Not Vacation People

DH and I discovered on this past trip that we are not really vacation people. We don’t do weeklong vacations very well. This revelation came just a few weeks after we had booked a two week vacation to Alaska, starting in Anchorage, going up to Denali, and then hopping on a cruise down the coast to Vancouver. We’re currently working on re-booking for a roundtrip out of Seattle instead, skipping the land tour portion. We’ve decided that we’ll do the land tour on its own at some separate date (and probably save money in the process).

There’s a few reasons, not the least of which is Pancake. Pancake really suffers when we leave for a week. I mean, he has a sitter, and he gets the basic necessities…and he’s not a clingy cat, but he becomes a clingy cat for a few days whenever we leave for an extended period. I cannot imagine how he’d be after two weeks of being alone. The other problem is my work. It is extremely stressful to me to leave work for a week. Our team is understaffed…there’s not a single person on our team that isn’t overcommitted. While my manager does her best to manage the chaos while I’m out, she doesn’t have the time to pursue things actively…which means that projects fall behind. There’s no way for me to delegate everything out because things change on a day-to-day basis, and there’s no way to anticipate what will come up. If I left for two weeks, I’d either have to work periodically while gone to keep things moving or I’d have a huge mess on my hands when I came back. This has almost always been true of my job. I can enjoy five days of vacation (i.e., a vacation around a weekend) pretty easily. It’s the ones beyond that become tough, I think. Around the sixth day of being gone (or the fourth day away from work), I start worrying about what I’ve missed, which really ruins the vacation. And lastly, we just tend to get bored or burned out after awhile. We’ve done long vacations for Bridge before, and by the sixth day of Bridge, we’re brain-tired. We can play, but our play suffers or our mood suffers (or both). For vacations like this past one, where we don’t really have anything set to do, it’s easy for us to become bored, especially if the place we’re at doesn’t have a ton of activities (which Punta Cana had but they often didn’t actually happen). I found myself going to lunch just because there wasn’t anything else to do…or drinking because I was bored…and those are bad reasons for both activities.

The only weeklong vacation that really felt perfect was Disney in 2009. We mixed Disney with Bridge and family visits. Our Disney visit always falls during CES week, so, between that and people still being on holiday, work doesn’t get behind the same way. We don’t get bored because there’s an overwhelming amount of things to do.

So, we’re thinking that after this (now reduced) Alaska cruise, we’ll do our best to stick to long weekend vacations for awhile. We may just be getting burned out. DH just keeps winning things. He’ll be more burned out than me here pretty soon with all of his casino-won/comped trips coming up.

Punta Cana

We are back from Punta Cana! Woot!

It was a very relaxing trip. Although owned by the same company, the resort was not nearly as luxe as the one we stayed at in Cancun. The travel agent that arranges these trips for Potawatomi (who we became friends with during the trip) told us that Excellence Punta Cana was bought from another resort chain and as such, it’s older than the rest of the Excellence resorts. (If you wanted to go there without winning the trip from Potawatomi, Excellence Punta Cana is cheaper than Excellence Playa Mujeres (Cancun), though.) I do think that Excellence Punta Cana has some unique advantages over Playa Mujeres. For example, Punta Cana has an open-air sports bar with pool tables, foosball, and ping pong. Punta Cana’s dance club is also larger. I did not like how Punta Cana’s dance club seemed to have these random mixer games thrown in every few songs. I mean, I can understand doing that sort of thing if the crowd is not already mingling and dancing, but it was frustrating to get really into the dancing and then have to clear the floor for the dance hosts to run a game. The games were fun and silly, though, and DH won many prizes.

Pictures from the trip are posted in the gallery at this link. I’m probably not going to bother captioning them, but here are a few that I think are worthy of comment, in vaguely chronological order:

Open air airports freak me out. Honolulu had an open air airport. It just feels strange to be at an airport that has no doors.

Granted, in a closed airport, you can never get a good picture of the plane like this one!

There were a bunch of cows between the airport and the resort. The resort was like 45 minutes from the airport, which is a very long time after you’ve been on a flight for six hours and haven’t eaten.

DH tried boogie boarding one day. He was mostly unsuccessful.

I, however, was very successful at sitting in a beach chair and watching him from the shade.

I also did some swinging while there.

We watched the Olympics from our TV in the room. The odd thing was that the resort’s NBC channel was out of Denver, of all places. So, “prime time” Olympics started at 10pm our time (7pm Denver time). Actually, most of our evening entertainment was watching the Olympics. I really have enjoyed Vancouver’s Olympics…the winter games are so much more fun to watch than summer! I loved the down parka skirts that the female greeters wore during the opening ceremonies, and I really liked the US snowboarding team’s uniforms. I loved the opening ceremonies, although I only saw the first half live…I saw the second half at home recently.

