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Sunday: Since Saturday was a long day of driving and I didn't arrive until after 9pm this day was a day of doing adulting tasks and getting settled. I had so much laundry to do and arrived with 0 groceries after a week of vacationing. I'm really enjoying seeing hills and elevation change for the first time in months. Have a mentioned how much I missed that? South Florida was sooo flat. I'm staying in a very nice neighborhood this month- converted basement apartment of a large house.
Monday: Adventured out for a local hike about 20 minutes away. Unfortunately my struggle currently is that I work West coast hours on the East coast. So sunlight after work disappeared quickly 😞 Still got a couple miles in but had to take a shorter route. Only a few hundred feet in elevation change but man I really forgot what that looks like or feels like. Hiking along the Potomac river- I could see Maryland but I haven't visited it yet or crossed the river 😊
Tuesday: Went to a game night at a game store only a few miles away. The game store had the most comfortable gaming chairs- the
kind that you can sit in for hours gaming and still be comfortable. Wowza. Learned a few games- kinda weird group of games which sometimes happens lol.
Wednesday: Tried out a new work schedule. Get out of bed early and go for a hike before work- regional trail close to home. It works as long as I get up early enough and keep an eye on the time. Copper also always has so much morning energy he appreciates the morning hike! Spent the evening sitting on the patio swing catching up on this blog. It's 75* and bug free!
Friday: Met up with a outdoor adventure group doing a full moon DC monuments night hike. It was in celebration/honor of emancipation day in DC which is April 16. We started in the river marina on the Virginia side and stopped at the Lyndon Baines Johnson memorial which has amazing views across the river of DC. Then we crossed the river and saw some gorgeous Tulips. Unfortunately I did arrive in DC too late for most of the Cherry Blossoms- they blossomed early this year 😞. After walking by the pentagon, we stopped at the Lincoln memorial and walked
up the steps to see where MLK gave his famous speech. The full moon was up in the sky and brilliantly clear. Seeing the national mall and the full moon on a gorgeous evening was such a treat. The weather was perfect too- upper 60s. It was cool to imagine the national mall being crowded with 250k people but also hard to imagine at the same time! Next we walked through the Vietnam memorial. The leader of the hike was extremely knowledgable and gave some good history of the creation and meaning of the site we saw- basically a tour guide. He pointed out that one of the controversies of the Vietnam memorial at the time was there was no actual representation of the soldiers- just names. So now at the entry is a depiction of 3 soldiers at war. Around the corner is the Vietnam Women's memorial- to commemorate all the work women put into the war effort and is 3 women tending to a wounded soldier. Although in reality during Vietnam women nurses weren't allowed on the battlefield so it's not a great representation. We walked through the FDR memorial and WW2 memorial but didn't stop (was told
it's best to view in daylight so I'll try to return) and then went on to the MLK memorial where so many quotes from his speeches are engraved in stone. However, his most famous I have a dream speech is not quoted- instead the entire memorial is supposed to be re-creating that speech, which is an interesting concept. Overall it was a great group of people and a fantastic evening city hike. I felt like I got a free tour of the south part of DC from knowledgeable locals.
Saturday: Some more site seeing in DC - this time in the daylight 😊 Headed to the North part of the National mall to the nation's capital building and walked up to Washington monument. First I need to describe the DC parking authority. I managed to get street parking (victory!) and you have to pay at a machine centrally located on the block- so it was about 3 cars away. While I was trying to make this machine work a parking person stopped at my car and started to write me a ticket!!! They were very grumpy but did not write the ticket... later when I returned my parking was
valid until 2:56. I got back to my car just before that but was still sitting in it programming my GPS etc at 2:58 a parking authority examined my ticket in my windshield and did not see me sitting in the car and started to look at their machine until I rolled down the window! Sheesh. Do not mess with these people or even be 2 minutes late!
The actual experience at the capital was great- warm and sunny. Very busy because of the great Spring weather and being emancipation day but there's also just so much room it didn't feel crowded. The number of food trucks selling shaved ice, smoothies and ice cream was insane though-literally bumper to bumper I think probably triple digit number of trucks total! And just about every other person seemed to be walking down the path holding ice cream so they were making their money. Over at the white house there were a number of protesters out for Biden to do more to help Ukraine. Lots of Tulips and lots of tourists 😊
In the evening Copper and I joined another evening hike- this one went around 2 suburban lakes near where
I'm staying. The group leader was trying to give away/raffle some art he had made but awkwardly no one in the group wanted it. This was a very weird way to start a hike- him having 6 pieces of weird art and only 3 being taken (I suspect out of pity) by a few hikers. The lakes were pretty and Copper enjoyed the company of a couple other dogs. The moon also finally came out behind a cloud and was nice and bright and full (full moon happened during the day today so it appeared full last night and tonight essentially). Overall a great first week in DC
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