Exceedingly Mundane

We’re here!

I’ll try to post a longer update later, but here’s the quick and dirty so far today.

We slept in a little bit this morning, then got up and went down for the free continental breakfast at the hotel in Harrisonburg. We got loaded up (after Tim again bailed water out of the front and back passenger seats, oh my; it was a LOT of water!) and got on the road about 9 AM local time. We drove to Mount Vernon (south of Alexandria) and toured there. We both thoroughly enjoyed Mt Vernon (more on that later) and spent several hours there. We had a late lunch at the Mount Vernon Inn on site, very colonial and picturesque. We both had the turkey “pot pye” (yes, that’s the way it was spelled on the menu) and Tim had bread pudding for dessert and I had cherry pie (in honor of ole George and the cherry trees). Kirk called while we were eating, to see where we were, and let us know he had gotten us a private tour on Friday at the Capitol. Woo-hoo Kirk! We left Mt Vernon, with me navigating, and although we thought we were taking Hwy 1 and going to Arlington National Cemetery, somewhere we took a wrong turn, went across one of the bridges, and ended up smack dab in the middle of Washington DC. We drove by the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Memorial (SLOWLY, in late afternoon traffic) and eventually, through trial and error, found a way back over the Potomac River into Arlington, then drove around for a while till we stumbled upon our hotel. Well – Please Note: Tim says he knew where he was going and got us here and I totally agree. I was totally lost, couldn’t find things on the map and was an overall horrible navigator. Good thing he was here and driving, or I would have been somewhere completely lost by now. 🙂

We checked into the hotel. It’s nice and we’re very happy with our room and the location. They even put us on the top floor! I’d like to say we had a great view. Well, we do – of whatever tall building is directly across the street!

We’re contemplating heading out soon (about 5:30 local time now) and finding a Metro Station and going back over into DC and looking around, locating things, and generally getting our bearings. I have to call Kirk back later on and get the details about our Capitol tour tomorrow.

More later, I want to write down some things about Mt Vernon while they’re still fresh in my memory. We both really enjoyed it and were so glad we went!