On Wednesday afternoon of our vacation, I started feeling not-so-great. (TMI follows throughout this paragraph…consider yourself warned. Skip to next paragraph if you don’t want to know.) As is customary at such places, I’d been drinking so I went back to the room to rest in the shade and also “detox” for the afternoon. That evening, I got ready for dinner, but my stomach felt horrible. We were meeting the aforementioned travel agent, a friend of his, the promotions director, and her daughter for dinner at the resort’s Mexican restaurant. I made it to the restaurant, but while we were waiting on a table, I excused myself to the ladies room and proceeded to throw up. Twice. But, I felt better and then attributed it to drinking and sun. I cleaned myself up and headed to the (now ready) table where everyone was. But, as soon as I started munching on chips (without salsa…I was being careful), my stomach went into knots again. I excused myself again to the bathroom and proceeded to poop liquid while feeling very light-headed and blah in general. I felt like I might be sick again, but I couldn’t get myself to throw up. So, I went back to dinner…then my main course came, and as soon as the smell of food hit my nose, I felt like I was going to throw up. So, I apologized to everyone at the table and said I wasn’t feeling well, that anyone was welcome to my dinner, but that I was headed back to the room. I told DH to stay and finish his meal and not to worry…I’d be fine. At this point, I was still pretty convinced that I’d just gotten too much sun and drinking in my system. Several hours later, around 3am, after having to go to the bathroom at least once an hour to vomit and/or poop liquid (sometimes simultaneously…I made use of the bathroom’s trashcan for one task while the toilet managed the other), DH and I figured I’d either caught something nasty or gotten food poisoning. I was worried that I was getting dehydrated or would have a hypoglycemic session, though, given that I couldn’t even keep a cracker or some (non-diet) soda down. At any rate, we called the resort’s doctor. It was awesome. She came to the room, listened to my symptoms, did some quick checks of my blood pressure and such, and then gave me a shot of something in my rear end to stop the vomiting. She told me to rest for an hour and then try to eat something…and then sleep if I felt like it and come see her at her office at 10am the next day. (Crackers did not stay down, but otherwise, the rest of the night was without major incidents in that direction…I was still having the waterpoop, though.) By the next morning, I was feeling a little better, but I couldn’t convince myself to eat. I basically just stayed in bed until time to go to the doctor’s office. While there, I threw up again, though it was just water that I’d drank that morning. So, I got another shot in the rear end as well as 2 packs of pills to take orally. The doctor gave me a list of things to try eating (rice, plain bread) and some electrolyte juice (apple flavored) to drink. She said I had to drink as much water as I could manage and to mix the electrolytes with water, too. By noon on Thursday, I was able to eat some rice that DH brought me and keep it down. I followed that with 2 rolls. By 2pm, I’d finished off the electrolyte juice. At 6pm, I saw the doctor again and was pretty much in good shape. I was still a little washed out, but I felt miles better than I had that morning. She told me to keep taking the drugs and that I could slowly start eating other foods. She also had me fill out a report for the resort on everything I’d eaten in the 36 hours before I got sick, every restaurant, etc., so they could do an investigation. I’m pretty sure it was from this one bite of calamari I had at lunch that day. It didn’t taste right (hence me only taking one bite), and I started feeling ill within an hour of having lunch. At any rate, I had six bites of meat at dinner (mostly chicken) and a whole mini-loaf of bread, as well as a big serving of mashed potatoes. Everything tasted like the best food ever. By the next morning, I had a waffle with nutella for breakfast along with some fruit. And while we were at the airport on Friday, I ate a Wendy’s grilled chicken sandwich. So…gradually, I got back to eating normally. If you check my twitter feed, you can see when I finally had a solid poop again. It was a glorious moment.

The last part of my trip kind of sucked because of being ill, but our new friends were very supportive (they called to check in on me and offered to bring me things), and DH was *awesome* about bringing me things and staying with me. Also, I watched lots of speed skating and biathlon. I also have to say that, of all days for me to be sick, that was the best timing it could have had. Any earlier in the week, and I would have been sick when I needed to do and turn in schoolwork. Any later in the week, and I would have been sick while flying home. Also, the weather kind of sucked on the day I was sick. It was cloudy and very windy. (There was a big rainstorm overnight on the night before we left.)

Coming home was fairly unremarkable. DH stayed at the casino to play poker, and I drove home to visit with Pancake. Pancake had clearly missed us. For the whole weekend, he was never more than five feet away from us if he could help it. We had a *ton* of TV to catch up on, including Survivor and the TAR premiere (I’m rooting for the cowboys, I think…or the lesbians.). And there was other fun during the weekend that I may get around to blogging about later.

DH Running!

