The Garden of the Blind

I just returned from another trip to the District of Columbia. This trip wasn’t nearly as exciting as my last trip there, but it still had some good bits.

The primary purpose of my trip was to attend a meeting in beautiful southern Maryland. This time around, it was much greener, and I got out to see some different parts of it. I wasn’t any more impressed with the greenery than I was with the stark wintry area I visited in January (which was in the same geographical location). The meeting I attended was sometimes interesting, but mostly very, very boring, which was amplified by the fact that I only got 3-4 hours of sleep a night while I was down there.

Speaking of sleep, alarm clocks should never be designed so that you can change the time by pushing only one button. The first two mornings when I woke up, the clock was off by a few hours, which I think is a result of hunting for the snooze button in a nearly delirious state. The clock, however, is my only major complaint about what otherwise was a fine hotel (minor complaints include the sink stopper being broken (so that it was nearly stopped all the time), the shower curtain making the shower way too dark, and the lack of a microfridge).

I tried a bit of the local cuisine, but that didn’t go well. We went to a restaurant called Cabana’s, which was far more of a bar than a restaurant. By eating outside, we avoided most of the smokiness, but ended up dealing with flies and rather gross tables instead. My food tasted fishy, which was a definite deal breaker. I ate at more exotic places after that, like Taco Bell and Subway.

DC was all right, but I just wasn’t in the mood for it. I was exhausted from traveling all week already, and from hardly sleeping all week. I did go see a few sights and find a few caches, but it was nothing compared to the much colder experiences I had in January. The highlight of the area, in fact, was eating at a couple of restaurants in Chinatown. The first, called Five Guys, is a burger joint that sells pretty good burgers. Mine had some bacon that was a bit crispier than I would like, but ultimately it was a really good sandwich. (This reminds me: we need to go to Brand X in Springville.) Friday, I got lunch with my sister-in-law (and their infant son) at a sandwich shop called Potbellies. Wow, what a good sandwich. It was like eating at Quizno’s, but for even less than Subway’s prices, and with even better food.

I also enjoyed hanging out with family. I discovered that my brother and I are more evenly matched at Boggle than we have been in the past. Maybe next time we play he will beat me. I also finally saw the extended edition of the final Lord of the Rings movie. I’m not sure why I hadn’t seen it yet, but it was quite awesome. My brother and I hardly talked politics, which is a break from the norm for us, and when we did talk, we agreed a bit more than usual. Maybe fatherhood has softened him to a more moderate socialist.

I wasn’t feeling very well on this trip. I was tired and anxious to be home. Between everything that was going on, it was a really hard week for me, but fortunately, things are getting better. It’s great to be home.