A quick Birthday trip for me

As the US Federal government is scheduled to shut down when it runs out of money this Friday, Clay decided last week that it would make a great B-day gift from him to me to take me to DC this week. Good idea and the weather was forecast to be pretty nice for this time of year too. We wanted to go to the National Gallery of Art for their special exhibition of Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting. ( We missed the '95-'96 exhibit due to bad winter weather and the government shutdowns during the Clinton administration. That was a bigger deal than today's in my opinion but never to be duplicated it seems. Oh, well.)

We stayed at a nearby Holiday Inn Washingon - Capitol.  It must be fairly new, otherwise I don't know why we haven't always stayed there. It was amazingly conveninetly located and affordable. It was a nice big room with a small fridge and a big hard bed. (The hard bed was the only downside!) We paid a total of $106.88 for the one night in the hotel and we paid $49 for parking in the lot under the hotel. It was worth much more for the convenience of the location less than 2 blocks from the National Gallery.

We left home Saturday morning before Clay's stated goal of 5am. We stopped at a Bob Evans in Richmond about 7:30am. I wanted mush! It was about 40 minutes roundtrip out of our way, but it was for my b-day! It was good.

We got to DC about an hour earlier than we had expected to anyway. We parked the car as we had booked it in advance online independently of the hotel and left our stuff in the trunk. We walked around the Air and Space Museum and across the National Mall to the National Gallery. We entered and got bag checked and picked up a gallery map. We found the exhibit's line entrance back by the restrooms with no line! We used the restrooms, then picked up our exhibition brochure and entered the roped area. There was no waiting in line, but the exhibit space was jam packed. Still, it was better than missing it. We saw everything and were out before we were even expecting to have arrived in DC!

Since we still had hours before we could check in to the HI, we saw more of the National Gallery. We toured the French Impressionists, the Dutch and Flemish galleries, we found the Da Vinci. We still had time to kill and thought about eating. We hit the shops and went to the Cascade Cafe underground and between the 2 gallery buildings. We found it looking for the Gelato Bar which we found but it was looking sparse and picked over. We had a snack and Clay did have gelato. I was fascinated by a light show/moving walkway visible from our seats and we took the passage to the East Building. The light in the underground corridor reminded me of Star Trek engaging warp drive. The building is famous with architecture students/fans and I. M. Pei's name inside on a stone wall was almost rubbed off! Once outside, I pointed out to Clay Pei's 19 degree corner that had also been discolored by people rubbing it. We studied it for a while, at different angles it almost looked like a flat wall, not a building at all. In Clay's photos, it looks like a pyramid. We spent more time studying the building's approachs from outside and below than the art which we mostly skipped. We crossed the National Mall again to visit the National Museum of the American Indian. We had assumed it meant US Native Americans but it covered South America all the way to the Canadian Arctic. It was still interesting. They had an interesting cafe menu, too bad we'd already snacked. There was native people's arts and crafts market on in the atrium. There was a major exhibit about the Inka Road that looked permanent to me. Once again the architecture from the outside was as interesting as the building's contents.

We walked back to the hotel by getting bags x-rayed to pass through the Air & Space Museum. It was after 3pm and check in time by now, so we just stayed in the atrium area and gift shop and came in one side and out the other to avoid walking around the building again. There were a lot of food trucks parked along our path with mostly Mexican and Indian food that smelled good, but it was colder outside than we'd expected and we planned to eat at the hotel.

We got room 337 at the Holiday Inn. Since Clay didn't carry his camera on this quick trip, I am sure he didn't take any photos. It was a large, clean well-appointed room and the only negative for us was the too hard bed. There were 2 restaurants plus a Starbucks at the hotel and we chose the bar & grill option. We were tired, not that hungry and it was convenient and good.

We were early to bed as there was nothing on HBO or any other channel that we wanted to watch on TV. We woke up about 7am the next day. I think we both slept well. I used the Keurig in the room for decaf tea after dinner and 2 cups of coffee in the morning before we left. We stopped at the 2nd Bob Evans we passed in Woodbridge, VA on our way home. It was packed! Too close to DC I guess. It was at the Potomac Mills Outlet Mall exit too. I had mush again and it was 20 cents more and not as good. I still enjoyed it. We got home by 2pm. It is sunny and 65 F here. You'd never know it was December and my birthday is nearly over. I have one last special request. We'll go to El Cuscatleco for pupusas for dinner later. We went to Steak & Shake on my actual birthday. I am still heartbroken that they removed the mocha shake from their menu!

I almost forgot that this year's only supermoon coincided with my birthday weekend. It was spectacular, low and orange as we drove home east from dinner this evening.

Hopefully, Clay will link his cellphone photos later.