For those who don’t follow the twitter feed, DH finished the half marathon in 2 hours and six minutes, averaging a 9:38 pace per mile. It was sleeting and raining for the first part of his run. There was even snow on the ground at the start point. Fortunately, he wore layers.

His parents and I tried to follow him on the course, but we ended up being just behind him for all but the first checkpoint. He was too fast for us!

His parents and I braved the cold. We huddled under an overpass while waiting on him to run by.

Here is DH zooming past the Ticket and Transportation Center!

We tried to catch him at the Magic Kingdom, but we were too slow. But, the castle was really pretty, and the crowd was energetic and cheerful for the racers.

DH is all done! Next, we raced to the car to get warm.

My Nemo Knowledge Certificate

Before you show disdain for my score, I was taking the quiz in Japanese.

I run (and walk)! In EPCOT!

More details later, but for now…here’s some pictures of me going zoom! Or, click here for all of the pictures from this trip.

Registered and Ready to Run!

Las Vegas, St. Louis, & Home

First, a Vegas round-up:

DH and Ms. Moo did very well in the HTA semi-finals, but not good enough to advance. Their googlers, me and Mr. Moo, did an excellent job…we tracked down all sorts of fun clues for them.

We stayed at Planet Hollywood at first, which was awesome, because I’d never stayed there. (DH and the Moos had flown out earlier in the week than I did.) It was also convenient for us because that’s where the HTA race was starting from. Below is the view from our room at Planet Hollywood. The room itself was unremarkable. It was decorated with memorabilia from the movie Volcano (somewhat ironic since I’d just blogged about Dante’s Peak). The buildings in progress are the MGM City Center.

On Saturday, we moved into a room at the Palazzo, which is technically a separate casino from the Venetian, though it feels like an extension of the Venetian. This was another hotel that was new to me, and our room was definitely deserving of photography:

We had an amazing view of the Wynn golf course. In the picture above, you can also see the convention center in the upper left. The convention being hosted was for amusement park ride attraction creators and operators.

DH had recently achieved Seven Stars status with Harrah’s, which has many benefits. One of the benefits is a giant comp for a “celebration dinner”. So, on Saturday night, we had our celebration dinner at Bradley Ogden at Caesar’s, with the Moos. We had decided to go somewhere nice but not necessarily opulent, because we wanted to be able to drink our way through our comp. The restaurant was excellent. I definitely recommend it. They have an amazing (seasonal) drink menu of fun ‘tinis. Toward the end of our evening, we still hadn’t used up our comp, so we all got fancy desserts and drinks. I decided to try one of the latest trends: ice wine. It was delicious, like biting into a fresh and perfectly sweet grape. But, it’s definitely a wine that you want to have in small doses as it’s sweeter than any wine I’ve ever had before.

After that, we saw Peepshow at Planet Hollywood as a group. DH, who has seen this show many times, told us that we had the second string cast and seemed to be missing a character, but we probably wouldn’t have noticed. The show had cute music and dance numbers, with plenty of opportunities to see flesh.

We went clubbing afterwards, to take advantage of another Seven Stars benefit: front of line access. That was AWESOME. This was Saturday night, mind you, and on a fight night, so the lines were insane. One club we went to had to have had at least a hundred people in line, as well as separate “VIP” lines and “single women” lines. DH flashed his card to a bouncer, and our group got escorted into the club directly…no waiting, no line. Awesome. One guy in line tried to like flirt with me to get me to take him in with me. Ha.

But, the bad part was that the clubs were really crowded, and I’m getting old, I guess. I just wasn’t enjoying it much. I saw a fistfight nearly break out between two guys, which kind of freaked me out. And, I felt like these clubs just aren’t that fun. They make you pay for bottle service if you want to be able to sit down anywhere, and the dance floor is totally minimized to make room for more bottle service areas. When there was a dance floor, it was packed, so you could barely move without running into people. But, cutting through lines was so much fun that we did it three times.

The Moos went home the next day. We hung out in Vegas for one more day. We ended up not doing much of note. I had a cupcake from a bakery in the Palazzo, and we had lunch at the Grand Luxe Cafe one day, which meant I got to have duo creme brulee (one dish of chocolate creme brulee, one dish of vanilla creme brulee…and sorry, I’m not looking up the ascii for an accent aigu). Then, we flew to St. Louis, where we were picked up from the airport in a sweet limo. We had an awesome suite at the casino there.

We also visited the St. Louis arch and the City Museum. The arch is really cool. To get up to the top, you have to crawl inside these little tiny pods. They ascend you up to the top of the arch, INSIDE the arch! They’ve been in the arch since when it was originally built…they were invented just for the St. Louis arch! The doors to get inside the pod are only four feet tall, and the pods can seat five people at most. Fortunately, it was not very crowded on a rainy Wednesday, so we got a pod to ourselves.

