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I’ve never been a big believer in numerology (okay, I’ve never been a big believer in much of anything, really; perhaps we’ll come to that another time), but it’s difficult to deny that a substantial number of relevant things in my life seem to occur on a single day — the sixth of March. This was the day on which I first met Lauri, my perpetual bride-to-be, in person. It marks the anniversary of my employment with my masters at Dyncorp, consequently signaling a fresh supply of much-needed paid vacation time. And, it’s the birthday of my longtime good friend Karen, as well as that of my even longer-time good friend, Bob.

So yeah. March 6 is kind of an important day for me. Which doesn’t really explain why I decided that March 31 (this past Saturday) would be the best time to finally pay Bob a visit for the purpose of celebrating said birthday. I guess I figured it was my last chance at not appearing like a completely neglectful friend, in that we would at least be celebrating in the same month of his birth. Beyond my temporal ineptitude, however, was the added advantage that the long car trip would bring — another excuse to pack up a few essentials and head into the nation’s capital. These trips always provide two very important things: fun (which, believe it or not, is a rare commodity here at the edge of the world) and column fodder (which, if you haven’t noticed, has also become fairly rare of late).

So, upon bestowing a number of not-entirely-inspired gifts upon Bob (I pretty much just took the top two items off his wish list at Amazon.com, but I could have at least wrapped them, I suppose), the three of us once again made for the Metro and a fairly arbitrary destination in my favorite city. In keeping with my fierce “no planning” regimen (as I have mentioned in prior installments, planning any sort of activity for me is a guarantee that no one will have a good time), I threw my copy of The Irreverent Guide to Washington DC Bobward and instructed him to choose an endpoint.

Attempting to capture the spirit of adventure about which I’d rambled on last time, Bob turned to a page at random, and came up with a hotel. He tried again, this time finding a restaurant. Finally, I conceded him some freedom of choice, asking that he only find someplace indoors and easily accessible from a Metro stop. (Bob does all his traveling with public transportation, and consequently is a very poor judge of what is too long a distance to walk. While it’s true that Steven Wright once said “everywhere is walking distance of you have the time,” he was trying to be funny, and my feet are the one section of my body containing no sense of humor whatsoever.) He quickly came up with the National Geographic Hall of Explorers, which sounded good to Lauri and me.

One thing I didn’t particularly have much interest in was the city’s somewhat-famous cherry blossom parade. While I will freely admit a certain aesthetic attraction to these botanical accoutrements, the simple fact of the matter is that parades annoy me. Any activity that involves hundreds (or more) of people packed tightly together to watch something they’ve already seen thousands of times already (“look! A horse!”) just doesn’t strike me as exciting. We did get to gawk at some genuine cherry blossoms on the three-block walk to the museum, though, and that was certainly sufficient enough celebration for me.

DC’s famous cherry blossoms

As we approached the building, the first thing that struck me were really cool flat screen TVs imbedded in the frosted glass windows. The second thing that struck me was the fact that these screens — a pleasant meld of technology and decoration — weren’t displaying anything particularly National Geographicy. They were displaying, for reasons that continue to elude me, Kenny Rogers.

Now, granted, I’ve been out of the National Geographic loop for a long time (a few years ago, I finally worked up the nerve to ask my grandmother to stop renewing the gift subscription that was doing little more in my home than support wobbly tables), but I can safely say that in the decade or so that I received the magazine, The Gambler never made a single appearance. I have nothing against The Other Mr. Rogers, personally — he represents a time when country music was actually somewhat palatable, rather than the hopeless mesh of generica that it is today — but his pixilated presence didn’t sit well with me outside an institution of learning. I smelled corporate sponsorship of some kind — but fortunately for me, I’ve been having sinus problems of late, and the smell was nothing more than an olfactory false alarm.

The first exhibit as you walk inside the Hall of Explorers involves dinosaurs, which is a really clever feat of arrangement on the part of National Geographic if you consider that their toughest sell is to six-year-old boys. Six-year-old boys, as most of you probably already know, are pretty bored by pretty much anything not ending in –saur or –saurus. So the very prominent models and videos pertaining to everyone’s favorite prehistoric thunder lizards served to snatch in the restless snot machines and give them what they really want.

In fact, around first grade or so, I, like all six-year-old boys, was utterly obsessed with dinosaurs. And it troubles me to no end that someone in the paleontological community seems to be out to spoil the whole deal. When I was little, my favorite dinosaur was the pterodactyl, followed closely by the brontosaurus. Now, a scarce two decades later, neither of these formidable creatures exist. In their places are the pteranadon and the apatosaurus, standing (or, in the pteranadon’s case, flying) aside such newcomers as the sinosauropteryx.

And sure, the part of me that gets really excited about evolutionary science loves the whole “dinosaurs evolved into birds” thing, but the six year old boy in me can’t help thinking how this new way of thinking is really taking some of the threat away. Giant lizards are scary — think Godzilla. Who ever got scared of a giant bird? Hell, when I was six, a giant yellow bird from a place called Sesame Street was one of my best friends. Ask yourself: would the Children’s Television Workshop ever introduce a character named “big lizard”? Of course not! It’d be too scary. And that’s all I’m trying to say.

Among the dinosaur exhibit (which admittedly was a little thin compared to the one over at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum) stood a fascinating little interactive display, which allowed a person to “virtually dig” for fossils using a large touchpad and a video monitor. I waited for easily ten minutes to try it out, but a couple of six year olds were hogging it, and their parents kept shooting me evil glares anytime I leaned forward in hopes of getting a closer look. I can’t wait to have kids, because if it’s anything like what I’ve observed so far, you pretty much have carte blanche to be as rude and inconsiderate to whomever you want for no real reason whatsoever.

So I moved on to the next little electronic kiosk — a very cool mapping machine. Maps are, of course, what put the “geographic” in National Geographic, but who would have ever thought that they’d offer this technology to the unwashed masses? Using something called USGS (which, if I’m not mistaken, is a global positioning system of sorts), it pinpoints a location anywhere on the planet and produces a very high-quality printout of that location for you. And though the information on my map was a little outdated — the townhouses in my neighborhood went up in the early 90s, but they’re not on here yet — I was still astounded by the detail. I was even able to pick out a little dot that represented the house in which I grew up. No doubt some paranoid person out there is terrified by the idea that anyone walking into a public museum can get a map of their house and the surrounding area, but I was more impressed by the fact that this minor cartographic masterpiece, normally $7.95, was free today. I guess I’m just easily amused.

