Past week's trip to DC/VA

I decided to do a between holidays trip back home to Virginia. My friend Christine was going to DC for an interview with the State Department for a foreign service job. I thought it would be fun to do some DC touring with Christine. Her friend Liz drove down from Philadelphia to visit, too.

I landed in DC at Reagan National Tuesday night. The new airport section is beautiful in the evening.
I rented a car and drove out to Mom's in Burke, Virginia.  Wednesday Mom and I drove to Pentagon City to park the car and catch the Metro.  Mom's Metro pass wasn't working so she got to ride for free and we went to Metro Center station to see if we could get it fixed.  She had to buy a new card and the clerk gave us directions on how to transfer the money from the old one to the new one.

We took Metro to Judiciary Square to visit the National Building Museum.  This rarely-visited museum is one of my favorites.  It is so beautiful inside and out.  There was an exhibit on parking garages which was interesting.  The gift shop at the National Building Museum is probably one of the best in the city.

Christine and Liz were touring the Holocaust Museum on the other side of the national mall. Mom and I met Christine and Liz and at the American History Museum which recently completed a major renovation. I wanted to see the new Star Spangled Banner flag exhibit. The exhibit is amazing and quite moving.

It was raining pretty good by the time we left the museum which closed at 5:30. We walked over to the Willard Hotel to have a drink before meeting my friend Lance Pennington and his partner Tony near Capitol Hill. It was raining hard when we left the Willard to take the Metro to Eastern Market. We found the restaurant and had a fabulous time with Lance and Tony. I've known Lance since the early 1980's when I worked at Arena Stage. Lance is still there.

Mom and I got home very late. Thursday my sister Carol came over and we went to Occoquan for lunch. It was warm this morning but cooling off as the day went on. We ate at The Garden Cafe and it was still warm enough to walk around this historic little river town.

Thursday night Mom and I met my sister Lea, her husband Tim, my niece Gracie Kay and her husband Nate and son Alex in Alexandria for dinner. Alex had just turned three and has quite the vocabulary. When Mom and I got home, she looked out her fourth floor apartment and saw a large fox in the back yard. The fox hung around for little bit before trotting back into the woods.

Friday we met my friend Judy for lunch. Judy was the executive secretary at my very first job out of college in 1981. We've kept in touch all these years. Friday night was do-nothing night and relax.

Saturday we ran some errands early as it was supposed to snow. The predictions were changing by the hour but it was sounding like it was going to be a good storm. And it was. My early evening there were a few inches of very wet snow and it was sticking to the road which wasn't expected.
We had already made tentative arrangements to meet my brother Loyd (Spade). We were hoping to help decorate his boat on the Potomac and participate in their annual Christmas boat float. It was raining down where he was and decided not to get wet and play with electricity. So we met Spade and his wife Bev in Gainesville. It was still snowing a lot and the drive was kind of slow with some cars already spilled out in the median.
After dinner with Bev and Spade, we saw my niece Kimberly at her hair salon. She is manager and head hair dresser.

I flew home today.