(Click the thumbnail to view all pictures from St. Louis.)

The City Museum is a museum that is more like a giant playground. You just kind of wander around and play with things. DH went on a slide that was ten stories tall (it was a spiral slide so you wouldn’t go too fast) and lots of slides that were 1-2 stories tall. I did not go on any slides, but I did play in the ball pit. The museum also has a big outdoor area that you can climb through, but it was closed because of the rain.

That night, we flew home. That’s when I started feeling sick. It turned out that I had a flu, and DH caught it about two days later. I ended up working at home through Thanksgiving mostly. We’ve been watching lots of movies with RiffTrax, including Twilight and Star Trek.

More pictures from our trip: Vegas-2009-11, StLouis-2009-11

Kentucky Home

It is beautiful here. There’s this long and winding mountain road that we drive to get to the inn. (Speaking of, I highly recommend the Mountain Springs Inn. It’s comfortable with what has to be the best view in Kentucky, and the innkeepers are friendly and personable. Also, it has wi-fi in the lobby/common area and a dog and 3 cats to keep you company just outside on the porch.) The road is dotted with horse farms and cow farms. Horses are often grazing just inches from the road (with a fence between you and them, but still!). The inn is situated on the ridge of a mountain overlooking a small valley between it and another mountain. It’s been chilly and wet, or else I would have gone hiking. I bet the trails are gorgeous.

Photos (will be updated with more if I manage to take them…I’d like to get a picture of the kitties and the puppy dog, as well as some of the scenery on the way here): BereaKY-2009-10

Tonight, we had dinner in Berea (the closest town) at the Main Street Cafe. (I am unwilling to dig up the code for an e with accent ague.) We got fried green tomatoes as an appetizer, and that was delicious. I appreciated that they had Coke Zero as a diet soda option (along with regular diet coke). Also, we were treated to great live music…a singer who reminded me a bit of Rufus Wainwright in tonality and song style. I ordered their mystery dinner, a two course meal that is a surprise. They won’t tell you what it is in advance, but they promise it will be good. It’s their most popular dinner!

The mystery dinner ended up being an Asian salad (mixed greens with spiced pecans and tangerine slices, and a cherry vinaigrette dressing that was perfect…I wish I could buy that dressing!) and linguine with steak and shrimp. It was yummy! Mommy got the Dutch meatballs with rice, and she said it was a bit salty for her taste but still very good. After that, we walked around the block to look at the little shops (just window shopping, as Berea rolls up the carpet at 7pm). Then, we drove a little bit down the road to the nearest ice cream parlor, Blondie’s. Mommy had a cherry ice cream, and I had a lemon cupcake with buttercream frosting. The cupcake cake was like angel food cake with lemon flavoring, and it came with a metric ton of frosting. There was literally more frosting than cake, enough to fill my mom’s ice cream cup AFTER I’d eaten my fair share. What a waste!

We’re cozied up in the lodge while my mom writes an e-mail about the trip and I write this blog post. It’s been a very relaxing weekend. This inn would be great for small gatherings. I wouldn’t mind coming back here in the summer sometime, when the weather is more forgiving.

BGD & DC Trip Wrap-up

Wednesday:

On Wednesday, I arrived at DC’s Union Station with my luggage and headed out. I quickly found the Metro and checked the class map to see where the hotel was (where the class was leaving from). There was a red pushpin right near a Metro stop near K-street, so I took the Metro there. After getting out, I looked around but couldn’t spot our hotel. I kept staring at the map and still couldn’t find the hotel. It turns out that the map wasn’t centered on the hotel; it was centered on one of the myriad of places we’d be meeting people at during the week. So, I was in the wrong place. At this point, I’d be running late to get to the hotel, and I realized taking Metro there meant a 4-6 block walk with my suitcases, so I took a cab. I checked into my room and then called the instructor to see where to meet them. It turned out that I’d only missed like the first ten minutes of meeting with Congressman Kind, because he had been running late, too. I took a cab from the hotel to the Longworth building. For reference, here’s a quick map of the House and Senate buildings I’ll be referencing in this post. (Google Earth/Maps is also helpful here.) Longworth is one of the House buildings toward the bottom of the map. So, that all worked out okay, aside from me already being a sweaty mess. Meeting Congressman Kind was relatively uneventful. Most of his talk was about how he sees many common issues between the parties and believes in bipartisan efforts.

