That’s right, I joined a volleyball tournament, and my team won. The prize? A 24k gold colored plastic ship on a stick trophy! But I’ll be honest; the competition was…lacking. My strategy to victory was to simply hit it over the net (forget 3-hit plays) and let the other team screw it up. And screw it up they did, often enough that I didn’t expect the ball to come back over. It wasn’t just little kids playing, where the level of play would have been understandable. It was mostly adults, who probably have never played volleyball in their life before.
Since the last update, we’ve been to Cabo San Lucas and Washington, D.C. It was nice and warm in Cabo. Maybe we were a little hungry at the time, but we thought we had an excellent lunch on the beach (literally the tables and chairs were on the sand) in Cabo. It was relatively simple, as it was just soft tacos, chips with salsa, and a soda. But it tasted really good. Almost enough to go back tomorrow.
Washington, D.C. was cold, but at least it was sunny. From the weather reports I read, it was really windy and raining before we flew there, and it was going to rain/snow after we left. So we lucked out. We visited Mount Vernon first, where George Washington’s estate is located. Got there early before the long line of tourists arrive. We were in and out of Washington’s mansion in no time. Pictures weren’t allowed though, so I don’t have anything to show. The visitor center was very interesting. Lots of Washington info, and they had a few theaters with special effects to keep us entertained. Definitely worth the $15 admission if you’ve never been there before.
The Capitol tour was next on our list. We had an intern from the office of our local Congressman give us a tour. He was relatively new, as I believe he said he’s been on the job for a few months only. But he had enough information for us, and answered most of our curiousity questions. The interesting story he had was not about the Capitol at all, but his journey to D.C. Apparently he decided to bike (not motorcycle, a bicycle!) across the country, from San Luis Obispo (I think) all the way to the Capitol. 58 days is what it took him. Sounds like fun, but where do you wash up? Certainly don’t want to smell like you’ve gone 58 days across the USA when you show up for the job. We had lunch at the visitor center underneath the Capitol. Remember what I said about the lunch in Cabo? This was the opposite. I wouldn’t eat this food again if it meant I won’t eat the whole day. (My advice: don’t eat near the Capitol or the National Mall; go to Alexandria, Virginia, where we had really nice dinners there.)
The Smithsonian Museums and the National Archives were next on our list. There were too many to visit in the little time we had, so we only made it to the Air and Space museum, the Natural History museum, the American History museum, and the Castle (visitor information). The museums were very interesting, but a bit crowded. We got to see the original Star-Spangled Banner in the American History museum, along with a bunch of dresses, personal possessions, etc. of former First Ladies. The actual Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights are on display in the National Archives. Lots of security around obviously. You don’t want it stolen again like it was in the movie National Treasure.
Since they were basically in the same area, we also visited the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Memorial, and the World War II Memorial. We even got tickets to go up the Washington Memorial, where we had great views of the whole area. From the Lincoln Memorial, I got some great pictures of the Washington Memorial, with its reflection in the Reflecting Pool. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to visit the Jefferson Memorial.
The White House tour was last on our list. Save the best for last? This was the worse tour we had. Nothing really interesting in the parts of the White House we had access to. If we had reversed our itinerary, maybe the White House tour wouldn’t have been as bad. And to top it off, the President didn’t come out to greet us.