We Signed on to See the World, But All We Have Seen is West Virginia

Well, that is not exactly true, we have also seen Regular Virginia, bits and pieces of Maryland and more of Washington D. C. than we had hoped to see. The reason we have seen so much of D.C. is that we get lost a lot and no matter where you are or how you get lost in D.C. you end up in a dreadfully dangerous neighborhood. They actually have sensor devices in D. C. that can notify the police when a gun is fired and can triangulate the location of the gun shot. Cool. But what does that say about the number of gunshots they have to contend with?

In order to save a lot of time and typing I am going to fast forward through the events of the past several months. Mike: sold house in Houston, packed, re-packed, hauled books and clothes (Mary's) to Austin, packed more, Hauled things to Austin (repeat this step about six or seven times) went on a whirlwind tour of Texas (Lake Buchanan, The Ranch, Arlington, back to Houston) with a huge U-Haul truck full of stuff and pulling the Xterra on a trailer (thank you Paul!!!) Watched as the movers wrapped everything we owned in paper (including trash cans, laundry baskets, everything) loaded it into a truck and hauled it away. I don't know if I will ever see any of my things again, other that the things I brought with me. Our worldly possessions are (hopefully) in Hagerstown, Maryland where they will remain for the next 20 years or so. Then I drove to Washington D.C. in two days and started taking Spanish classes, which has proved to be a very humbling experience. It has proven to be rather difficult for me to master which surprised me given the number of people that speak Spanish in the world.

Mary: Came to D.C. back in March, went through a whirlwind "A-100" class to learn how to be in the Foreign Service and started studying Spanish. And studying, and studying and studying and studying...until it has all become a big ol' blur of studying. So far the Foreign Service has not been all that glamorous, mostly it has been just like going school.

We have had an opportunity to go and see some things. Here is a partial list (this is not in order): Monticello, Great Falls National Park, Harper's Ferry National Park, Fredericksberg, Iwo Jima Memorial, All of the Memorials on the National Mall including the Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, FDR, Vietnam, WWII, and the other lesser memorials. We have been to Rock Creek Park, Roosevelt Island and Georgetown where we walked along the C&O Canal. We have been to numerous bars and restaurants including the famous Madam's Organ in Adams-Morgan and the Birchmere where we saw the Cowboy Junkies. We have been to The National Gallery, The National Portrait Gallery, The Building Museum, The Postal Museum and several others. We have eaten Peruvian, Thai, and Afghan food. We also saw the Drag Queen Race, a three block foot race in high heel shoes featuring some of D.C.'s best (and worst) Drag Queens. The mayor of D. C. showed up and shook hands with the crowd and posed for pictures with the Drag Queens. D. C. does have its bright spots!!!

Most recently, we went to Harper's Ferry to see what Thomas Jefferson described as "perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.”



It was quite pretty, but I don't think that Jefferson had seen the Rocky Mountains, or the Grand Canyon or any place west of Harper's Ferry when he said that. For anyone interested here are some links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpers_Ferry,_West_Virginia
http://www.nps.gov/hafe/

We ate at the Hilltop House which had a very nice view, but the buffet brunch was pretty weak. I guess we were paying for the view. There was a group of gay square dancers in the Hilltop House Hotel Ballroom square dancing to recordings of Doobie Brother's songs. That was something you don't see every day! A bunch of guys with handlebar moustaches dressed in rainbow square dancing outfits spinning each other about. We had to go all the way to West Virginia to see that! The park was pretty and like all National Parks very clean. We also got to walk along the Appalachian Trail, so now I can truthfully claim to have hiked a part of the Appalachian Trail (about 100 yards of it).