Our next stop was Union Station (hey! I was just there!) for lunch. I didn’t really get to hear the guy that met us there for lunch. I was sitting kind of far away, and there was alot of ambient noise. However, Ed Greelegs was sitting near me, and I got kind of a private audience with him, which was great! I really enjoyed talking to him. Then, we walked to the Dirksen Senate building to meet with Deb Whitman. Deb was really enjoyable. She went through the real version of how a bill becomes a law. She gave an example of a bill that she’s been working on for two years for her congressman, a relatively unobtrusive one that would prevent people convicted of violent or abusive crimes from working in nursing homes. Even though there’s no opposition to it, it’s still taken years for it to even get into committee. (It actually moved out of committee and made it onto the floor list while we were in DC. She texted us to let us know that we were her lucky charms!)

Then, we walked to the Hart building. I can’t remember if we met with someone or if we just went over there to see something. What I do know is that we found out that the Senate hearings regarding Health Care were being held over there, and we eventually tracked down the room. We didn’t have enough time to really sit in, but we got a quick glance inside the room:

There was also a Calder sculpture in the lobby. I took a picture, just because it’s a tie back to Chicago (where Calder has a famous Flamingo sculpture).

Our next stop was a lobbying office on Constitution. I found the location using my G1 and had GMaps give me walking directions, but the class ended up taking a different and longer route such that we walked a mile for what should have been a half mile walk. The view from the office of the Capitol was spectacular; I took 2-3 photos. At the office, we heard from a person, not affiliated with the office–he just met us there, who (by his own description) makes conspiracy theorists stay awake at night. He manages public opinion, which is to say, he does things like push polls, hiring protesters, hiring people to ask questions at town halls, and drafting opinion letters that aren’t real. Ironically, I can’t recall his name. Then, two of the lobbyists spoke to us about their job.

One of the things that most people in our class found shocking (but I already knew) is that lobbyists serve a valuable purpose in the system. They provide information to the Congress (via staffers, usually) that the people might not otherwise know. Congresspeople aren’t experts on every topic, and lobbyists primarily give briefings. In the 80’s and 90’s, they’d gain Congress’ ear by taking staffers out to dinner or having fancy parties. But now, staffers aren’t allowed to accept things from lobbyists, which really sucks for the (incredibly underpaid) staffers…and has basically made it such that you have to be independently funded (i.e., your parents are rich) to be a Congressional staffer…and being a staffer is the #1 way to get into more influential positions later. So, by cutting off lobbyists from staffers without compensating staffers, we’ve created a system that kind of sucks and will eventually really screw with the quality of our government. At any rate, yeah, the lobbyists are trying to sell the staffers on something, but every single person we talked to, lobbyists included, noted that staffers, even back in the “good old days”, couldn’t be bought. A staffer can’t force a Congressperson to vote a certain way, and it was rare to come across a Congressperson who could be bought. That is, the scandals were scandals because of their rarity, and they got overexaggerated. What lobbyists do for staffers generally is to help them get briefed on side effects of legislation that they might not understand, to keep the Congressperson from voting for a bill that might not do what (s)he thinks it will do. And, staffers are generally smart enough to take what lobbyists say with a grain of salt. Many DC-ers commented on Obama’s anti-lobbyist policy and said it’s a huge mistake. They said it will end up with him getting less-qualified staff because he’s enacting a rule that eliminates anyone with any real history in DC…as you pretty much go into being a lobbyist when you aren’t working on someone’s campaign, if you’re good at understanding and working the system, have contacts, etc. So, I mention all of that because it seems like it’s still not really understood or well-known.

The class split up to head back to the hotel. Some people wanted to take a cab, and others wanted to enjoy the (now cooler) weather by walking to union station. I ended up leading the walking group back to the station and eventually to the hotel. Along the way to Union Station, we came across a memorial to the Japanese Americans that were held in internment camps during WWII. I formed a quick friendship with the girls I walked with. Their names were Karen and Linda. One was a fan of Amazing Race and the other was a West Wing fan, so we had things to talk about.

We ended up back at the hotel. A bunch of people were going with the instructor to dinner and a night walk around the monuments, but I was tired of walking and tired in general, so I didn’t want to go. Neither did Karen or Linda, so we met separately and had dinner near the hotel. On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a Walgreen’s. I wanted to buy a cheapie cup to use for soda at the hotel, and one of them needed a toiletry item. I ended up getting a DC souvenir glass. While looking at souvenirs and postcards (including the one that those of y’all on my postcard list got), I saw lots of camo-print items with a panda on them. I was like, “why are there pandas on DC things?” I had no idea that DC had a National Zoo that had pandas. Apparently, they’re a source of controversy because it costs alot to maintain them. After buying my cup, I went back to the hotel and crashed.

I should note, I had a roommate, who was also nice generally. But, she went to bed late most nights, and I went to bed early. She got up early in the mornings, because she took *hours* to get ready, literally. I woke up at the last minute I could. I don’t know how she exists on so little sleep. Also, she wore 2 inch heels every day. Granted, she took cabs many times that I walked or Metro’d, but still! I’d die if I were her.