Moving on, we came to more interactive electronic displays, these detailing the amazingly boring world under the sea. I hate to ruin the hopes of pro-technology educators, but I can safely say that, even with holograms and touchscreen video, I don’t find myself even remotely interested in fish. I felt a little guilty about this, as obviously quite a bit of time and money had gone into putting these things here, but fish are fish. And if I wanted to look at a realistic 3D fish, I’d spend a quarter and bring one home in a little plastic bag.

Touchscreen simulation of the fascinating world beneath the ocean.

But make no mistake — this exhibit was cool, if you’re into that sort of thing. I’m just not.

We passed a life-size model of a bathysphere (Lauri: “look, a dorm!”) and headed into another section that didn’t particularly interest me — native African tribal stuff. Primitive drum beats wafted in from the ceiling and we found ourselves surrounded by stuff that I could have made by hand around the time that my interest in dinosaurs was peaking.

Yes, this is what it looks like. No, I’m not going to make it worse with a joke. Ow.

When you think about it, I suppose this stuff is really what National Geographic has always been about — naked natives and so forth. (Though I understand they’ve toned down the nudity, canceling out that one mainstay of the horny teenager once and for all.) I understand why it was there, and I suppose I can appreciate it on a certain level, but I just can’t seem to get interested in it.

Granted, Lauri did come up with an interesting take on all this stuff, wondering aloud if other cultures had displays of our “tribal costumes” and descriptions of our “bizarre customs” in their museums. Picture a crowd of African tourists gawking at a baseball cap or trying to make sense of N’SYNC. Now that’s funny.

Seperated at birth? Proof beyond positive that Star Trek transcends all cultural boundaries.

Having covered one entire wing of the building, we made our way to the other side and found, much to our chagrin, that it was temporarily closed. Bob told me that there’s an enormous globe in there, but I guess I’ll just have to take his word for it. They’re probably repainting it or something, to keep up with those ever-changing former Soviet republics.

I’ve always thought pennies were the most useless things on the planet. So I don’t even need to make a wish — being one penny lighter is reward enough.

Believing our tour to be prematurely ended, we were a little disheartened, but we were then heartened (?) again to discover that there was more in an adjacent building. We crossed a really cool courtyard with a stream and some big rocks (it’s prettier than I make it sound — physical descriptiveness has never been one of my strong points as a writer, I’m afraid) and entered the building with all the toys.

Yes, I said toys. Some German group called the Society for Medieval Castle Science had spent what must have been years producing an intricate scale recreation of a French castle in a room that was easily the size of our entire living room, if not bigger. Literally thousands of “little men” — knights, peasants, pages, and all the rest — stormed or defended the castle. It was utterly amazing — like a Renaissance Festival in miniature (huzzah!)

Huzzah!

While part of me admired the craftsmanship and historical accuracy, a much larger part of me couldn’t help thinking how much fun it would be to play with all this stuff. When I was little, I attempted to build things like this, but all I really had was Lincoln Logs. Unfortunately, the most interesting thing you can build — okay, the only thing you can build — with Lincoln logs is a squarish log cabin. So my jealousy of these German “scientists” (yeah, okay) was understandable. Not that this made the castle any less cool.

And, again, huzzah!

After a considerable amount of gawking, closing time (and, consequently, Bob’s belated birthday meal) was drawing near. We made one last quick pass through the main building, where we browsed the gift shop a bit and I finally got a chance to “virtually dig” for dinosaur bones. I should have taken my previous experience as an omen — it wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it might be. Lauri — who, as an archaeology major, had spent an entire summer doing this sort of thing — probably could have told me as much and saved me the disappointment. But the words of your fiancée just don’t seem to make the same impact that an expensive piece of electronics can.

So that was the trip. All in all, it was pretty interesting and educational, though I found it a little disheartening that we blew through in about two hours. Places like this generally balance out the things that bore me with things that fascinate me a great deal, but with a good 50% of the museum unavailable, I was unable to put this ratio into practical use. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable — though I suppose once you’ve been to the National Postal Museum, it can’t possibly get any more dull.

I’ve always wondered how a writer can tell when he’s having a mid-life crisis. Most writers I’ve known about (or have actually known personally) are temperamental bastards, constantly examining and reevaluating their own place in the grand scheme of things. And so it is with me. (For the sake of this particular discussion, I’m going to include myself in that same group of perspective chameleons – don’t take that as the belief that I belong in the same category as actual writers.) Every year or so – sometimes two or even three times a year – I enter a slump, followed by some grand epiphany that is somehow meant to change my life for the better from that point forward. I’ve given up trying to explain how or why these things happen. They’re just an inevitable part of my life’s cycle.

This go-round, I “discovered” (I include the quotes to emphasize the fact that this is hardly a new discovery for me or anyone else) that I just needed to let go a little. Deadlines and boundaries were keeping me back – the constant feeling that I had to reach a goal at all costs was constantly overwhelming me, not to mention stealing away that very sensation that was the whole point of writing (or living for that matter) in the first place – fun.

So it was my intention to stop obsessing over where I was going and just try to enjoy getting there. So far, this idea has served me well creatively (ironically, the minute I stopped obsessing over deadlines was the minute I started writing more than I had in a long time), and it only made sense that I kept it in mind as I attempted to resurrect one of the many abandoned concepts I’d begun awhile back – travel writing. Specifically, the gradual exploration and cataloguing of Washington DC, my favorite city.

This freestyling attitude is one I certainly could have used in my previous visits to the nation’s capital. My last official dispatch was nearly a year ago, though there have been a few failed attempts – mercifully never retold in these pages – in the meantime. This past September, for instance, Lauri and I visited the National Archives building where they keep the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. We easily spent more time circling around the Mall and surrounding environs in search of a parking space than we did in the building itself. And when we did finally make it in, we discovered Disney-like lines snaking out the door and pushy curators that insisted you keep the line moving and not try to do anything like stop and read these sacred documents. (The paranoid part of my brain insists this is because the Constitution contains a series of hidden amendments that They don’t want us to see.) In short, it was a waste of a day, even for me. And I’m the sort of person who would normally love spending a day just staring at a few old pieces of parchment.

