completed the walk by 5 when the whole thing shutdown. Back out into the cold, and the long walk in the darkening evening.
For dinner, we walked across the street to Indian?
2020-01-21 Tuesday
We did some last minute juggling of our schedule in order to meet up with Graham for lunch, moving the Georgetown visit to the afternoon. We once again wandered the town, basically heading to the Capitol building, hoping to see some impeachment activity. But all was calm, at least on the outside.
We visited the Botanical Gardens, which were a tropical paradise, especially as we came in from the cold. Lots of nannies, each with lots of kids in tow used this place to let kids burn off energy. Still nice to be there.
Met up with Graham at the lobby of the Spy Museum, which is also in Plaza de L’Enfant. We ate in the food court in the basement. I like PotBelly’s?
Time to take the Metro to Georgetown. We purchased cards, and got on board. Easy, fast and cheap. Georgetown had opted NOT to get a subway station, so we actually got off at Foggy Bottom, which was also the station closest to our hotel. We ignored that, and headed to a Starbuck’s in Georgetown: we needed to download an audio tour for Georgetown. The only option was one which was more of a neighborhood walk, around famous people’s houses. Worth doing, and different. My phone battery died, so I was guideless for the 2nd half. Then, as things got darker, we walked to the waterfront, looked at the ice rink, and then walked back to our hotel.
The Bier Baron? Comedy club provided dinner and entertainment. It was definately amateur night. But the food was excellent (bar food, but excellent), and the comedians were many and varied. A good evening.
2020-01-22 Wednesday
Our Enterprise car rental was short walk away. Staff was EXTREMELY pleasant and helpful. Car was a new Chevy Spark, small and ideal for what we wanted. Bringing my own GPS is always worth it. The drive out of DC was extra easy because we exited the garage right onto 14th, and just headed south. 14th street just became the highway we wanted to be on.
Lots of time at Potomac Mills. Then drove to Tyson’s Corner for more shopping, and a visit to the Tesla demo location.
There was no way we were going to make it before 6 to drop off the rental car, so we resigned ourselves to taking our time. We picked a nearby Olive Garden for food, which was pretty much as expected. Parking the car and actually getting in to the restaurant was the biggest challenge.
We found a spot to park the car just in front of the hotel. Only issue was that we would have to move the car before 7 am. Tomorrow’s problem.
2020-01-23 Thursday
I was up early to return the rental car. Quick and easy, and I enjoyed my walk back to the hotel with my Gregory’s coffee.
And then it was time for our trek across town, this time to the NPR studios. This time we walked through some rougher parts of town. And we were a little early, so spent 45 minutes in Starbuck’s.
The NPR tour was excellent, we learned stuff, and even got to take some pictures in Studio 42, which was predicted to be closed because of impeachment coverage. As we left the building, we could here the live impeachment broadcast being played over internal speakers.
We had time to take a quick look in the Nasa Aerospace museum, but it was pretty much 2/3 closed for majore renovations. Essentially nothing new since I had visited 15 years ago, in spite of massive changes and advances by SpaceX.
Then down into the Metro and wait for the silver line out to Reston. Again, clean, cheap and fast. Graham picked us up and delivered us to the Staybridge Hotel Chantilly (nice suites, perfectly located for us), where we met up with Alison and Peter and Joyce. Next was dinner at the Charcoal Kebab where Stephanie and Julianne joined us. Good food, good company.
2020-01-24 Friday
We had most of a day to spend doing something. This turned out to be Kohls for extra wedding attire, then Thai Basil for lunch, then Sully Plantation, then Kohls again.
And then it was time for the rehearsal dinner. It was a fun time meeting the wedding party. It has been 15 years since we saw anyone.
2020-01-25 Saturday
We had a few hours after breakfast and before we had to appear at the wedding. We chose to have a smoked meat sandwich, at Santini’s?, which was SO close to our hotel that we were all embarrassed to have driven to it. Gas and the pharmacy visit probably took more time than our meal.
We had to rush to get dressed for the wedding. And then I drove to the wrong location on the GPS. But, Alison with Google Maps soon had us turned around and we were actually had 7 minutes so spare.
Reception was close by, and was a lot of fun. After some time, I took Peter and Joyce back to the hotel before the meal itself. That way the younger generation (60-ish year olds) could hang around later.
2020-01-26 Sunday
We were up very early (3.15) for our Uber into Ronald Reagan Airport. Much more relaxing when you can book a scheduled pickup with UberX. Very quick, very pleasant. But AirCanada wasn’t ready for us. We had to stand around for half an hour waiting for staff to arrive, just so we could check in our bags. But after that, things went quickly, as we were pushed to the front of the security line. And we went through the fastest, briefest security check ever. Not complaining.
The flight left 30 minutes late, for no reason that I could see. The flight was almost empty. During our transfer in Toronto, we caused even more confusion as we rushed through Toronto immigration and then exited through a wrong door. We seemed to be in a glass box without an exit. So we opened and walked through a door we shouldn’t have. Luckily, some observant security guard called us back and pointed us in the right direction, and to a bus to another terminal. All was good, and we had plenty of time to catch our flight.
We arrived in Saskatoon before noon and Keiran picked us up. Our bags made it just fine too! 🙂
Peter and Joyce spent the whole day driving , and made it back to Florida the same day.
