STONE, MARBLE AND METAL (there's a large phallic symbol out my window)

We hit the road at 2:00 AM heading east toward sunrise; I like driving through the early morning darkness and counting the miles and hours.

We set out in the cold and I reset the Trip A on the odometer and start the coronagraph on my watch.

It's a quirky thing I have about timing things, I wouldn't call it an obsession, I just like to know how much of my life is spent doing something worthwhile as opposed to pissing it away on something not.

On a road trip I chop the journey up in 100 mile increments and 1 hour time blocks.

It's not like I stop the car and run around it three times every hundred miles; I'm not OCD, It just makes the drive in the middle of the night less tedious to me.

Little Sis thinks I'm crazy doing road trips and driving straight through on really long trips. This is only 600 miles, I can do that standing on my head.

The thing I enjoy about driving through the night is the solitude, the non-drivers are sleeping and I drive on through the night and watch for the tell-tell signs of daybreak. 

I'm not used to driving in the same direction as the rotation of our planet. As I drive I try to calculate how many miles east I will be by 6:30 AM knowing that it will make sunrise quite a bit earlier than we are used to Indy.

I'm driving Renee's Lexus so it's a nice comfortable ride and it's the University's gas so there's that.

There is a reception for the seminar in DC we want to attend, it's not till 6:00 PM but we wanted to get there as early as possible to do a few hours of sight seeing beforehand.

We arrived at the hotel one hour later then my best estimate due to sitting on the interstate in Maryland dead stopped for an hour. We go up to the room to check out our digs, it's an older hotel but the Washington Hilton is a very nice place. I pull back the curtain and look south, there it it! the Washington Monument! Right there almost within reach. Awesome!

I would find out, looks are deceiving in DC, it's a 2 mile walk to the White House and at least a half mile more to the Washington Monument.  

Although we arrived a little later than planned we still had plenty of time to explore so we strike out. Renee lived here for 5 years but that was 20 years ago; she said she loved her time here and she seemed to really enjoy coming back.

We are only 1/2 mile from the Metro at DuPont Circle but we press on by foot walking all the way to the South Lawn of the White House.

I didn't have any protest signs made up so we left the White House without incident and headed back on a bus. I was impressed with what I had seen of DC on this first day. No crack smoking whore mongering mayors seen so far, no drive-by shootings either. The DC I saw was clean and I loved the architecture of all the town houses and buildings, yeah I could live here for a spell, if I could afford it, I can't !

Attending the reception I was on my best behavior knowing I'm the least educated person in the room and this is a business setting. Whenever I'm out of my element I subscribe to the old adage, " it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak and remove all doubt."

These wise words have been attributed to both Twain and Lincoln among others; since I'm in DC I'll go ahead and give the homage to Lincoln. 

Although I enjoy the humor there is some sage advise there and I have seen many people in awkward settings who either did not know this saying or did not heed the sound advice.

I'll have to say the people I met and conversed with at the reception seemed to be really personable and it made for a very enjoyable night. 

The trick is to be sociable and listen more than you speak, also consume the never ending adult beverages without removing all doubt.

STONE MARBLE AND METAL (overview)

Beginning at the Capitol Building and working my way east to Arlington is a lesson in humility, respect and awe, current residents of the White House not withstanding.

Every building, statue and memorial merits its own post. I will try and temper my disgust for what many current "politicians" are doing to this nation, with the respect and love I have for my country, my founding fathers and my fallen countrymen and women.

I didn't write a word while visiting DC, I was trying to absorb everything I was seeing and feeling. My feelings ran the gamut of human emotion. Hate, love, fear, resolve, anger, joy, sorrow, exuberance, shame, pride.

I know I have a tendency to sometimes overstate things when I write, my biggest fear is that I come off as some pretentious asshole. I don't mind being thought of as an asshole, I am in good company there, it's the pretentious part I'm trying to steer clear of.

So for the record, I do not claim to be a writer. Yeah, no surprise there; I just claim to be honest. Well, at least I'm less dishonest than most who reside in this town, er district.

Honesty is a two edged sword, it is something we all claim to desire and possess. This week I stood at the marble feet of the pinnacle of honesty, Honest Abe.

I walked by a building that seemed to mock the concept of honesty, The Department Of Justice.

I saw another building that was in desperate need of a name change. The Department Of Treasury would be more accurately described as Warehouse Of United States I.O.U.'s.

The Internal Revenue Service building (at the risk of being audited) would be more aptly named Obama's Enemy List Accounting and Reckoning. 

I have wanted to visit DC for as many years as I can remember. For the last several years I have been waiting for the perfect time to go when the Cherry Blossoms were plentiful and the ne'er-do-wells were absent.

The Cherry blossoms come and go every spring, the ne'er-do-wells unfortunately seem to be perpetually in season.

When the last minute opportunity arose to accompany the young lady I'm dating and her son on a business trip to DC I jumped at the chance!

We would be staying just 1/2 mile north of DuPont Circle and a few blocks south of the Adams Morgan neighborhood in a historical significant place known locally as the Hinkley Hilton

This (smaller in real life) section of the hotel was almost another Dealey Plaza but for the heroic reaction of Secret Service and the highly skilled on-call Presidential surgeons.

This is what the scene looked like last Friday, I can imagine it took this hotel many years to overcome the unwanted infamy bestowed upon it. 

The White House was a mere 2 miles away from the Washington Hilton, easy walking distance if I had an abundance of time.

Working with four days and three nights meant taking advantage of DC's Metro system to save more time for walking between the sights of The Mall and paying respects to monuments and memorials.

One thing I found out real fast about DC, just because you can see it don't mean you can walk to it fast.

I could see the Washington Monument from my hotel room but it would take a spell to walk it.

I made the trip with Renee and her son . She had to attend a day and a half of seminars so me and Renée's son ventured out on our own and made the most of that time doing guy stuff like the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum among other sights.

Although Renée lived worked and studied in DC for five years. she had never been Arlington National Cemetery so we would wait till she was free to see that.

The sights and sounds of DC gave much food for thought and most things I saw and did got the squirrel cage in my brain rolling and I knew I couldn't adequately describe this trip in one or two posts. American History bored me to tears when I was a young lad in knickers listening to the Schoolmarm drone on and on about Redcoats coming and trying to get me to "remember the Maine".

It took not being required to memorize dates and names to make me enjoy learning about what it took for the United States to unite and the cost of freedom.

It took seeing what most of the world doesn't possess to make me appreciate what we do and price paid by others to get and keep our freedom.

Losing our freedom is the challenge we are facing now; It seems that's it's not a question of if but of when. I pray for political climate change. And soon!