Then, in mid-November (on the anniversary of our Las Vegas odyssey), my friend Dave came out to visit from California. While it was great to see him, I can safely say that this particular few days stands as the supreme example of how not to plan a vacation. Due to a combination of my obsession over details (almost all of which fell through) and lack of forethought where it really would have mattered (having a sufficient amount of cash on me, for instance), we ended up spending two solid days in the Air and Space Museum (which all of us except Dave had seen a hundred times already) and not doing a whole heck of a lot else. Dave insists he had a good time, but I insist it would have been a thousand times better had I only employed the proper mindset.

And it was the recent surfacing of this mindset that had me convinced that I had finally stumbled on exactly the right formula to properly pull off a day trip to DC. As I mulled the idea over, I found myself filled with an oddly inspirational sensation. We should make this a monthly thing, carried in the spirit of…

…well, I haven’t been able to effectively communicate the exact spirit yet. Sort of like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, without the drugs. Or Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, without the intergalactic travel. In short, an adventure. A lightly packed backpack containing only the essentials (map, water, contact lens fluid, Altoids, etc.), a small amount of cash and above all, no plan. Essentially, trying to go wherever the day takes us. Lauri seemed game, as did our friend Bob, who lives on the far side of DC.

Part of what makes an outing like this more doable now, as opposed to a year ago, is the fact that the DC Mass Transit Authority finally saw fit to build a Metro station that didn’t involve my leaving the state to get to it. Metro, for the uninitiated, is the greatest public train system in the country– possibly in the world. It’s clean, it’s fast and it’s relatively cheap. And now, the green line drops off only about an hour from our home. That may seem like a lot to you, but you probably don’t live in southern Maryland, where anything good is at least fifty miles away. In relative terms, this is practically right outside our backyard.

Lauri, on one of the Metro’s many terrifying escalators.

Better still, the ride from the new Branch Avenue station to Union Station (smack dab in the center of DC, site of one of our previous expeditions and the established place we intended to meet Bob) took all of twenty minutes. So not only did we shave a little time off our drive, but we got free parking, all-day passes for $5 apiece, and no sense that we had to stay close to the car. Already, Fate was doing its best to facilitate the carefree feeling to which I was aspiring.

After meeting Bob and having a quick lunch at Johnny Rockets (the cholesterol-laden 50s-themed burger joint we enjoyed so much a year or so ago, where we even had the good fortune of getting the same adorable waitress again), we detoured momentarily into a book store and then headed out into the city for the grand adventure. I don’t think my travel companions were still clear on the concept, so I tried my best to lead the way without being pushy. It didn’t take long for me to spot the most perfect starting point for our expedition– the National Postal Museum!

This was an actual display at the NPS, so keep your smartass comments to yourself.

The NPS turned out to be nearly everything a branch of the Smithsonian should be – clean, inviting, high-tech and free. When I say “nearly” everything, note that what it’s missing is anything remotely interesting. Easily millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on this place, and it’s exactly what you’d think the National Postal Museum would be – terribly dull. There are stamps, there are movies and there’s an odd fascination with a dog named Owney, who was apparently the official mascot of the Postal Service.

The preserved remains of Owney, the official mascot of the United States Postal Service.

All of this is intended to instruct visitors on one tedious subject – how your mail gets from point A to point B. They even had the “national stamp collection” – a series of pull-out drawers showing every stamp ever issued from the 1800s through today.

Bob investigates the national stamp collection.

Oddest of all is the almost overwhelming presence of staggeringly state-of-the-art technology. From holograms (the really nice kind, not those little pictures you get in Cracker Jacks) to sophisticated simulators (powerful computers that allow you to actually experience the thrill of opening junk mail – really!) to a touchscreen “plan your own postal route” map (a feat at which Bob, not surprisingly, proved extremely skilled), I’d never seen this much technology being wasted before. It almost makes you wonder if the whole venture is sponsored by Microsoft. If every public school in America had even a tenth of the cool stuff they had here, I think we’d all be a lot better off.

Bob, the route-planning genius. (I was holding the camera… hence all the pictures of Bob and Lauri.)

Then there was the obligatory media tie-in. I was hoping for “great postmen of sitcom history,” featuring Newman from Seinfeld and Cliff Claven from Cheers. Instead, it was (yawn) a Titanic exhibit. Apparently, the “RMS” in “RMS Titanic” stood for “Royal Mail Steamer,” which provided the loose connection necessary to feature Titanic memorabilia here. I loved the movie just like everyone else, but that was over three years ago. Couldn’t they find a way to tie the post office in to… I don’t know, Crouching Panda, Hidden Walrus, or something?

A giant radioactive Lauri terrorizes a large city. The illusion of this highly comical concept might actually have been pulled off had I not caught a nasty glare with the camera.

We rounded out the tour at the “print and mail a postcard to yourself” exhibit, which required you to stand there and listen to a boring lecture each time you went through it. “While you’ve been listening to this,” the pleasant electronic voice said, “your postcard has been electronically routed in about two seconds. But for the next five minutes, we’re going to explain in tedious detail how your postcard will get to your house.” Lauri quipped that the experience was rather like talking to my grandmother. I concurred. It was time to get the heck out of there.

The amazing “create and mail your own postcard” exhibit. The interest level of this display should be apparent from its obviously staggering popularity.

And leave it to the forward thinking folks at the Smithsonian to make one of the doors that leads out of the Postal Museum lead right into a bar. Since part of my vision had involved alcohol (not to mention the fact that I could really use a drink after all that), we took a detour into the adjoining bar. I guess this is where the parents of geeky stamp collecting kids hang out.

Since we returned from Vegas, everyone seems to have gotten a pretty good idea of what their “regular drink” is. Everyone, that is, but me. I’m convinced that there are certain drinks that deserve “do overs,” the most prominent of which being a martini. The last martini I had was watered down and cost about $10 too much – probably because I got it in a strip club. James Bond always looked so cool sipping one of these, and I was determined that it was just a matter of getting the right martini.

Well, if there is such a thing, the one I got wasn’t it. I ended up pulling that old tequila trick – numbing the taste buds with an overpowering flavor to slip the drink in unnoticed – but all I had that fit the bill were the Altoids. Thankfully, the curiously strong little buggers did the job. It’s a good thing, too, because I can’t imagine how much more foul the taste of vodka, vermouth and peppermint would have been.

As we sat sipping (well, they sipped; I gagged), I thought it would be a nice confidence boost for me to point out my ability to name all nine Supreme Court justices. Bob was able to name only three; Lauri came up with an additional one. I ended up not being as good at this game as I thought, and added only four more to the total. We were still missing one, and that was likely to drive me positively mad for the rest of the day.

