Capital City adventures

Yesterday we left the Washington DC area, after spending four nights. We arrived pretty late on Wednesday night, after driving the entire way from New Rochelle, NY, an all-day drive. Ben's cousin Josh and his wife Stephanie very kindly let us stay in their driveway on really short notice. Thursday was spent not doing a whole lot, and in the evening we had a nice dinner with Josh and Stephanie, and their kids Elizabeth and Matthew. Ben made a baked penne dish that came out quite tasty. Friday we went into DC very early. We meant to go to the zoo for just a couple hours, but it ended up being more like five or six. I got some good pictures which I will be posting in the next couple of days. We relaxed for a few hours, and then met up with Allison to walk around DC and go to dinner. We went to Jaleo, a tapas place owned by Jose Andres. It was pretty good, but not outstanding; the tapas we had in Spain were, of course, way better. We were truly disappointed by Andres' rendition of patatas bravas, but the sangria was really good. More about that on Ben's food blog.

After dinner we went to a bar called "Poste" which is located in the old post office building (so shouldn't it be called "Post"?). They looked like a kind of trendy place, but they had a huge outdoor seating area and lots of home-infused liquors. I got a faux-Dark and Stormy: instead of ginger beer and rum, I got ginger-infused rum and ginger ale. It was really really good. I can't remember what Allison and Ben got, but they both ordered drinks with some of the infused vodkas. After a couple drinks, we wandered back to Allison's and got some sleep.

Since Ben and I only got to the zoo on Friday, we wanted to make sure we caught at least two museums on Saturday. The first one we went to was the National Air and Space Museum, where we again spent a lot longer than we expected. We paid way too much for McDonalds lunch (the only food available) and spend another hour or so there. I was originally really excited to go there, but I realized that I'm a lot more interested in where people go into space than how they get there. Some of the shuttles and satellite displays were pretty cool though. After taking in as much as we could handle, we made our way to the International Gallery, where they were having a special exhibit on Jim Henson! It was the coolest exhibit I've ever been to. Even though I didn't grow up watching Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock or The Muppet Show, I've seen the latter, and I was able to appreciate most of the exhibit. Henson was a funny, creative, and wonderful artist and person.

Last night we stopped at Misty Mountain Camp Resort around 7pm. Ben grilled some sausages, onions, and potatoes over the fire. Today we got on the road around 1pm and are now heading down Route 29 in Virginia on our way to Ben's grandma Romey's house in North Carolina. We drove about 50 miles through the George Washington National Forest, which was a really pretty drive, though a very gas-guzzling hilly drive. Every gas fillup is getting cheaper and cheaper, per gallon anyway. We just filled up for $3.459/gal, and not five minutes later passed a station listing $3.359/gal! Our current trip stats are about 1900 miles, about $1000 on gas, and 9.33 overall mpg.

-Lily