The Stanalands

Friday

We decided to take a break and head to Washington DC for the weekend. Adventure here we come! The first adventure we experienced was leaving my blood pressure medication behind. Of course my feet swelled up like Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats, and the shoes that I was wearing were NOT comfortable with swollen feet. Thankfully, I can think on my feet, swollen or not. I called my local Kroger pharmacist to see about transferring my prescription to DC. The person that I spoke to (the person that handles my medication, mind you) actually asked me what state Washington DC was in. huh? Really? Yes. It gets better! When we arrived in DC we called the local CVS pharmacy. When giving my information to the person that would be handling my medication there she asked what state I was from. She then says “Atlanta, right?” huh? Really? Yes.

We took a walk to the pharmacy and couldn’t help but notice that there were quite a few “palaces”. As a matter of fact, there were two kabob palaces on either side of a schezhuan palace. One of the kabob palaces also happened to be a hookah bar. We took pictures.

We opted to return to the hotel for the night since it was almost 9. We grabbed some sandwiches (to-go) from the hotel bar and headed back up to our room to watch Battlestar Gallactica. Yes, even on vacation we don’t want to miss our sci-fi Fridays. We watched our shows and headed off to sleep for the night.

We booked our hotel through hotels.com, thinking it would be easier. Ha! No, our booking got lost in cyberspace.

***NOTICE***Hotels.com is still charging our credit card and now so is the hotel we stayed in. it will take up to 30 day to get our hotels.com refund, and we will have to pay the hotel itself. Bummer.

Sleep number beds

Our hotel was very nice. Every room had sleep number beds. Since Brian and I both wanting/needing a new mattress, we thought this would be a perfect opportunity to test the sleep number beds and see if they were worth the cost. Our verdict after the first night was absolutely not. It was like sleeping on a thick air mattress. You could feel the bladder as you inflated and deflated it. We awoke to back aches both mornings. We will not be getting a sleep number bed!

Saturday

We slept in a few extra minutes on Saturday morning because of our sci-fi Friday addiction. We left the hotel at 10am with the intention of finding breakfast. The breakfast bar at the hotel was $13 and neither of us were THAT hungry. So we walked. Then, we walked some more. After that, you guessed it, we walked some MORE. We finally wound up at the mall. DC has the most amazing layout! You can travel by foot for miles, get to so many places, and never see the sun because of all the underground walkways. The trains are amazing, clean, efficient and easy to get to from anywhere. I digress. We were in the underground shopping mall and stopped at the Dunkin Donuts for breakfast/lunch. From there, we walked back over to the train and headed for the Smithsonian (after a brief and picture-less trip to the pentagon) to see the amazing artifacts collected through the years. As we exited the subway station, the skies looked threatening. We were able to enter and exit the first Smithsonian bldg (the castle, which holds Smithson’s remains) before getting rained on. When we entered the second bldg, the bottom fell out of the sky. We walked around looking at the fossils of dinosaurs and other various and sundry creatures. We even saw a bull that had been mummified. Amazingly, the bull was neater to see than the mummified man was.

This would be a great time in my life to start a list of all the things I don’t care about. I won’t start the list here and now because it would get excessively long.

So the rain subsided long enough to buy 2 umbrellas and 2 carousel tickets. Just as we stepped off the carousel, the rain started once again. At this point our umbrellas were keeping our heads and torsos dry, but our shoes, socks and feet were getting soaked. I highly advise never walking any great distance in this manner. My feet are going to be uglier than your grandpa’s after this weekend.

We finally make it to the air & space museum and I was in awe of the sights. My feet were absolutely killing me and we were getting hungry. At some point, my feet lost consciousness and I had to sit and rest. We left the National Air and Space museum and started to make a go at the Washington monument. We walked for a while and didn’t seem to be making any progress. I was so hungry at this point, and my feet hurt so badly I was starting to feel like a dying member of the Dahmer party.  I suggested that we head back toward the metro and have dinner at the hotel. (they had these pecan crusted pork chops that I had been thinking about for at least an hour at this point) by the time we returned to our hotel room and were able to release our poor tired feet from their wet encasements, we had been on our feet for at least 7 long hours. My spa tub has never looked so good. Dinner was awesome, and filling. We ate and were back in our room by 7:15, by 7:38 the lights were off and we were snuggled in for the night. I have no memory of anything past 8. 

Sunday

Brian and I awoke extra early. (Or a little late depending on how you look at it) we were both awake by 5. We got out of the bed by 6:30, and had both had a shower and could have been out the door by 7 if we had so desired. We didn’t so desire. We left the room closer to 10ish. First destination…food, second destination Arlington national cemetery. I don’t generally care for cemeteries. There are dead people there. It was a great aerobic walk, and we were able to see the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, as well as the changing of the guard.

At 3pm on Sunday, after our visit to Arlington we returned to the metro. The plan was to continue on as to visit the national zoo. Our train was delayed because someone was struck by the train at the Smithsonian station. The initial announcement was that someone was struck, subsequent announcements stated medical situation. Our train arrived, we boarded and each stop was delayed and we spent at least 5 minutes at each stop. By the time we got to the transfer station it was way past the time we should have been at the airport. We decided to just head back to the hotel for our bags and hit the airport.  It’s strange, but we chose a flight in to DC that had been delayed because of instrument problems, and we are currently sitting in line (10th in line) waiting to take off. The 9 planes full of people in front of us aren’t going anywhere either…we are delayed due to bad weather. **NOTE** We actually took off after sitting in the plane in a parking space for over two hours…and then the flight itself was about two hours.

We finally made it home. We are tired. We want sleep…