I’m the kind of person who just can’t let this sort of thing go. I had to know who that last justice was, or the day would be ruined for me. So we ended up walking a few blocks to the Supreme Court, in hopes of finding an answer. Naturally, the place was closed on a Saturday afternoon, but that didn’t stop one lonely anti-abortion protestor from doing what he felt was his civic duty. Mostly he just stood, wielding his sign, but he had the occasional rhyming chant to call out at passersby. While I may not have agreed with the guy’s politics, I couldn’t help feeling a little bad for the guy.

Me, at the Supreme Court. Try to ignore the fact that my hair is almost completely vertical.

But not bad enough to even consider approaching him. I ended up finding a very friendly Capitol Police officer, who easily supplied me with the missing justice. For the record, it was Stephen Breyer.

By this point, the clock was nearing 5, and the thermometer seemed to be hovering around the same number. The sharp winds and long walking didn’t bother me, but my travelling companions were clearly starting to get annoyed. We made an attempt to visit the Folger Shakespeare Library, but DC has some strange learning curfew law that says that all things educational must close by 5 PM.

Someone (Bob and I maybe?) in front of the Supreme Court, taken from the vantage point of someone (Lauri, perhaps?) standing on the steps (of the Supreme Court, I can only guess?).

As a means of finding shelter and our next forum for amusement, I suggested adjourning to the nearest Metro stop. As luck would have it, a train pulled up just as we arrived. Perfect, I thought. Just exactly as I’d pictured it. I jumped in and waited for it to cart me off, but there Bob stood outside the door, with an annoyed look on his face. He wanted to know where we were going, and what we were going to do when we got there. Clearly he didn’t grasp the whole adventure concept as well as I’d originally thought.

But it turns out he wasn’t quite the parade precipitation that I thought he was. The train in question would have carted us to one of the seedier parts of town, for one. And as much as I adore DC, I still know that parts of it rank among the worst parts of any city in America. I don’t know if the nation’s capital is still the homicide capital, but the fact that it ever was is never far from my mind. So Bob was actually fulfilling a necessary role – providing checks and balances of sorts to my unchained adventurous side. Well, that, and he had to go potty.

So we headed to a nearby McDonalds. I’ve always held the firm belief that it’s much better to drop off at McDonald’s rather than pick up from one, so I didn’t feel any particular guilt in loitering there, waiting for Bob and thumbing through the City Paper. Upon his return, he resumed his insistence that we have some vague idea of what we were doing, and I finally caved, suggesting we see a movie. The three of us agreed on Shadow of the Vampire, and we were off to Arlington, the nearest decent area showing that movie.

I was born in Arlington, and raised there for the first four years or so of my life. So anytime I visit there, I try my damndest to convince myself that I’m coming home. And on some basic level, it is, I suppose – the style of the street signs look familiar, and the presence of the 703 area code on signs is somehow comforting. But beyond that, visiting Arlington is really just like visiting any other nice DC suburb. Which is a pity, because I guess this means that nowhere really feels like home to me. But enough of that. We had a movie to see.

We bought our tickets, and decided to blow the hour and a half before the show on dinner. We walked probably a mile before we found anything, a feat that didn’t particularly bother me, but clearly annoyed Lauri. Bob seems to have no trouble hiking long distances in the elements (living near the city and owning no car will do that to you), and I guess I was running on the excitement of a successful adventure. Lauri, though, had obviously had enough of the whole wind and walking ordeal. I knew things were serious when I gleefully ran back to the two of them and punched them, having seen a Volkswagen Beetle (“punchbug!”) and she shot me a scowl for wasting valuable time. I suppose if our situations had been reversed, I’d have been annoyed too – in fact, this may very well be the first trip on which I didn’t get mad about anything, but Lauri did. Maybe she just felt like she needed to fill that void. Nevertheless, it was hardly anything serious, and I don’t even know why I brought it up. Especially since she’s going to get mad at me all over again for sharing it with an audience. (That was a joke. I hope.)

We finally arrived at a place called the Hard Times Café. Not bad – a small place with a southwestern motif, lots of chili on the menu and not a lot of much else. It was good though – I had a Frito Pie, which is the first professionally prepared dish I’ve ever had that featured a snack food as a primary ingredient – and, more importantly, it was warm. Annoyingly enough, it was also 100 feet from the next Metro station down the line, proving to me that we actually had walked a considerable distance.

So we were able to spare ourselves the return walk by taking the train, though we did end up making it to the movie a bit late. We didn’t miss a lot though, and it was pretty entertaining. By the time it let out, it was close to nine o’clock, and since I hadn’t packed enough money to get a hotel room (I did this intentionally, because I knew I’d spend it if I had it), it was time to part company. We bid Bob farewell (actually, he stood watching our train depart the station where he got off, rather like a lost puppy) and followed the trains back to the car. We left the city at 9, and we were back in the front door by 10:30. The experiment had been a success.

We’d accomplished everything I’d set out to accomplish at the beginning – which is to say, nothing aside from having fun. We learned a little, drank a little and saw a good movie. The total cost to us was only half a tank of gas, the price of two meals and two all-day Metro passes. And the payoff, in terms of fun, was much greater. Sure, the formula could use a little tweaking – most notably in the area of warmer clothing – but all in all, I think we’ve hit on something here. We’ll be doing it again in a month, when our destination will be…

…how the hell should I know? Haven’t you been paying attention?

The nice thing about being young and childless is that you can act on your impulses, money willing. It had been a bad week at work, and by Friday afternoon, I was ready to get out. Fortunately, where the Federal Government had failed to deliver a monetary reward for my recent price challenging efforts, the company for which I work stepped in and righted this injustice, presenting me with a check for $200 (minus taxes; Uncle Sam was just determined to put the screws to me no matter how this thing came out), so money was indeed willing in this case. After a quick trip to the bank to convert my check to hard currency, I blew in through the front door, began changing clothes, and issued the following order to my fiancée: “pack a bag, we’re leaving.”

Even from the next room, I could tell her face lit up with this announcement. I am fortunate to have found an intended lifemate that not only tolerates my impulsiveness, but at times (particularly times like these) is excited by it. So after we both made minimal preparations– we do this quite often, and are becoming remarkably skilled at speed-packing– we were out the door and on the road for nowhere in particular.

