Our Nation's Capital

Lincoln Memorial

Those who know me know that I like to travel. I don't particularly care where I go; I just like the way that travel shakes my seemingly familiar grasp on reality and gives me a fresh perspective on the things that so easily become commonplace or mundane.

My recent goal has been to escape the city, or at least explore one of its more unfamiliar alcoves, each weekend. I'm only two weeks in but so far so good and this past weekend, I finally made it to a city I've meant to visit for years: Washington, DC.

Washington Monument

One thing I figured out pretty quickly is that there's a lot to do in DC, and I only had a day and a half so I took it easy and indulged my feet in wandering aimlessly (and maplessly) for a few hours before my amazingly gracious hosts, Cameron and Joe, met me and gave me a serious taste of DC awesome.

Petty Cabbing It

We started with sunset drinks on the rooftop of the W Hotel, from where I got a rough lay of the land ("Oh, there's the White House! Right there in front of me! And the Washington Monument. And Ooo ooo! I can see the Pentagon over there!") and then we did what none of us had ever done: petty cabbed it down toward the Lincoln Memorial but on our driver's recommendation, stopped first at the Einstein monument where there happened to be a poetry reading (yes, there is an Einstein monument that apparently nobody but a group of English poets knows of. Score!).

Einstein Monument

From there, we walked down to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which I've observed plenty on TV but which really took my breath away in person as one of the most beautiful and tasteful memorials I've ever seen, and then on to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and finally, Joe's rooftop where we BBQed ourselves some dinner and ate with a view on the US Capitol building.

Kind of amazing....

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Other incredibleness that I discovered while in DC, thanks to Cam and Joe?

Marvin's for late night drinks.

Ben's Chili Bowl for even later and truly ridiculous chili smokes and chili cheese fries (just what you need at 3am).

And the entire Eastern Market section of town for Sunday afternoon perusing.

I'm liking you, Washington. Keep on keeping on.