After returning from Israel, I grabbed my rental car that was ready for me, checked into a hotel there in Windsor Locks, and crashed for the evening. I woke up early enough to grab some breakfast and pack all my things that I had left there at the hotel during my trip. I departed and headed southwest. I was avoiding toll roads, and consequently took a much longer path in getting to DC. I stopped in Scranton to eat some lunch, and send some messages on my phone. I got out again, and hit the freeways. Eventually I took a wrong turn about 100 miles from DC and got onto a toll highway by accident. I pulled up to grab a ticket, and it wouldn’t give me one. There were no buttons, NOTHING. I got a little nervous as I saw a few cars stack up behind me, and I looked at the light. It was green! There was a little sign that said “Toll Paid”. Uhhh.. wtf? I took off, and hit the road. I then had an epic “DUH” moment when I saw that the rental car had been equipped with a EasyPay toll scanner deal that was on the windshield. So, tolls were no problem from then on.
Eventually I hit traffic. And remained in traffic for one and a half hours!!! My goodness! I had never seen so many cars. I tried to seek an alternate path using my phone with GoogleMaps, and ALL the highways were marked as Black and Red, saturated with stopped traffic. It was terrible. I finally got into DC by nightfall, and pulled in front of the hotel where I handed the keys to the valet. I got a neat little goodie bag from the receptionist, and dropped my things in the room. That evening I met up with Mihaela’s friend Adina, and we went out for Thai food at a local restaurant. One thing I did notice about the streets of DC where I was staying was the amount of homosexual males walking the streets. My gaydar was off the charts! I felt like a minority walking along the sidewalks. Almost like walking on Broadway in downtown Seattle. We ate Thai food and got to know each other a bit, then walked around the DC area to see the White House, and some other places. It was dark, and getting late so we departed.
That evening I got an email from Mihaela saying that she had some complications with her flight, and might not be able to make it in that day. She sounded pretty pissed about it all, but stuff like that happens sometimes. The next morning, I got up and ate breakfast at the fancy hotel restaurant. Though, their selection of breakfast foods were rather limited for how much they were charging. My hotel reservation gave me a free pass to eat there, so I didn’t mind. I headed out to do some sightseeing. I walked past the Washington Monument, and saw some activity by the “mall” with various universities doing a competition for solar powered houses. It was interesting, but more or less an interesting way of being efficient. Its not going to be a common trend for the future to have houses like this, its simply impractical, expensive, and ironically much worse for the environment in the long run due to the hazardous chemicals needed to manufacture solar cells. Instead of trying to manage tiny droplets of energy coming from solar power, why not just spend research into furthering development of IFR’s or even Fusion reactors. That way you’ll have excessive energy, and be FAR cheaper in the long run. Anyways, I made my way over to the Air and Space Museum where I spent some time checking out all the exhibits. Lots of stuff there including the Stardust spaceprobe which I saw reenter the earth’s atmosphere several years back. What was interesting was seeing that crazy Aerogel they used to capture the dust particles. Semi translucent, and actually a solid mass that is slightly heavier than air. Looked strange. I browsed through just about all the displays there and got my fill.
It was raining outside, but only slightly. It kept away the panhandlers for the most part, so I didn’t mind. I walked to the capitol building, but the intense crowds of people clustered around it made me realize I didn’t feel like going in. I then made my way over to the Natural History Museum. The crowds here were pretty bad as well, but my interest of what was inside outweighed the negative. There were cool exhibits with dinosaur bones, various animals, insects, etc. Upstairs there were minerals and meteorites! There were gems and diamonds which somehow attracted an order of magnitude more people. I had peeked through a brief opening of frantic photo takers, and saw most people clustered around the Hope Diamond. It was just a stupid diamond! Big deal. There were far more interesting things in that museum than that hunk of carbon. Oh well, it kept them out of the isle ways. One cool thing was a boulder of Magnetite. There were a bunch of paperclips scattered around on it, and I geeked out by finding magnetic concentrations by using some balanced paperclips.
After it got to the point where I was running into people while standing still, I realized I had to leave. I walked to the Lincoln Monument, and made my way around to the Thomas Jefferson Monument. I was getting somewhat tired and hungry, so I started looking for food. Most of what they had to offer around that area of DC were Pretzels, and other junk food. About fifteen minutes walking got me to a few restaurants, but nothing really seemed good at the time. I made my way to the International Spy Museum, but then saw the CROWDS, and the $20 admission fee, I realized that I didn’t “need” to see it that day. I got back to my hotel, and took a nap. Adina called me up and invited me to meet her friend and go out clubbing that evening. We made our way to a few clubs in the area, but ended up staying at one place for the majority of the evening. Adina’s friend didn’t like the music as much, so we went seeking other places but were unsuccessful in finding another place which didn’t have a $20+ cover. We called it a night, and I went back to my hotel.
The next morning I ate breakfast and got all packed up and checked out of my hotel. I called to the valet to get my car, and waited outside for about a half hour before someone was finally able to bring me my car. Needless to say, there was no tip for the driver. Traffic was TERRIBLE that Sunday. There was a massive onslaught of “Gay Rights” protestors littering the streets and sidewalks. Many of them holding up banners and marching around the streets, holding up traffic. I was in a hurry to pick up Adina and have enough time to meet Mihaela at the airport. It took me about an hour to travel just a few blocks to Adina’s place and away outside of town. By then, Mihaela had already landed and was waiting pickup. GoogleMaps led me to the incorrect airport, and we had to zip to the proper airport where Mihaela was waiting, which took another 20 minutes even while exceeding the speed limit well over 20mph.
I picked up Mihaela and departed from the airport. From there we made our way to the Great Falls park. First we stopped at a little outdoor restaurant to have a quick lunch. From there we managed to make our way down to the Great Falls park. The parking lot was packed full with no available spots. I had to lurk and wait for someone to depart in order to take the spot. We walked around a bit to see the falls. Adina and Mihaela both hopped over the fence where it was “restricted” and were enjoying the views. I accompanied them and we sat down to soak in some of the views, and relax in the sunlight. We managed to wander around a bit more and scramble upon some rocks and other cool geological features. Took some time to skip several rocks across a few pools. We made it down to the river and watched some people rock climb a small cliff face. We then headed back to the car and departed for dinner out in Georgetown. Nice little Italian joint with some tasty food. By the time we finished, it was time for me to begin heading back to CT, since I had work the following morning. I dropped Mihaela and Adina off, and said my goodbyes. I didn’t have much trouble finding my way out of DC, and I kept my phone off because it was already critical with low battery. I would need its GPS use later on I was sure. There was no direct way to go to the Hartford area. There were countless merging, exits, and backtracks along the way. I only got turned around a few times due to highways labeled incorrectly as going northbound vs. southbound. One highway actually made a very gradual U turn over the process of about 20 miles. Lame. I took an accidental exit near NYC, and ended up driving around 8 square miles trying to find a ramp that would get me back onto the parkway I needed to be on. My phone was dead at this point, and it was already 3am. By the time I made it back to Windsor Locks it was 5:30am, and I had work starting at 8am. I took a very brief snooze, and went to work. Good thing my job isn’t very mentally demanding. I operated in “zombie mode” all day long. Nobody noticed.
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