I CanSee a New Horizon. Underneath the Blazin' Sky.

On Tuesday we got going pretty early. We wanted to get our Library of Congress library cards before we met John's family.

 I thought it was just going to be a library, where you went to some kind of desk, filled out the paperwork and got your card. Boy, was I wrong.

The building was gorgeous. Pretty much every little corner of it.

And they even had their own exhibits.

We spent way more time than we thought we would at the library.

The exhibits were engrossing.

We finally tore ourselves away from all of the amazing information and checked out what the actual library part of the Library of Congress looks like. We saw a woman sitting down there and as John pointed out, she was texting. I really want to go in there and read some cool shit if I ever get to go back to D.C. and if I do, you can bet your sweet bippy I won't waste that time texting.

So, we finally got our library cards and they are good for the next two years.

John's family rolled in from Virginia and we met them at the botanical gardens. If you look closely into the silver balls, you can see Stinky's bright pink jacket.

The gardens were lovely, but oh so packed. You could barely find a place to stand without people pressing you along.

We headed to the Native American Museum after that. I have to say, I was a little disappointed. The building was beautiful, but there wasn't much in it. Maybe I'm spoiled by going to the Herd Museum every month when I was a kid in Phoenix, but to me it seems like with so many tribes and so much culture and art and such a sad, sad history from all of us illegal immigrants who came to the US since the Mayflower and before and how badly we STILL treat the actual people who have a right to live in our fine country, that there would be several buildings of exhibits. I thought the gift store had more stuff in it than what I saw from the exhibits. A few of the exhibits I saw were really good and interesting, I just wanted more of that.

It was 64 degrees on that Tuesday and so it was really nice walking around. We ate lunch and then headed to the American History Museum. Stinky loved the African American exhibit and the First Ladies floor. Coadster loved all of it and was a wealth of knowledge any time we had questions about anything.

I was overly excited to see Julia Child's kitchen up close and personal like.

John and his family left us at the museum to get back to John's sister's house. John and his mom were flying back to Iowa pretty early the next day and they had to go home and pack. We definitely missed them after they left.

After the museums closed we walked to the Jefferson Monument, and walked and walked and walked...Even though our feet were killing us, we were lucky enough to see an incredible sunset behind it.

The monument itself was pretty cool too.

And we had this view on the way back. Not too shabby.

We took an Uber to the Georgetown area and hit another Happy Hour with drink and appetizer specials and I FINALLY got the crab cake sandwich I had been fantasizing about since we got to D.C.

 Then Stinky wanted to go the St Elmo's Fire Bar, which is really called The Tombs. We went there, but did walk around to some of the shops in Georgetown first, because we wanted to make extra special sure our feet would fall off by the end of the night...

Since it was just across the street, I made the girls check out the stairs from "The Exorcist". It was sufficiently creepy.

We took another Uber home and our driver was a very interesting character. She talked to all of the cars as if they could hear her through hers and their windows and I have never been honked at by so many people in my life. I'm happy to say that we made it home okay, though.

So Happy Together. We're Happy Together.

The day after Christmas was much, much better. Our plan was to meet John and his family at his sister's house in Virginia. Since we didn't get to see the changing of the guard on Christmas and it was on the way, we figured, why not?

I'm glad we saw it. The whole things was pretty impressive. Although, I did feel sorry for the guards that had to stand in the cold for an hour. It had to be so boring.

We headed to John's sister's place from the cemetery and it was so cute. I had never met John's brother-in-law before, because he won't fly and doesn't come to visit Iowa. he is a great guy and knows as much or more about history than Coadster.

They took us to Harper's Ferry for the day.

It was so cool. I love crazy, old, John Brown, and I figured they'd just had a plaque or something showing where he was captured, but they had an entire town of buildings showing how everything was at the time of Brown's capture. PLUS, it is on the Appalachian Trail, so now we can say we hiked part of it...Like about a half mile.

We had lunch and checked out all of the stores and museums. It was a little chilly and windy, but the hiking kept us warm.

It was a quite a trek up to Table Rock. John told his mom he'd stay with her while we hiked up the big hill, but she said she was fine. She marched right up and didn't even seem to be breathing hard like the rest of us. Such a beast.

Table Rock is super cool when you finally climb up to it and the view from up there is spectacular.

We took John for the night and went back into the city. We decided to go to Dupont Circle for dinner and drinks. We found a place that had happy hour until 8 o'clock which included $8 sushi rolls and 1/2 priced drinks. It was a hookah bar too, but we didn't partake. It smelled really good in there. Not smokey at all, but more like if you had a wood burning stove going.