The next morning, I met Karen and Linda in the lobby, and we Metro’d to our first stop of the day. We stopped in Union Station for breakfast along the way. Then, we headed to the Dirksen building for the Durbin/Burris town hall meeting. (IL senators have a longstanding tradition of holding a weekly town hall versus holding individual meetings with visiting constituents.) The meeting started with introductions from every group represented at the town hall. Then, they opened it up for questions, and anyone could ask any question. That didn’t mean you got an answer…but you got to ask. The highlights were:

• Burris accidentally introduced Durbin as “the senior citizen” instead of “the senior senator.”
• Burris meant to reference that there’s no intention of death panels for senior citizens, but instead said that there’s no intention of giving the death penalty to senior citizens.

So yeah, generally, Burris was a dolt, and Durbin was impressive. Then, we headed over to the house buildings for meetings there. Congressman Ryan struck me as a balanced and reasonable person, with good and innovative ideas. He also had what I jokingly call iPod nipples when DH has them…that is, he had an iPod Nano with lanyard tucked under his shirt, so that the headphones look like nipples.

You can see the list of people we met with in the post before this one, so I won’t itemize. Suffice it to say, we ran all over the place. I tracked it on Gmap pedometer, and I did around 8 miles of walking that day. I went on the Capitol tour, which sucked. I don’t recommend it. I mean, it’s free, which is nice…but you don’t get to see anything anymore. They’ve shortened it considerably since 9/11. The tour is less than ten minutes long. I really enjoyed meeting with the EPA. The two people who met with us were young and really enthused about what they do.

That night, the class went to a restaurant near the hotel. They had a martini drink that I loved. I had several. We all laughed and told stories, and it was a blast. Some folks stayed out late, but I crashed, as usual.

The next morning, I was awake before my roommate. My plan was to check into my hotel for that night before leaving with the group to go to our first stop of the day. So, I went there first thing. I took a cab, even though it was only a few blocks away. The hotel location was awesome, right around the corner from a Metro stop. Also, I was able to get into my room at 8am, which is amazing. Then, I had another busy day of meetings. The two most interesting were Paula Pfingsten, a member of the press corps, and Grover Norquist, a Conservative leader and author. Norquist was an eloquent speaker, but he started off his bit by saying that the Republican party is the party of freedom and the Democrat party is the party of loss of freedom. He said many other things that bothered me, but that’s just a joke. Neither party is high on my list of defenders of freedom these days, but Republicans are far lower on the totem pole than Dems. So, I began making notes of all the freedoms I could think of that Republicans have either denounced or removed in the past decade or so that Dems have generally supported…you know, like the right to marry, the right to an abortion, freedom of speech to criticize one’s government, free borders (which goes hand in hand with free trade), the right to not have a cellphone company hand over your phone records to the government without a warrant…stuff like that. When Norquist asked for a question, I brought up all of this and asked if he still considers Republicans the party of freedom. His answer, in short, was that government security is important, the only vital mission of a government, and basically implied that rights should be sacrificed for security and/or those rights aren’t important enough. He did not give me a chance for a follow-up.

We ended up having a long lunch break that allowed for sightseeing, due to some cancellations and whatnot. I spent my lunch at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. I’d been to it before, but they had a Darwin exhibit that had inspired a smattering of picketers, and that made up my mind for me. I learned that Darwin was an avid beetle collector. I also went through an indoor butterfly garden with hundreds of butterflies flitting about. I saw tents being set up for the National Book Fair and resolved to look up more info about it, to decide whether to make it part of my agenda.

After our speakers finished up and the class finished a wrap-up talk, I had just barely enough time to Metro back to the hotel, change, and then Metro over to Chinatown to join up with my scheduled Segway tour. Though my feet were aching, I signed up for a Segway tour, which means standing in one place for 2-3 hours….’cause I’m brilliant. Anyways, I had tons of fun on the tour. I was one of the few that never took a tumble. Most people fell getting on or off, or they brushed a wheel against something and lost control…or one person didn’t realize she was about to drop off of a curb at the last second and jumped off. During the Segway tour, we saw the president’s helicopter land at the West Wing, which was pretty darn cool. I briefly saw an Obama head. The Segway tour was actually a great way to get the lay of the land before my day of touristing on Saturday. The tour guide recommended a few things that I hadn’t thought of doing but ended up doing, like lunch at the Native American Museum (the newest Smithsonian), the Japanese art exhibit, and seeing the pop culture exhibits at the American History Museum.

