Washington, D.C. (September 2008)

Every year, we spend one week's holiday with Dawn's family and one week with my family, which leaves zero weeks to go any place new. To cope with that, I've tried to add side-trips to Philadelphia, Maryland, etc. This year we weren't going to do that. In fact, I booked flights into Lancaster Airport, just 15 miles from the farm, so we wouldn't even have a chance to go elsewhere!

We planned to go over Memorial Day and I bought plane tickets on sale in February. Dawn put in a leave request which was...denied. Apparently Dawn had told her co-worker about the trip the day before, and her co-worker then submitted a leave request for that same weekend, and the firm didn't want both of them on holiday at the same time.

To say Dawn was furious would be an understatement, but I was equally upset because the sale was over and rebooking the flights would cost twice as much! However, I was able to get flights into Baltimore for a small increase. That's when I realised we could make a side-trip to Washington, D. C.

Friday night we took the red-eye to Baltimore, arriving Saturday at 6am, drove an hour to Washington D. C. I'd been watching the weather and it had been hot and muggy, so I convinced Dawn not to pack any heavy clothes. Of course that night a storm had moved in and it was raining and cold! We stood in line in 50-degree weather wearing light windbreakers for an hour and a half to get tickets for the White House. Considering all of our holidays, this was not a bad start.

The White House was a very understated experience, but in a good way. Having been through some of the more ornate castles in Europe, I rather liked knowing that the President of America lives in something less than opulent. (And that he gets kicked out when his term is finished.)

We went to the Smithsonian which, I quickly learned, is actually nine separate museums along The Mall. We started in the Aviation museum, which has the original Wright flier, the Spirit of St. Louis, and several of the Apollo capsules. Dawn summed it up neatly when she said, "It’s just a bunch of dumb planes and stuff." Fortunately she found something she liked--the Albatross Condor, a precursor to the Albatross Gossamer that flew across the English Channel under human power.

We walked back to our hotel and crashed for a couple of hours, then headed off in search of food. We headed for a french restaurant just a few blocks away, but to get there we had to go through three empty parking garages, down two dark alleys, and across an open field. What I gained from this experience was a stark appreciation for the homeless problem in DC.

We walked into the french restaurant and quickly realized our jeans-and-t-shirt ensemble would not fit in with their black tie affair, and quickly departed for a seafood restaurant a block away. It was much more laid back and the reason quickly became obvious: The "rum buns" they served as dinner rolls were about 40 proof! Since I don’t like alcohol, I couldn’t eat them, but they did serve as excellent candles.

After dinner we drove to the Lincoln Memorial. It was surprisingly crowded considering it was midnight, but I got a couple of nice pictures while Dawn memorized the Gettysburg address. We then went to the Jefferson Memorial, which (I thought) was even more impressive. By this time, however, our legs had completely collapsed and we had to be carried back to our hotel.

The next morning, we drove into the outskirts for a wonderful french breakfast (eggs benedict seemed so appropriate in the capitol), then walked past the Supreme Court and through Congress. Again it was gratifying to note that these buildings were still reserved and stately without being ornate or showy. We walked to the front of the Congress and watched several ducklings cavort in the reflecting pool. By this point we were already hopelessly late so we grabbed a sandwich and raced across town to the Vietnam Veteran’s memorial. We had about ten minutes to appreciate it, so we took about an hour. Of all the historic sites, natural wonders, and scenic splendor I have rushed past with barely time to snap a few pictures, the one place I slowed down was just a list of names on a wall, many of whom died before I was even born.

I also recognized, with no small amount of indignation, that there was no memorial to WWI and WWII veterans. Being a pacifist, this may be a strange thing for me to say, but it seems to me that of the billions Congress wastes each year, it could find a little decency to "waste" some of it here.

We finally moved on, racing back to Pennsylvania before it got dark. The farm was essentially unchanged with the exception of five new wolves. Lucky and Lady, two black wolves, had been born in the pack, but not to the alpha female. She had tried to kill them so Dawn’s mom was hand-raising them. Fortunately we missed the hourly feedings (and hourly clean-ups) and had arrived just a few weeks after they had moved outside, in a pen of their own.

The rest of the week I spent planning for the rest of my life. Essentially, I’m looking at a major money pit out in the middle of nowhere and being told that is where I’m going to retire to. Now a sane man would just walk away, a brave man would just say no, and a smart man would convince Dawn that she would really rather retire in Hawaii. I did none of these. But before I sank my entire retirement portfolio into a piece of property that I didn’t even own, I wanted to shore up this investment somewhat. So Dawn's mom and I squared off and started negotiating, the practical upshot of which is that I’m going to sink my entire retirement portfolio into a piece of property that I don’t even own. But, as my uncle would say, at least I get to pet the wolfies.