The next bar we went to was more like a tavern with a couple of levels. The first level was more like a regular bar...

But the second level was more like a tiki bar with skee ball and pinball machines. We loved it, and as you can tell from the photo, Coadster kicked all of our asses in skee ball. Damn her.

We made one more stop to Fox and Hounds. It's a gay bar and so wonderful. The bartender was so cute and sweet and he set us up right with drinks and kept trying to buy us shots and telling us he loved us. The other patrons were super fun two. Half of them were watching Monday Night Football and the other was watching the newest version of "Hairspray" and they were all laughing about it.

I would say that Monday night was probably my favorite night in D.C.. Mostly because we were all four together...And we all got along so well.

Oh I Wish I Had a River I Could Skate Away On

Well, as nice as Christmas Eve was, Christmas day was a bust. We had plans and were thwarted on many levels. Our first plan was to go to a beach. We figured everything else would be closed, so we looked up beaches, and went to unlock our car, but the keys didn't work. Weird. Then Coadster got in and tried to start the car, but the battery was dead. Bummer. Then we got out our portable battery charger. Stinky hooked it up and I reminded her about which color goes on the negative and which went on the positive. She said she knew. The car wasn't charging and then all of a sudden, the portable charger popped and expanded like Jiffy Pop and broke its plastic case. Crap.

I called John all distraught, and he said to give him a minute and he'd get back to me. I had no idea how possible it would be to even find a garage open on Christmas Day in Washington D.C., let alone how much they would gouge the price of a tow and whatever work they'd have to do on the car.

John texted me back and told me he signed us up for AAA and I should call a tow truck driver. The guy got to my car in 20 minutes. Ran a test on my car and said everything was good, except the battery needed to be replaced. He had an entire truck full of batteries and luckily, one small enough for a Honda Fit. He didn't charge for installation and the battery itself cost me $130. Not too bad.

After the car got fixed up, we took off to find a beach. When I lived in California, there were plenty of open beaches that you parked or walked to at any time and swam or ran or hiked or whatever. Apparently, things are different in the D.C area. We drove for about 3 hours and all the beaches were closed for Christmas. Wah.

We had already bought tickets to see a movie at 5, so we had just about a half hour to go to Arlington Cemetery (the only place we could find that was open on Christmas Day). We weren't able to see the changing of the guard, but we did get to see JFK and Jackie O's graves.

Our day of being thwarted continued, however. We foolishly thought we could drive and park at the theater where we planned to see our movie. I bought tickets on-line. So, we headed to the theater and could not find one single parking place, and every parking garage was closed. That's another thing that doesn't happen in Iowa City - closed parking garages.

We finally found apparently the one open garage, parked and ran to the theater. By that time, the movie was just starting and since it was sold-out, we had to sit in the seats directly under the screen. have you ever done that before? It's enough to make you puke when they do a faster pan of a room. The only consolation was that from below, the actors looked chubby. I've never seen Emma Stone look fat before, and Ryan Gosling's nose was HUGE from that angle. It was a real confidence booster for us.

After the movie, we decided to cut our losses and just head back to our apartment. We ordered Chinese delivery and watched "Home Alone" and "Natural Treasure". Man if I didn't think "National Treasure" was full of shit before we went to D.C., I sure did afterward. So, they're looking for a map on the back of the Declaration of Independence, huh? Which one? There are 26 copies around and maybe the map was on one of the 200 or so that were originally produced. Not to mention the fact that you can't just walk up to the one they have in the National Archives all by yourself and hang out with it. Derrrrr.

Anyway, so Christmas wasn't the best day I've had in my life, it wasn't awful and it was definitely the only really bad day on our trip. We are pretty damn lucky.

Just a Perfect Day. Problems All Left Alone. Weekenders On Our Own.

The street we stayed on in DC. My girls thought it was silly of me to take photos of that neighborhood, but I did it anyway.

Here is where I write long-winded posts with ridiculous amounts of photos about our Christmas, Washington D.C. vacation.

We headed out of Iowa City by 7 am on the Friday before Christmas. We made good time and we all took turns driving. After all of those road trips doing all the driving by myself, it was so nice to have help. Even if that meant my girls were EXTREMELY critical of how I drove when it was my turn. Sigh. Damn kids...

We made it to Frederick, Maryland at 9:45 on Friday night. We were supposed to check into our AirBnB the next day after 2, but the AirBnB host guy texted me to tell me that they were out of town for Christmas and the place was ready for us. So, we were able to get up on Saturday morning, drive to our apartment and unload all of our crap before we headed to the Mall.