I had dinner in Chinatown and then Metro’d back to my hotel to crash. I spent some time on the internet, during which I found that the one author at the book fair that I’d want to see (Gwen Ifill) would be speaking too late for me to do. It was also supposed to be rainy, so I opted for touring the Smithsonian campus rather than doing the National Zoo. I decided to wake naturally instead of an alarm, which worked out fine because I didn’t sleep in much. I got everything packed up and checked my bags with the porter before heading out for the day.

My Saturday was as follows:

• First stop: Freer Gallery – Japanese art exhibit
• Next stop: American History Museum – saw the pop culture exhibits and the musical instruments area
• Next stop: Swung through the book fair – saw one author speaking, didn’t recognize her, got a tote bag and a picture with Bullseye at the Target tent
• Then, I walked along the mall to the Hirschhorn Museum (contemporary art) and sculpture garden – was interesting, but I wasn’t in a mood to contemplate art
• Walked up to the American Indian museum to have lunch – had to wait in line for a half hour to get lunch, mainly because people DO NOT UNDERSTAND BUFFET SERVICE. You do not have to wait in line at a buffet-style service unless the space demands it. In most large buffet setups, you just dart from station to station, like a bee in a garden. I’m so tired of people not getting this. THIS IS WHAT MAKES BUFFETS EFFICIENT, PEOPLE!!! So, anyways, the Mitsitam cafe at the American Indian museum has stations that serve food from each region represented in the museum. You can get South American food, Alaskan food, or lots of others. I got Midwest food. (Hey, I had to eat from my own region!) I had a pulled buffalo sandwich that was dee-lish. It came with Chayote squash slaw, also good. And, I got Fry Bread with Cinnamon and Honey for dessert…yummy! I also got Prickly Pear Agua Fresca to drink, which tasted kind of like watermelon juice. Then, I went upstairs in the museum and wandered around. One of the cool things about this museum is that it’s got all these story stations, which are basically cozy areas around a speaker or TV that has a recording of someone telling a story about American Indian life. I heard stories about how the stars came to be. It was a very cool museum.
• My final stop was the Portrait Gallery. I decided to see if Colbert was still there somewhere. If he was, I couldn’t find him.

After that, I took the Metro out to Reagan International to pick up my rental car. People, do not rent from Enterprise near DCA. First, they’re off-site. Now, I knew that going in…but they have a shelter area that is marked for the Enterprise shuttle that is NOT where the rest of the rental car shuttles go. So, I had to hunt for this special shelter which took awhile. Then, the shuttle driver didn’t even stop at the shelter…he just did a slow roll to see if anyone waved at him. I didn’t, because I was in the shelter with like eight other people, so I figured him stopping was a given. It clearly wasn’t until I flagged him down. When I got to the site, the service was SO slow, and they were overly enthused about the upsell, even after I kept saying I was in a hurry and really didn’t want to upgrade. The girl wanted to give me a ten minute lecture about getting their insurance because it was sprinkling rain. She tried to sound ominous, and I just laughed. I have insurance. I don’t need theirs. Rental car insurance is a rip-off, in part because the only people who get it are the people who need it, if you know what I mean. So, finally, I was on the road back to my hotel to pick up my luggage. Fortunately, my generous tip to the bellhop when I dropped off my luggage paid off (the bags were very heavy), as he was super-speedy in getting it to me, so I tipped generously again ($5 for 2 bags). I ended up with plenty of time to make it to my friend’s concert out in MD that night. I even got to stop for ChickFilA on the way there. Woot!

So then I spent that night and part of the next day with our friends in MD. We played Pillars, and we caught up on things. I had an uneventful drive to the airport and then…more reason to not rent from Enterprise at DCA. They weren’t clearing the returns fast enough, so there was a line backed up out onto the street to get in. I waited 15 minutes just to be able to pull the car into the garage. Then I was standing by it for another 10 minutes waiting on an attendant. Finally, I gave up. I left the keys in the ignition, locked the doors, left the “turn in” copy of my receipt in the car (keeping my copy), photographed every side of the car and the keys in the ignition and then headed out to the airport shuttle just before it left. Then, I called the office and told them where the car was and why I’d left it there. They were friendly about it and admitted to being crowded, but still…it was just lousy service all the way around.

The flight home was uneventful. Oh, yeah, people were stupid at the Midwest Airlines check-in counter. Midwest and Airtran’s counters were right next to each other. Airtran’s “first class only” line was right next to the normal line for Midwest. And then on the far right, Midwest had their “online check-in baggage check” line. So, the normal line was empty, and the online check-in line had 30 people in it. What’s more, there were 3 “check-in luggage” machines, but only one was getting used, though all three were functional. I had checked in online, but this seemed ridiculous. I examined the signs three times, looked at the people in the line and then went through the normal check-in line. While in it, I looked at one of the people in the online line and asked why they were all standing in that line. The man was like, “That line is for first class.” I said, “No, it’s not. The line over there (pointing) is for Airtran’s first class. This is just the normal line…”, I paused and caught the eye of a desk attendant as I walked up to the counter, “…right?” She nodded. I shrugged and checked my bags in at one of the two free machines. I got many dirty looks from the line of people. But, as I see it, politeness only dictates that I inform them of their error, not that I let them go ahead of me once I confirm the error. (And honestly, it’s Midwest’s job to manage their line. One of those attendants should have fixed this problem.)

