I wasn’t planing to blog my week-long trip to the east coast. But then stuff happened yesterday and today that I probably want to remember and the best way to do that is write it down. So here I am.
Quick overview of the itinerary. Yesterday, Sunday, I flew from Portland to Washington DC (Dulles). Today and tomorrow I explore the DC area. My sister arrives tomorrow evening. We play on Wednesday, retrieve our rental car on Thursday and attend her younger son’s track conference meet on Friday and Saturday in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Then fly home Sunday evening.
I happened to sit down next to a nice young man at PDX. He had a very cute and well-behaved dog who just barely fit into his carrier. We got to talking about travel and other things. He was wearing a soccer-themed sweater so I asked about it. Seems he’s a left winger, and he was impressed that I (used to) play keeper (ie, goalkeeper or goalie) and defender. He even recruited me for his team - very flattering but highly impractical first because I haven’t played in 18 years because I hung up my cleats when I decided I was spending too much time time rehabbing from assorted (minor) injuries and second because his team is in the DC area. Oh well, it was nice to be recruited by someone born in 1999.
The flight was fine. After my last two intercontinental fights, a 4-5 hour transcontinental flight seemed short. I started and finished one book and started another one. It seemed that every time I looked up we were flying over a different state.
Today I successfully purchased a day-long Metro pass which gave me transit for the day. Quick arithmetic confirms that as came out ahead. The weather couldn’t have been better — sunny and probably a high of about 70F / 21C.
Went to Arlington National Cemetery. Very powerful. Caught the tail end of the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Reminded me a bit of the Swiss Guard at the Vatican. Taps was played very slowly and somberly on the trumpet. I met someone from Oregon who was very proud to be from Gresham rather than Portland and commented that people are embarrassed to claim Portland these days — to which I replied that I was proud to claim Portland (having already acknowledged that I live outside the city limits). And yes, (for the cachers in the crowd) I found a couple of virtual caches and a bunch of adventure labs.
Then off to a quick lunch — a delicious roast beef on egg bagel sandwich and mediocre matzo ball soup. It’s the fist time I’ve been served the soup with a side of matzo ball to plop in.
As I was descending the impressively long escalator to the Metro I snapped a quick picture. Then a nice man went around me and took more or less the same photo. Turns out he was from eastern Switzerland, near Lake Constance. He seemed pleased that I’d been to Lake Constance (or at least drove near it even if we didn’t put our toes in it on the 5-country day).
Then off to the Capitol to find the oldest cache in DC. I must have looked like I knew what I was doing because several people asked me how to find something — the Capitol, the White House, Metro, etc. Shockingly, I was able to answer all of the questions, most of them without using Google.
After a meandering walk (yes, more caches and labs) and a detour for some much-needed lemonade, I headed back to Metro. I was very pleased that this morning I’d noticed a couple of Metro stops with grocery stores and potential restaurants. So I got off at the one that had looked more promising, bought a few things at Lidl and crammed them into my backpack. It felt very much like shopping at a European grocery store. Then got a take-out salad just in case and made the spontaneous choice to pop into a Japanese restaurant. I had a tasty happy hour tuna dish and edamame.
Finally returned to my lodging, after over 22,000 steps and 8.4 miles (about 13.5km). I think the total was about 29 finds of which 6 were caches and the rest labs. A satisfying day, and I’m pleased that my feet and legs are feeling ok now that I’ve been laying down for a few hours. Tomorrow I go exploring with a local reviewer or two.
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