DC: Day One-and-a-Half

A disclaimer: this may be a little disjointed because I'm still a little jet-lagged. :)

Yesterday was Travel Day! Overall, it was an uneventful trip, although the stop in Chicago - the STOP in Chicago when we were on a NON-stop flight to Baltimore - was a bit of a surprise. There were also a few moments of some rather unpleasant turbulence… the kind that made me tighten my seatbelt so that it was really more appropriate for a small child. (“I don’t care if it cuts me in half, I WANT TO LIVE!!!”) Truth be told, I wasn’t so worried about the turbulence itself as I was the effect it was having on my mother. Prone to motion sickness, I’m pretty sure her face turned a couple of different shades of green. The problem we were facing was that if she became sick enough to toss her proverbial cookies, I as a sympathy barfer would be compelled to join in the fun. You can see why that would be a bad thing. Happily, she survived, and neither of us lost our lunch (or the airplane peanuts that substituted for afore-mentioned lunch).

Fast-forward to the Baltimore airport, where we met up with our luggage and found ourselves piled in to a minivan-taxi with a very old man driving. He reminded me of my grandpa, except the the minivan didn't have enough bumper stickers. The only thing of note during the drive from Baltimore to DC (other than the scenery) was that I’m pretty sure we passed one of the cars from Super Troopers. They'd pulled somebody over on the other side of the highway, and since we were going in the opposite direction, we passed them so quickly that I didn’t have the opportunity to listen for any meows. I didn't point them out to anyone else in the minivan because I kind of think that no one else would have understood the reference. Meow.

We arrived at the hotel in the midst of a thunderstorm, which changed our dinner plans… originally, we were going to take a walk from our lovely hotel through the lovely neighborhood to a local Italian restaurant. Jill had been there before, and by the time she finished telling us about the owner who makes the pasta fresh everyday, our mouths were watering! BUT... when we got out of the minivan-taxi at the hotel, it was thunderstorming (windy, rainy, thundery), so we very quickly decided to NOT walk around in the midst of the storm. Plan B was eating at one of the restaurants in the hotel... and as Plan Bs go, this was an EXTREMELY satisfactory replacement! I had the best crabcakes I've ever had... and the glass of wine was quite nice, too. The end of the meowmeal found me in a warm, happy food coma.

That was pretty much the end of yesterday, although I suppose I should mention that there was an incident with a vending meowmachine that only takes credit cards, and the subsequent birth of the Vending Machine Success Dance. Yes, that was me... no, you can't see it - it was spontaneous and impossible to replicate. I can tell you that Mom's version of the VMSD was more of a Cabbage Patch, and therefore QUITE hilarious!

Today has been quiet... well, for me, at least. :)

Mom and Jill started meetings first thing this morning... I, on the other hand, happily took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in (mmmmmeow). I did leave the room for a while so that the very patient housekeeping staff could do their thing... but came back so that I could check emails, etc...

That's all for now, but here are a couple of pix of the view from our room (forgive any water-spots - it rained earlier today):

Not too bad, right? Here's one more... forgive all the roofs, but note the church spires in the background!

I'll post again soon... hope you're having as much fun as we are! Meow.