We begin, as all great stories do, on a dark and stormy night. After a rather uneventful day at work, I departed on my sojourn from Lynchburg to Washington, D.C., around 5 p.m. during a break in the constant rain that I (foolishly) mistook as a good sign for my drive. If you live somewhere other than all of the United States of America, you may not know that it has rained basically all day every day for all of 2013.
Last week was particularly egregious. After about an hour of clear driving Wednesday night, I was hit by a deluge, right as my phone GPS for some reason directed me on to 64 for approximately five miles. It was terrible.
By the time I was off the heavily congested and flooding express way and making my way up to D.C. along pleasant country roads, the rains had cleared. I actually think the country roads would have been easier to drive on in the rain, but people would've been likely to drive even more annoyingly slowly than they already did, so it was probably for the best.
After rolling into the big city around 8:30, I went to Anna's fancy new house (so fancy!) and, after sufficient laziness, we went out to meet up with some old friends from college. SO FUN! Well, the most exciting part of the night out was the man we saw upon exiting the Metro. Check out this street performer action:
That's right, he is accompanied by a ventriloquist dummy.
We stayed out probably too late on Wednesday night, but eventually made our way home despite having the WORST TAXI DRIVER EVER. Here are, in no particular order, things our taxi driver did on the way home:
1) Using voice-to-text, repeatedly angrily tried to contact someone - a friend, presumably - whose home he'd "been driving around all night" and said person was nowhere to be found. I got the impression that person did not want to hang out with this dude.
2) Called said friend, when voice-to-texting failed, while also repeatedly asking the address and intersection where we were headed because he'd apparently forgotten.
3) Opened some sort of app on his phone while barreling down a narrow residential road at about 1 a.m., looking at his phone despite said road having two lanes of traffic and cars on either side. We could have died.
4) Upon finally dropping us off, apparently failed to understand the meaning of Anna asking for $8 back from the $20 she gave him for our $10 ride. He probably was not used to receiving tips. Instead, he gave her $11 back, so...win?
The next day brought with it a bit of a headache (seriously, being old is hell) but an early-ish rise for our trip to the baseball game! Unfortunately, after trekking about a mile downhill toward the train station in the hellish swamptown that is our nation's capital, we reached the Metro just in time to discover I'd forgotten my phone. We made our way back uphill, practically swimming through the liquid air, grabbed my phone and returned, still making it to the baseball game with plenty of time to start celebrating America with an 11:30 a.m. beer.
I'd say we still look pretty cute, despite having essentially had to swim to the baseball stadium. If you haven't gathered yet, it was extremely humid.
After celebrating America with the great tradition of incredibly overpriced beers and celebrating the Nationals victory, we met up with a friend of Ann's from work and his girlfriend and went to a bar on a boat. IT WAS ON A BOAT.
The humidity having broken, we were mostly just facing heat, but the whole boat thing made up for it. Plus, we drank margaritas...which, frozen. So overall that was great.
The bar was super crowded and did require some classic negotiating to swipe a table from a departing group, but we succeeded and ate the world's most delicious calamari and nachos for lunch. With margaritas, as mentioned. Very pro-America.
After that, we lazily made our way down to the national mall for the fireworks. While Anna's friend's girlfriend (Ashley) and I stopped at the world's most crowded Starbucks to get us all some needed uppers (n the form of caffeine) Anna and her friend (Cameron) set out to find someone to buy us some downers (in the form of beer). Both quests were successful, and away we went.
We meandered down toward the mall, stopping at a fountain near the National Art Gallery where I almost got arrested. BUT DID NOT. Because I know one simple rule: when the police man starts whistling at you, get out of the fountain.
What's that whistling sound? Oh, I guess despite no signs to the contrary, this fountain is not open to public meandering. But I just wanted to shout "Jenny," while dramatically swimming across it.
Once we arrived at the mall, I hunkered down in the shade with some liquid refreshment while my cohorts played frisbee with children. Eventually we moved to the formally sunny part, now shaded, I got some french fries, and children continued to hassle us (the 10-year-old boys were very into Anna).
Our friend Anthony joined us eventually, and we eagerly awaited the pretty explosions in the sky that celebrate the greatness of America.
I completely failed at taking a picture of those explosions, but Ashley managed to get a good one. Here it is. Look at it, and tell me you don't feel like singing country music and buying some rifles (joke):
Cue Anna's admirers: "Oooo. Ahhh." I kid you not, they said that after basically every firework. Or "Whoaaa!"
Attempting to avoid the masses after the show was done, we went to a BBQ place called Hill Country for beer and noms before heading home and ate THE WORLD'S GREATEST MAC N' CHEESE. I will admit to feeling pretty good at this point, though, so it may have only been pretty delicious mac n' cheese. The brisket was also great. I think I want to be buried at this place.
Anna, Anthony and I then headed back to Northwest D.C., stopping at one more last bar to make sure we'd sufficiently feted our country. After about 12 straight hours of partying, Anna and I decided we were good and went home for much deserved and needed sleep.
Hooray America!
More entries to come; I've pretty much run out of enthusiasm for this one (plus I need to build up my adventures). So stay tuned for parts two and three of Ellie's Fourth of July weekend: BOAT (or something like that), and the time I played a lot of arcade games at Smith Mountain Lake.
Catch y'all on the flip side!
Yay America! Was the cop whistling at you because he thought you were cute or because he thought you were desecrating a national monument by swimming in the fountain? We may never know.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this weekend it was hotter and more humid in NJ than it was in Tallahassee. The east coast needs to look at its life and look at its choices.