That’s not entirely accurate, I suppose. We had planned to make another visit to DC over the coming weekend, so I knew that was the general direction in which we’d be heading. Beyond that, I really didn’t know, nor did I especially care. It was my desire to just point the car toward DC, then stop for rest or food when we felt like it. My only real requirement was that we ended up someplace fairly luxurious when we decided to settle for the night. After all, what better way to celebrate my rewarded frugality than to splurge on something totally extravagant?

Half the reason I love travelling to DC and its suburbs, as I have mentioned previously, is for the opportunity to drive on the Beltway. I may very well be the only person on the planet who feels like this, but I personally feel that the Beltway– that much-maligned stretch of road that surrounds the nation’s capital like, well, a belt– has an undeserved reputation. I love pulling my car onto this eight-lane American autobahn– my pulse races, I get a wild look in my eyes and my mouth spews forth elaborate sequences of obscenities that would have most sailors pulling out pen and paper to take notes. I wouldn’t describe it as “road rage” so much, because it’s not like I’m upset at anyone. I guess the best comparison would be to competitive sports– Washington DC’s driving, like its politics, is a ruthless game of one-upmanship, and I just can’t get enough of it.

Eventually, we located an exit in a suitably impressive area (Alexandria, VA, only a few miles from where I was born) and began looking for suitably posh hotels. Our first choice, the Alexandria Suites, actually looked from the outside to be out of our league, but I was determined to at least give it a shot. The rooms were priced reasonably enough– $89 a night, which was about what I was willing to pay– but for some strange reason, they had this incredible aversion to accepting cash. Credit cards weren’t a problem (though for me they were, mine stay in perpetual near-max status), but if I intended to pay with cash, I would be required to leave an additional $250 deposit. So much for luxury, at least at this place. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable staying at a place that actually has a doorman anyhow. Something about being presumed too incompetent to open a door just rubs me the wrong way.

We proceeded down the road about another mile or so, eventually spotting equally impressive lodgings in the form of a towering Ramada hotel. Indoor pool? Check. Late check-out? Check. Room service? Check. Affordable (under $100) rates? Check. Okay, one last question: “do you take cash?” I asked the lady behind the desk, somewhat meekly. She laughed at me, but not in a mocking sort of way. “Of course we take cash!” she reassured me pleasantly. “Why wouldn’t we?” “Exactly my point,” I replied, plunking down a Benjamin (as I’m told they’re called nowadays) and retrieving the key to our 11^th-floor (yay!) room.

We settled into our room for a moment, checking out the necessary luxuries. No wetbar, few cable channels, somewhat decent view. We’re really turning into snobs, but I kind of like it. If our only unnecessary indulgence in life turns out to be the occasional expensive hotel, I think we’ll turn out okay. Sometimes the only way to unwind after a bad week is to pamper yourself a little. And besides, this was “free money”, so it wasn’t like we were blowing the rent or anything.

After making our cursory investigation, we popped downstairs and across the street to a place called Steak and Ale for dinner. The lasting effects of my recent oral surgery limited my choices somewhat, but we both ended up being fairly satisfied by our meal. It being St. Patrick’s Day, I figured it would be an ideal opportunity to give that most Irish of drinks– Guinness– a try. Lauri ended up liking the stuff, but I personally would choose anything– even Yoo Hoo– over that again. I guess if you’re Irish and you’re desperate, you’ll drink anything. Nevertheless, I made extra sure to spend twice as long on my dentally mandated warm saltwater rinse that night to remove any lingering taste. Nasty.

Unfortunately, as we returned to the hotel, two busloads of teenagers, possibly band geeks, were steadily unloading into the lobby. So much for a nice quiet swim. Oh well; there was always our big comfy bed and room service when we needed it. Staying relaxed until noon the next day didn’t seem like it would be much problem.

Which it wasn’t, more or less, until the hotel’s fire alarm went off at around ten o’clock. I peeked my head out our room door and asked the cleaning lady, who seemed entirely unaffected, if there was actually a fire, and if so, what we were expected to do. She just sort of shrugged and muttered something about getting out of the building. Presumably she just meant us; I guess that big industrial-strength bottle of all-purpose cleaner would protect her. So, sporting day-old clothes and bed-enhanced hair, we proceeded to exit the building, eventually realizing that if there was in fact a fire, using the elevator would probably not be the best of ideas. So we walked, down eleven flights of stairs, the shrill fire alarm echoing through the narrow corridors at a volume that would drive even Helen Keller to madness. After about ten minutes of hanging around outside and watching the fire trucks, we discovered the actual cause of the “emergency”– someone on the fourth floor had been smoking a cigarette under a smoke detector. They say smoking kills, and now I completely believe it– if I could have gotten my hands on that particular smoker at that moment, there was zero chance he’d be checking out of the Ramada in anything but a body bag.

In any case, by the time everything had died down and the elevators had begun working again, it was about time to check out. We cleaned ourselves up, changed clothes and stuffed everything into our bags that was labeled “complimentary”, as is our usual routine. We made checkout by 11:58, which is what I always strive for when I stay at a hotel. If I’m expected to pay nearly $100 for a place to sleep, no matter how nice it is, I’m going to get my money’s worth.

The nice thing about staying in Alexandria was that we were right around the corner from downtown DC. Rather than spending two long hours in the car and then stepping out groggy and disoriented into the city, we instead were out on the streets by 12:30. We even managed to locate free parking, in a spot I’ll definitely be committing to memory for future visits. (And if you think I’m sharing it with you, you’d better think again. The Beltway isn’t the only automotively competitive arena in the nation’s capital.)

I’m going to make a confession right now. As much as I love DC, as much as it feels more like home to me than any other place I’ve been, and as much as I’ll never run out of interesting destinations, the fact of the matter is that I can never find a single thing. Ever. More than one relationship of mine has suffered due to my inability (and resulting anger) to locate the National Zoo, which to this day I am convinced lies in some pocket of subspace well outside DC proper. Even with the help of the infinitely useful Streetwise Washington map, this city isn’t the best place for someone like me, who tends to wander in circles anyhow. So while it should have taken us maybe ten minutes to travel in a straight line from our miraculous parking spot to our destination– the National Museum of American History– it ended up occupying the better part of half an hour. The occasional tourist, apparently convinced by the facade of confidence I wear while walking those streets, would stop and ask us for directions, the irony of which only served to demagnetize my inner compass even further. We eventually made it there, though. It was actually pretty easy once Lauri was able to locate some familiar landmarks– the Smithsonian castle, centerpiece to the entire museum complex, was a big help.

