Chuck and I are spending a week and a half on the east coast, visiting family and friends. We flew out rfom Long Beach on Jet Blue and landed at Dulles. The plan (okay, the plan I suggested) was to take the Metro from Dulles to downtown Washington. I know, you”re thinking “What Metro from Dulles?” And you’d be right. But I think I convinced a lot of people in LA that there is in fact a very nice Metro stop at Dulles. I’m not sure where I developed this erroneous notion, but I was convinced – and I had Chuck believing it too. Luckily we realized the error of my ways right away and quickly changed gears, arranging for a Super Shuttle ride. It worked out fine, and we were able to enjoy the huge rainstorm that soaked DC last Thursday from the comfort of an air-conditioned van.
We spent the first few days in Washington DC, and we stayed at the DuPont Hotel which was located, not surprisingly, in Dupont Circle. It was a great location, near the Metro and within walking distance of a few museums. My sister chose the hotel, based on the recent experiences of a friend of hers who gave it a rave review. It was a nice place, but our room was ridiculously small with what felt like very large furniture – a huge desk took up one whole wall, and the bed took up most of the rest of the room, except for a wall mirror with a three inch frame that left no floor space on one side of the bed,which caused me to stub my toe so badly that I thought I broke it. Â The bathroom was big enough for only one person to stand in at one time, which was a good thing because when you turned on the shower, the lack of a door or curtain caused the water to get everywhere. None of this would have been quite so bad if I hadn’t seen my sister’s room. It was at least a third larger, and to make matters worse, it was $30 a night less – AND we made our reservations by phone within 30 minutes of each other. When we commented on this to the front desk, they said that their prices were based on the available rooms at the time the reservations were made. In other words, tough luck! A bigger deal on the second day was that they got halfway through cleaning the room in the morning, got dis then left and didn’t come back. So we got back to the room that evening to find everything in disarray. They did make good on that complaint at least. I figure the best revenge is to just never stay there again. Too bad, as in many ways it was a nice place. I took a video to commemorate the room.
On the family front, we had a big get-together at my brother’s house in northern Virginia where we got to see a bunch of my  nephews, nieces, and their assorted families. The weather, after the big rain, was apparently quite nice for the east coast in August. It seemed pretty hot and muggy to me, but I was assured that it was unusually pleasant.
On the tourism  front, we saw a super Norman Rockwell exhibit at the American Art Museum, and spent a day and a half at the Newseum (one ticket gets you a two-day entry – nice!).  The Newseum is fabulous, chock full of all sorts of interesting exhibits and interactive displays (the Unabomber’s cabin, Tim Russert’s office, the antenna from the North Tower of the Word Trade Center in NYC, several panels from the Berlin Wall) . Last Friday we saw the Capitol Steps at the Ronald Reagan Building, and they were very funny – my fave bit was Lirty Dies which must be heard to be understood.
This morning we took Super Shuttle back to Dulles to pick up the rental car that we’ll be using for the rest of the trip. We then drove to Towson, MD where we’ll be vising friends for two days. Then it’s off to Delaware for a few days to visit Chuck’s two elderly aunts who live in the Wilmington area. Then it’s back to Dulles and home.