| Latitude: | 28° 25 0" North |
| Longitude: | 81° 18' 0" West |
| From Orlando: | 0 |
| To Washington, D. C. | 1258 miles |
| Altitude: | 33.7 feet |
| Today's Travel: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Entry: Off we go to snowy Washington. Although this is not a pleasure trip, we are actually heading to Arlington, VA. for Grandpa's funeral tomorrow. He will be burried at Arlington National Cemetary. We are expecting Nancy and Joe and the boys to be there, along with Robert and Joanne and her two boys. It's to bad that we all could not have planned to stay at the same hotel. We also plan on doing some sight seeing while we are there. They had a lot of snow in Washington on Monday, 25 inches. We don't have many warm clothes or boots so it will be interesting to see how we survive. The weather is scheduled to be in the low 40's, almost like the same temperature we have had at home during the last month. The plane is completely full as many of the passengers were stranded over the past few days here in Orlando do to airport closure on the East coast. Austin and I are sitting together, Sharon is directly behind us sitting among two men and chatting her mouth away. I think that one of the guys is hitting on her. Grandpa's funeral tomorrow starts at 10:45 A.M. with a short church service then we walk to the grave site where he will be buried. I wonder how they will do all this with all the snow. We have rented a car in Washington, I was lucky to get it from Hertz @ $35.00 per day, a full size thru Priceline.com. The trip so far has been quiet. The plane is very warm. Austin is playing his Game Boy, NHL 2002. We had pretzels and chocolate chip cookies for lunch, Austin had a hot dog. He managed to spill a big clump of mustard and ketchup on his right thigh of his jeans. Our other plans for the weekend have not been made as of yet, but we do plan on trying to hit some of the museums, landmarks of Washington. We have tickets to the hockey game on Thurday night, Capitals vs. Maple Leafs. Austin does not know it yet, it's a surprise. The poor little guy was so sick last weekend. I went and got him a Maple Leafs jersey yesterday, to hopefully help cheer him up. He still has a hacking cough. Although he is feeling better. Our flight was fine. Dallas and Austin sat together in row 18A and B while I sat in row 19B. Immediately the passenger to my left started talking about how much he disliked Orlando. He said Orlando was made up of nothing but cement. Obviously, he never went anywhere but his hotel and conference he had attended. The he proceeded to tell me about the book he was reading on the building of the Panama Canal. Along with his hidden bottle of vodka the trip and his conversation continued. Once we landed we headed for our suitcase then to get the rental car. The weather was as expected cold but refreshing. Austin immediately picked up some gray snow and made a snowball. He hasn't seen snow since we lived in Colorado. We picked up our full size car and headed to the Wyndham Hotel which is located in the FOGGY BOTTOM, just down the road from Georgetown University. After settling in and realizing we were all starved we ventured out walking around to find something to eat. Along our walk Austin was having a great time making snowballs and throwing them at Dallas and I. Dallas and I were discussing how we missed living in the city. The atmosphere, all the great restaurants, music on the street corner. However, having to fight the traffic and slush covered walk ways put us back in Orlando.  After walking around undecided on where to eat, I decided to stop someone and ask for a recommendation. Wouldn't you know it, the one person I asked was not from around here but actually from Brazil. We ended up going to one of the restaurants she suggested, the Baja Mexican Grill. Austin didn't eat much still not feeling well. After eating we walked around somemore and ventured into a restaurant called Cosi for dessert. I had a great cup of carmel mocha, Dallas ordered a brownie sundae and Austin and I had smores that we cooked over a fire at the table. After dessert we stopped to pick up a large bottle of water then walked back to the hotel under gray skies and wet drips of snow. Back at the hotel peaked in the Don Shula's restaurant to check out the menu then back to the room to relax and turn in. Here we are at the end of the first day of our Washington D.C trip.
Where can you find us?  Dallas @bluereef@msn.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