For all the entertainment and educational value the various Smithsonian buildings have to offer, there’s one important lesson that’s become immediately become clear to us after only two visits: never come on a weekend. We had a pretty good time at the museum, but only at the expense of personal space– there were easily thousands of people exploring the nooks and crannies of this particular museum, and probably about five hundred of those devoted exclusively to the end of standing right in front of anything we wanted to look at. Next visit we’ll come on a Tuesday or something.

We started on the ground floor, with an exhibit devoted to First Ladies. From James K. Polk’s wife (who would “neither keep house nor make butter”, and insisted on being her husband’s advisor, sort of a proto-Hillary) to Edith Wilson (who had to watch the signing of the Treaty of Versailles from behind a set of drapes, as women were not allowed to the proceedings) to Mamie Eisenhower (who was “perfectly satisfied to be a housewife”), we learned more than we’d ever wanted to know about the spouses of this country’s chieves executive. One particularly nice touch, I thought, was the presence of sitting benches in the “dresses of the First Ladies” portion– presumably for the benefit of bored boyfriends and husbands. So while Lauri was gawking at faded gowns of centuries past, I was resting comfortably and reading plaques that reported such fascinating information as “the President’s wife was originally addressed as ‘Lady Presidentress’ or ‘Mrs. President.’” Fun for the whole family.

Proceeding onward, we passed quickly through an exhibit on women’s rights, which was strangely vacant. I, being male, had admittedly little interest in the subject, but nor apparently did Lauri, whom I expected to at least slow down and take a look at a few of the more relevant displays. She, like just about everyone else in the museum, decided instead to give it a rest. Hopefully, this is more of a sign that women have reached their final destination (full equality), rather than being indicative of some public disenchantment.

We skipped the New Mexico exhibit entirely (I honestly can’t imagine what of any interest could have been in there), and hustled fairly rapidly through The Star Spangled Banner Preservation Project (sponsored by, I kid you not, Polo Ralph Lauren), which was devoted to preserving the original flag that inspired the national anthem. Call me unpatriotic if you like, but I’m not much of a fan of the particular song we chose to represent our nation– there’s just something off-putting about celebrating “bombs bursting in [the] air”. We did detour for a few minutes into an exhibit about the Information Age, which led us through the invention of the telegraph up through the development of the internet, but I could tell Lauri wasn’t as interested as I was, so I tried my best to get through as quickly as possible. We did pick up one particularly useless fact while we were in there though– in 1890, a male of my age living in the mid-Atlantic region would have been a textile mill worker, working 60 hours a week for $9 an hour, while Lauri would still be living at home and going to stenography school. Thank god for progress.

Next came probably the biggest mistake of our trip– stopping for lunch. I’m positive I posted some mental warning signs somewhere in my mind regarding buying food in museums, but they’ve obviously been obscured by more important information, such as that whole “Lady Presidentress” thing. Both of us should have known better than to dine in the cafeteria of the Museum of American History, but we were thinking more with our stomachs than with our wallets, which is exactly what the curators of the Smithsonian count on, I’m sure. Total cost for a burger, fries, a soda and dessert: $12. Thankfully for me, I’d covered our room service-delivered breakfast, so it was Lauri’s turn to pay. Still, I felt a little bad, as the food was maybe one rung higher on the culinary ladder than high school cafeteria. Hopefully this experience will serve as a more recent reminder next time I get hungry while I’m sightseeing– pack a lunch or find a McDonald’s. (Just ignore the hypocrisy in my willingness to throw down a hundred bucks for a bed and shower versus my bristling at one slightly overpriced meal– no one ever said I was morally consistent.)

Our bellies somewhat satisfied (or at least content to stop rumbling), we tackled the museum anew, deciding now to seek out that for which we’d come originally– cheesy pop culture. The reason we’d chosen this particular museum, you see, had to do with the way it had always been portrayed in travel literature: as America’s junk closet. Supposedly, all sorts of holy relics of U.S. culture were here, and that was our primary motive for coming. We could have chosen to take a White House tour, or maybe to visit the National Archives, but we’re children of the 80s, and we want our Recommended Daily Allowance of pop culture kitsch.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the place to find it. On the third floor, surrounded by exhibits on pottery (good lord, would anyone in their right mind have even a fraction of an inkling to traverse that yawn fest?) and I don’t know, barn construction or something, were three small lonely glass cases containing the following: Michael Jordan’s jersey, Muhammad Ali’s boxing gloves, a baseball signed by Babe Ruth, the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, Indiana Jones’ leather jacket and hat, Dizzy Gilespie’s trumpet and a phaser from the original Star Trek. That was all of it, all stuck in a corner with a tiny plaque labeled “American Popular Culture”. We looked for a moment, barely containing our disappointment, before it suddenly occurred to both of us that there had to be more. We knew there was more, because we’d heard of specific displays that weren’t here. Okay, we reasoned, this must just be a small portion of a bigger display.

So we wandered that floor. Then the next floor, and the next one. Finally, going against all my male instincts, we (actually Lauri) stopped and asked a guard for directions. What we were looking for did exist, and it was on the first floor, where we’d already spent a considerable amount of time. So we went back to the alleged location of the pop culture stuff, passing the Information Age again, something else involving science that would have no doubt interested me at any other time, and a few other uninteresting exhibits. Finally, again stuck off to the side, we located another three small glass cases. One contained just Archie Bunker’s chair; the other two held a few moderately interesting pieces, including Mr. Rogers’ sweater, Fonzie’s jacket, the original Howdy Doody puppet, Davy Crockett’s hat and the bowtie worn by Jimmy Olsen on the 1950s Superman series. And that was about it.

Maybe we’re incredibly shallow people, but we both felt extremely let down by this. We’d both had visions of a full-sized exhibit devoted to this stuff, and instead, the Smithsonian treated it all like the proverbial crazy uncle in the attic. We could hardly bring ourselves to see the rest of the museum, and besides, it was getting late. So as much as I’d like to offer a full report and critique of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, the sad fact of the matter is that it just didn’t hold my attention. I suppose it’s a great place if you want to look at pottery or dresses worn by dead politicians’ dead wives, but don’t go expecting a whole bunch of items from recent cultural history, because you’ll be disappointed.

So there it is. Another day in DC. I can’t say that we had a bad time; we just didn’t get what we expected. Still, we didn’t get mugged (unless you count paying $5 for a burger) or anything horrible like that. I feel a little disappointed in myself for being so disappointed, but I am who I am and I can’t help that. Maybe when I become rich and famous, I’ll start my own Museum of American Pop Culture. Assuming I don’t blow my fortune on hotel rooms, that is.

