We arrived in DC on Friday morning. Thankfully, there is a driveway at the apartment building, since there is no parking on the street during the week. We unloaded the car from there, then moved it. To the Ritz next door. Yes, the car has five star accommodations while we live in grad student quality.
We walked one block to the bagel place and had some lunch, then a couple more blocks to metro. We missed the first train because the ticket machine is SO SLOW about validating the credit card. I told Chloe we were going to New York, and she thought I meant “The State of New York” not the NY Ave metro stop. oops.
Two blocks from there (and that area is going way uphill!) and we were at XM Radio. If you have never heard of XM, go find out more. It is an AMAZING place (I hope the merger with Sirius doesn’t change it much). I enter a state of bliss when I enter the doors. I could move in there tomorrow. And I don’t know very much about music (other than the kindie stuff). There are bands (wish I knew which ones) wandering around. You just sense that you are in the presence of greatness there.
We went to a live recording of a Rumpus Room show, our fourth! Friday’s show was Secret Agent 23 Skidoo. I LOVE their message and quote it to Chloe often. She should just quote back their “I Gotta Be ME!”
From there, we took the train to the Air and Space museum, checked out some cool rockets and planes, then hopped the train back to the apartment to meet Rob. With him, we walked over to Trader Joe’s to go with our take out Indian food.
I asked Rob to find us something cool to do today. He go on the computer and more than succeeded. Not exactly cool (it was VERY hot and humid), but definitely right up my alley. He found a free Dan Zanes concert at the Kennedy Center Open House, six blocks from the apartment! How can you beat that???
First, we walked down to the Lincoln Monument, then ran across two highways to get to the Kennedy Center. We went to a (free) one man circus in a wonderfully cool theater inside. We all loved the show! Then we headed outside to the Dan Zanes show. One of his band members (Sonia de los Santos) made a point to come over and say hi after the soundcheck, which was cool. Everyone out there was HOT, including Dan, who removed first his jacket then his cufflinks. And how strange to have the concert buzzed by the President’s helicopter (I guess he wasn’t in it since it wasn’t escorted). Afterwards, we spoke to Dan, who remembered us from our random pre-breakfast encounter in MD a month and a half ago.
We were hot, we were tired. A bus materialized to take us to the nearby metro stop that is 1.5 blocks from the apartment. Life is good.
Sounds like you guys are having a great time in DC. We saw Dan Zanes in concert two years ago when he did the stuff at Playhouse Disney at MGM. And then we ran into him again walking around Epcot. He’s pretty distinctive 🙂
How long are you staying in DC this time?
Yup, that he is. I posted about running into him at our hotel back at the end of July. No mistaking him 🙂
We went to the MGM concert too, but the week that Ralph was there, of course 🙂
Our plan is to return on Wednesday. I hope that there will be gas available to get us home (and then to Texas the next week).
I am already thinking about gas and prices. I need to get gas tomorrow…and I need to plan my route so that I might actually pass a station that has some. Hopefully things will return to some semblance of normal for your next trip. Where in Texas are you headed?
The car, spending days at the Ritz next door, has a full tank, filled half a block away and hopefully not siphoned! I hope we will get home Wednesday without a problem. We will leave again less than a week later for Austin (Austin City Limits Festival, here we come!).