So, that was my DC trip. Pictures are posted in the gallery, as per the usual way of things.

Riding the Train

(Edited to add: This is a link to the route I was on.)

So, this morning, I left my hotel at 5:30am to head to EWR. I arrived at 6am, dropped off the rental car, and got on the monorail to go to the EWR train station. About twenty minutes later, I was at the NJ transit platform, waiting on a commuter train to take me from there to Newark Penn Station. It took about ten minutes. At the Newark station, I scanned my pre-bought Amtrak ticket receipt at a machine, and it spit out my train ticket.

This part was confusing. I’m sure there’s some way that I’m supposed to be able to look at a screen or examine my ticket to find out what track to go to, but I couldn’t figure it out. I went to the Amtrak information desk, and an attendant directed me to platform 3 and showed me where the elevator was, since I was hauling my large wheeled bag around with me (currently clocking in at 52 pounds, by the way, and my backpack was at 35 pounds…luggage scales are fun!). I eventually found my way to platform 3 and waited there for my 7:24am train. The same attendant that I’d seen at information came up to the platform about ten minutes before the train was set to arrive and started directing people to what area of platform to stand for their ticket. They sorted people by destination and ticket class into several numbered areas along the platform. I had bought a regular coach ticket and that plus my destination of Washington, DC landed me at area 5.

So, in fairness, I had to leave the hotel just as early as I would have for an airplane. However, that was mainly because I had to drop off the rental car at the airport and then take transportation to the train station. If I could have gone straight to the station, and if I hadn’t been avoiding NYC traffic, I could have left a bit later. It was lovely to not have to deal with the TSA, nor a line to check my bag. Granted, I generally like the convenience of not having to tote my bag around with me.

(“real time” note: pulling up to the 30th street station in Philadelphia now)

Then, I boarded. Most of the window seats were taken, so I slid my stuff, with some guilt, into a section of seats marked as reserved for parties of two. I was not the only single person in the seats, but I still felt bad. But, I wanted a window seat, and I figured I could move pretty easily if needed. I tucked my big bag into a niche toward the front of the railcar that seemed designed for large bags. Fortunately, I didn’t have to lift it over my head, because that would have been a dangerous endeavor. I settled into my seat happily. The seats have plenty of butt and legroom. You can totally stretch out and relax. Also, and this is a HUGE bonus to me, every seat has its own power outlet. My laptop is charging while I type this. The only thing that would make it more awesome is Wi-Fi, and to my understanding, they’re working on getting that going. (Or, I could always buy a 3G data card…or trouble the guys at my company who make them to give me a prototype and then just pay for the service.)

A little bit ago, an older man sat next to me for awhile. He used to work for Amtrak, and part of his retirement package was an unlimited train pass for life. So, he takes the train everywhere. I told him it was my first time and explained my interest in someday taking the train through the Rockies, and he said it’s a beautiful trip but that riding a train is definitely more tiring than flying. He was very nice, but I think he may have had some continence issues, because he smelled distinct in that regard. He moved to a different seat a little while ago (he mentioned he wanted a window seat because he gets motion sick…I offered mine but he said he’d just switch at the next stop), and, now, the seat next to me has that distinct smell, too. Eew. Well, actually, it’s fading now, so maybe it was just a linger.

Speaking of, I used the bathroom on the train a little while ago. It was roomy in general, but the actual toilet area was cramped. The toilet was set in at a 30 degree angle, but there was a wall that prevented you from sitting on it at that angle, so that was odd. And, it smelled funny, too.

So, that’s a downside, I guess. Also, I do really wish you could just reserve a certain seat instead of it being open seating. That way, I could get a window without feeling the guilt of being somewhere I shouldn’t be. I guess I could have done what the man did and hunted down a window when we stopped at Philadelphia…but I’m not sure there was another one, and so far, no one has needed this seat anyways. There is definitely some rocking and motion, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s just there. And, it’s quiet in here…not like a plane with the noisy engines and such.

I am really enjoying the scenery. I mean, it’s not much, because it’s all urban areas, but it’s still something to see. Like, just now, we passed a trolley depot. At one point, we passed a junkyard with a big claw that was picking up and moving cars around. I saw Philadelphia’s skyline in the distance just before that stop.

All in all, barring some major catastrophe between now and my endpoint, I think I’ll be happy to take Amtrak again.