Over the years, nearly anyone who has come into contact with me has had to endure my persistent whining about how there’s nothing to do here in southern Maryland. Inevitably, the other person manages to get a word in edgewise, and suggests that I actually go someplace where there is something to do, preferably someplace as far from them as possible. I never gave this advice much consideration until recently, when the future Mrs. Sarcasm brought it up, muttering something about “cabin fever”. (Actually, I think I’m sugar-coating it a little; what she actually said was something like “if we don’t get out of this [expletive deleted] house soon, I’m going to kill someone!!”)

Far be it for me to dispute the wisdom of my better half. Accordingly, with today’s installment of Sarcastic Voyage, I begin what I hope will be a valuable service both to you, the reader, and to me, the not-at-all henpecked writer. As Washington D.C. is only a stone’s throw from our residence (assuming you can throw a stone about 100 miles), what better way for me to inject a new life into my column and into my relationship than to make frequent visits there and report on all the various tourist traps (or “points of interest”, depending on your perspective) therein? Sounds like a win-win situation to me!

Our original goal as we set out for the nation’s capital yesterday was to honor Presidents’ Day and attempt to visit as many Presidential memorials as possible. It was my hope that we could knock out all the major sites first– Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, et. al.– then try to locate monuments to some of the lesser Presidents for a good laugh. Call me weird, but a stop at the James K. Polk Memorial ranks pretty darned high on my list of potentially fun activities. The future Mrs. Sarcasm, sharing in both my passion for history and my bemusement for the obscure, approved of this tentative itinerary, and even agreed to fund our excursion, as I was presently bereft of the level of currency necessary for such an expedition.

And so, relatively early on Sunday morning– “relatively early on Sunday” being somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 AM, as even we heathens tend to regard Sunday as a day of rest– we set out on our way. The drive, as ever was long and tedious (really the only reason I don’t make this trip every chance I get), but we eventually found ourselves on the Beltway– that infamous loop of eight-lane highway that surrounds D.C. like… well, like a belt. Those of you outside the Washington metropolitan area have probably heard some awful things about the Beltway, so let me take this opportunity now to clear up some common misconceptions. Driving on the Beltway is in no way the horrid experience it’s been made out to be in the media. Compared to the Pennsylvania turnpike or my passenger-seat experiences on southern California’s freeways, it’s practically like backing out of your driveway. As long as you keep in mind that the right lane is for slowpokes (read “people who drive the speed limit”) and that as you move left, each lane increases exponentially in expected rate of travel, you’ll do fine on the Beltway.

One other thing I suggest while circling the nation’s capital is to pay attention to your exits and to the direction in which you’re travelling. Due to a combination of not being awake yet and just generally being distracted, I forgot to do this for a minute, and found myself temporarily displaced. Notice that I say “displaced” and not “lost”. Having attempted literally hundreds of expeditions into D.C., I can now proudly say that it is virtually impossible for me to get lost. In that time, I have managed to pop up at nearly every conceivable location in the greater Washington area. As such, if I ever take a wrong exit or find myself travelling in the wrong direction, I still usually know exactly where I am. Since we really weren’t entirely sure where we would be starting our tour, being temporarily displaced was actually a good thing, as it gave us the opportunity to gawk at the various sites like common tourists.

Eventually (and by “eventually”, I mean about twenty minutes later; I just don’t want you thinking we spent hours driving around in circles, as on some other trips I could mention), we found ourselves in the general vicinity of Union Station, hub of D.C.’s world famous Metro system. If you’ve never heard of Union Station, let me summarize it for you here quickly. Imagine a combination mass transit system/Amtrak station/shopping mall, situated right between some of the most famous buildings in the country. A place where you could lunch on sushi, see any one of twelve movies, go shopping, then buy a plane ticket and hop a train for the airport. Have I mentioned just how much I love nearly every part of D.C.?

We parked at the very top of Union Station, then made our way down approximately thirty escalators and into the station itself. Feeling a very reasonable desire to fuel ourselves for the journey ahead, we headed for the food court. Stretched out before us was a seemingly infinite number of culinary choices, from familiar fast food franchises to exotic ethnic cuisine. We could have feasted upon anything from Indian curries to Greek gyros, so naturally we opted for Johnny Rocket’s, a 50s-style diner, for some good old fashioned hamburgers. As adventurous as the future Mrs. Sarcasm and I are when it comes to travel, we’re usually complete wimps when it comes to food. I felt a little bad about this at first (after all, most of the restaurants that surrounded us served food that no one had even heard of in southern Maryland, and we’d settled on the one thing you can get anywhere in the world), but the food completely changed my mind. If you ever find yourself in Union Station, don’t overlook Johnny Rocket’s. Years of deprogramming by McDonalds and Burger King almost made me forget that a burger could taste so good.

We finished up our lunch and headed for the trains. After studying the route maps intently for about ten minutes, we decided on what we thought would be the best train to take us to the Jefferson Memorial. Naturally, things are never that easy when I travel, and we ended up in Chinatown, of all places. Fortunately for us, however, we arrived there in the midst of a Chinese New Years’ parade that spanned about ten blocks from end to end. The crowds were enormous, and while we didn’t get to see very much of it (I only later learned that they were celebrating the arrival of the Year of the Dragon, which I seem to recall was the coolest of their whole menagerie), it still made the trip that much more interesting. Any reminder that our country includes a number of cultures and beliefs, especially while you’re visiting the capital of said country, is a good one in my mind.

We weaved our way through and around the assembled parade patrons, eventually finding ourselves on the far side of the celebration. About five blocks in the distance, we spotted a building which looked remarkably like one of the monuments we sought. It actually turned out to be the National Museum of Art, but that was good enough for us. We’re not picky when it comes down to it; we were just looking for something to do.

The museum itself was something of a mixed bag. The interior, apparently designed by M.C. Escher, was all but impossible to navigate. Signs were posted all over, but they were stuck in the most inconvenient locations (inside door frames, for example) and were printed in a font that was, by my estimation, 2-point. Worst of all, the museum employed an enormous complement of security guards, stationed in such a way that one was never more than three feet away from you. Picture the Louvre subcontracted out to the Gestapo and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what it was like. On the plus side, despite the confusing geography, it really was a very pleasantly designed establishment (we are talking about an extension of the Smithsonian after all). Each room had comfortable couches, presumably for the art students that flocked there to analyze the finer points of the works contained within.