Christmas Eve was our first day in Washington D.C. and it was pretty incredible. We had no idea what we were doing and it could have turned out very badly for us, but instead it was magical. We took the free trolley to Union Station and figured we'd have to take some kind of public transportation to get where we wanted to go. Trains and buses looked pretty pricey, then Coadster suggested we walk through Union Station, go outside and see where the buses were. What we found out when we went outside of Union Station, was that the Capitol was right across the street and that we could walk to almost everything we wanted to see.

We walked into the Capitol and it was really pretty. It was also closing in 20 minutes for Christmas Eve, so we walked around a little and looked at exhibits quickly before it was time to go.

We went toward the Mall, but damn if almost any building we looked at didn't have incredible architecture and every area didn't have a cool sculpture in it.

Here I am pretending to get trampled by the horses statue. Rest assured there was much rolling of eyes from my daughters...

So, here's the beginning of a weird story. A woman with a daughter who was about the same age as my girls came up to us at this place and asked if we would take their photo. She was crazy and fun and at one point, she said, "Yeah. These bags are making us look fat, could you hold these while your daughter takes our picture?" I took their purses and said,

"Wow. You are very trusting..." She said we were both moms and she knew we wouldn't screw her over. She also asked Coadster to take a close-up since they were pretty adorable. Of course, we all loved her.

After we left the awesome mom and daughter combo, we headed right for the food trucks. We all decided quesadillas were the thing for us and we sat on a bench in the path to get to the Washington Monument and had our lunch. How cool is that?!

After eating, we headed to the science museum and it was incredible. We spent over 2 hours there. At one point, we were getting ready to head out, when Stinky yelled and pointed, "Mummies and dinosaurs!" Yeah, we headed right over and checked it all out.

Finally, on our way out, we came a across the being that Coadster and John must have evolved from - the Croeyerollermagnum man.

After we finally left the science museum, we headed to the cafe by the ice skating rink and sculpture garden to get some hot chocolate and watch the skaters on Christmas Eve. You know, because we're seasonal and festive like that...

We saw some paramedics and as we headed to the rink, we realized that they were there for the woman who asked us to take her and her daughter's photo earlier in the day. What are the odds? Out of all the people in D.C., it was the one woman we actually spoke to. The world is a weird place, isn't it? Anyway, she didn't look too badly hurt. She must have fallen while skating. She was walking to the ambulance holding her arm. What a drag for her holiday.

Since the museums were closing, we headed to to the monuments. The Washington Monument, looked sooo much bigger on TV.

Coadster is a huge World War Two buff, so she appreciated that monument the most.

Look at the lovely scenery...And the Lincoln Memorial isn't bad either...

We did love the Lincoln Memorial. It was so big and overwhelming in a good way.

We were told not to miss the Korean War Memorial and it was pretty eerie and cool looking as the sun started setting over it.

We headed toward the White House to check out the Christmas Tree there, and on the way, we got to check out the Vietnam War Memorial. The Christmas tree was full of cards and photos of family members who lost their lives in that war. It was very intense.

We finally made it to the White House Christmas tree. There was a huge line to see the train underneath it, but we were so tired by then, we just wanted to get a photo and then forage for food.

By the time we walked downtown we were starved and tired and our dogs were really barking. We checked out the menus of restaurants we passed and all of them were way to pricey for me. Finally, Stinky got on her phone and found a place about a block away. Their menu wasn't half as expensive as the other places. They told us there would be an hour and a half wait, but that we could wait in the bar. Perfect. We had a drink and it was only about 35 minutes later that we got a table. The food was excellent, the service was great and the joint was all dressed-up for Christmas. Old Ebitt Grill felt like something out of a movie. Our perfect day had turned into a perfect night. We got an Uber back to our AirBnB and watched a girl movie before we all passed-out. I can't imagine what could have made our day any better...Except winning the lottery, I guess.

All is Quiet on New Year's Day. A World of White Gets Underway

As the sun sets on another year, I have so many thoughts and feelings...As usual. 2016 was a hard one for me for many reasons. I still feel so lucky to have the incredible partner and daughters that I do and though my health was tested, I fought hard and won this battle with cancer for now and I'll keep trying to do what I need to keep it from coming back - which, from what the doctors say, means to exercise as much as possible and eat right (which I love) and to minimize my alcohol intake (which I'm working on).

As I always say, I don't do resolutions, I just try to work on my shit every day. Some days are better than others in that respect...But for 2017, I will continue to play as hard as I work and love and learn and hope for good things for myself and everyone else.

I hope your 2017 is way better than your 2016.