Then there was the art itself. Before I begin to describe the various paintings and sculptures we encountered, I should make an important disclaimer: art, as a general rule, is lost on me. I’ve never been much of a visual person, and I tend to miss the point of a vast majority of this stuff. I still giggle like a teenager every time I see a rendition of a nude woman, and while I understand that there’s a lot more to artists like Picasso than I could ever hope to understand, I simply lack the visual and intellectual perception to sort it all out. So I’m not exactly an art aficionado. My apologies in advance if the following comments seem sophomoric or uninformed. Remember, the only painting hanging in our house is of dogs playing poker. I’d consider (for the right price) adding an Elvis or a bullfighter on velvet, but that’s about the extent of it. Consider yourself warned.

We started our tour (after wandering empty rooms and large hallways for about ten minutes, in an attempt to locate where the actual art was in this art museum) in the Colonial America section, which was about the most boring possible place to start. Imagine room after room of portraits of people who look kind of like Washington or Jefferson in that powdered wig kind of way, only less historically significant. After about twenty minutes of this, I was beginning to think that this was the whole museum. Fortunately, I would eventually be proven wrong.

Through some logic that continues to escape me, the Boring Colonial Portraits somehow led into the More Interesting French Stuff. Sure, Monet’s “painting with dots” method looked to my twenty-first century eyes like a low-res computer monitor, but at least he chose subjects beyond feminine guys in powdered wigs. One artist in particular caught my attention as we browsed the French section– Henri De Tolouse-Latrec. This guy seemed absolutely fascinated by middle-aged prostitutes in various states of undress. His paintings are like Polaroids of Paris’s Red Light District, which was fine with me as I’ve been in serious debauchery withdrawal since I got back from Vegas. Between the naked women and the countless barroom scenes, Tolouse-Latrec gave me an excellent impression of how some people find their muse. Not every artist has to live like a monk. Very inspiring, I must say.

As we passed out of the French section, we entertained the notion of visiting the new Vermeer exhibit, but that portion of the building sported lines the size of which I’ve not seen since Disneyland. I didn’t even know who this Vermeer guy was (I always thought Vermeer was a type of flooring, like linoleum); I definitely didn’t want to stand in line for half an hour only to find out I didn’t like him. So we pressed on.

Next, we wandered into the Italian pre-Renaissance and Renaissance section. Remember a few years ago, when all the TV networks were churning out endless clones of Friends? Imagine that same lack of subject matter creativity stretching over about a thousand years. Far be it for me to criticize the remarkable devotion necessary to spend ten years painting a two-times-life-size rendition of the crucifixion down to the last photo-realistic detail. Even though I don’t consider myself a Christian, I do have tremendous respect for this kind of thing. What I don’t understand is this: the Bible is a huge book, containing hundreds of significant characters and occurrences stretching over thousands of years. While no other subject may possess the holy significance of Christ and/or His mother, what’s wrong with mixing things up every now and then? Christ-related art must have been to medieval Italy what bowls of fruit are to art students now.

Again, let me emphasize that a great majority of these paintings, despite the unoriginal choice of subject, were breathtakingly gorgeous and even a little inspirational. I can’t even fathom the patience required to sit through three hours of Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments, much less spending the better part of a decade painting one single picture. One painting in particular struck me as especially odd, though– The Last Supper.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that it wasn’t DaVinci’s famous Last Supper, but rather another rendition, painted by Sebastiano Ricci. I’m sure I would have really admired this painting had I not been bombarded with images of Leonardo’s for my entire life. As a result, Ricci’s read more like a “what’s wrong with this picture?” rendition of Christ’s’ final meal. The restaurant is way too fancy, for one thing. There are far too many people in the painting for another, and they’re all just scattered randomly about the room rather than sitting neatly in a row for easy identification. Worst of all, there’s a dog standing right in the foreground for no apparent reason! Hey Fido! There’s something holy afoot here! Don’t you have a poker game to get to?

It was around this time that we decided it was about time to get going. Our feet were getting tired, and our brains ached even more from our attempts to decipher the mazelike conditions of the museum. We walked out what we thought was the same way we came in (it wasn’t), and it didn’t take us long to figure out that Union Station was only a few blocks away. Such is the perplexing nature of D.C., I told myself, that we could ride a train and walk several blocks in what appeared to be the opposite direction, only to find ourselves practically at the back door of our point of origin. A more likely explanation would probably be that I just have no sense of direction whatsoever, but I’d much rather blame D.C. Hey, it was designed two hundred years ago by syphilis-crazed hemp-growers and built on top of a swamp; it’s not unreasonable to accuse the geography of being just a tad confusing.

On the way back to the train station, just outside the Capitol building, we spotted a lonely and unfamiliar brass statue, perched atop a stone monolith of some kind. From the sidewalk, I managed to make out the name “Taft” inscribed in the stone below. I bounded eagerly toward it, believing that we had located a memorial to William Howard Taft, which (as I mentioned before) was exactly the sort of thing I had hoped to see on this trip in the first place! Unfortunately, it ended up being a monument to Robert A. Taft. The accompanying text gave no clue as to who he actually was, aside from mentioning that he had earned the respect of Congress sometime in the late fifties. Feeling disappointment (for having wasted limited leg power to get to this spot), anger (for having my tax dollars wasted on a monument to a guy I’d never even heard of) and a little bit of foolish courage (that art museum was just so damned stifling), I made a bold move and chucked a snowball right at Robert A. Taft’s bronze head. Take that, obscure memorial!, I thought to myself. A moment passed, and a grin spread across my face. Here I was, right outside the building in which this country’s laws were made, committing a terribly disrespectful act of vandalism, and I was getting away with it! Try something like that in a country like China (Year of the Dragon or not) and see how far you get! Even now, a day later, I’m tearing up with patriotism at the very thought. Goddammit, I love America.

With that last act of slushy defiance, our first visit to D.C. drew to a close. While it might not have been the best planned excursion into D.C. (this was, as I mentioned, only the first in an intended series; I’ll get better), it was still a great time. You can’t go wrong with any place that offers top-notch junk food, a celebration of the traditions of a country ten thousand miles away and exposure beautiful art. Total cost for a full day’s entertainment: $20 for lunch, $10 for parking (which we could have foregone if we’d been smarter) and $10 for gas. Forty bucks. Value in terms of my creative and romantic relationships: priceless. Minus the steep penalty I should have to pay for recycling that joke.