Washington DC and Richmond Virginia
September 25 & 26, 1999

So I stayed in VA this weekend.  Considering the number of flights that were cancelled or delayed or both, this was probably a wise decision.  However, if Floyd had done anything remotely resembling major damage in Richmond, it probably would have been a foolish decision.  But that's neither here nor there since my coworker and I had decided to stay before Floyd was a threat to anywhere.

We drove up to D.C. on Saturday.  Because we wanted to have a place to park, we got ourselves out of bed so we could be ready to go at 6am.  Have I mentioned, before, how I believe that 6am just doesn't exist?  Well, until Saturday, I'd been firm in my conviction that it didn't.  I guess it had been long enough since I'd needed to be up at that inhuman hour that the memory of it had faded.

I found out that it exists.  And whooo-boy did I need caffeine to deal with the realization.  We drove to one bagel shop.  It wasn't open.  What kind of bagel place isn't open at 6am on a Saturday?  Obviously, that one.  So we ended up at Einstein Bros bagels anyway.  I grabbed 2 bottles of Diet Coke, a bagel and a huge rice krispie treat.  My coworker neglected to grab a second cup of coffee so he grumbled the entire drive up to D.C. from Richmond.  I was happily caffeinated and even started to wake up by the time we got off the freeway at a gas station so he could get coffee and we could put gas in the car.

We arrived in D.C. without much trouble.  We even found a place to park over near the Smithsonians.  Like, a block and a half away.  Pretty amazing, huh?  Then something happened, or, rather, didn't that we wouldn't discover until later that day.  I can't talk about it in more detail than that.  I promised I wouldn't.

Because we were overzealous in our departure time so that we might find parking in D.C., the Air and Space museum wasn't open yet.  So we wandered down and looked at the statues out across the lawn from the capitol building.  I took a bunch of artsy fartsy pictures and some that were not-so.  I'm praying they turn out at least halfway decently.  I guess I'll know when I get home.

After killing half an hour looking at horse statues, and lion statues, and guys wearing bear skins or leopard skins or something, and statues of dead presidents, we walked back to the Air and Space museum.  Then lined up boy-girl-boy-girl from shortest to tallest along with everyone else waiting outside the museum.  Finally, when we'd quieted down and made our lines straight, they let us into the museum.  Much to our dismay, we could only look around the front entrance.  Everything else was closed for the next 20 minutes.  We killed time by waiting in line for the bathrooms.

We spent a good chunk of the day walking through the Air & Space museum.  My coworker was interested in the planes.  I was pretty keen on some of the old flying trophies.  We ate in their little restaurant, charged it to the Corporate AmEx, and wandered more of the museum.  I fell in love with the little dark alcove that had fiber-optic stars.  It was disorienting.  I could've stared at the stars for hours moving back and forth and feeling the world spin around me as I did.  I want a bedroom set up like that, now.  I want to be able to just lay there and stare at stars as they flicker and dance in the darkness ... even if it's the middle of the day.  I want to walk through the sky and watch the stars change places as my perspective changes.

Anyway... we saw everything we could see in the Air & Space museum.  A chunk of it was covered up in tarps and closed off because they're replacing the huge wall-o-windows and skylights and what-not.

After that, we walked across the mall to the Natural History Museum.  I wanted to see the dinosaurs again... and the prehistoric mammals.  We wandered through the exhibit halls and I took pictures and I realized as I stared at one of the murals in one of the prehistoric mammal rooms that one of the animals in the painting reminded me of the big animals that carried the shield generators in Phantom Menace.  It was a weird feeling.  I'd just sat down to rest my poor aching feet and let my coworker catch up to me and looked up.  And there they were.

I scribbled down notes and collected ideas as we wandered through a few other exhibits.  I made my coworker sit through a bunch of their short clips about Egypt.  It was a chance to sit.  And a chance for me to take notes.  We got partway through the source of Western Civilization exhibit when they announced that the museum was closing, however.

The rest of the museums were closed, then, as well.  We wandered back across the mall and found the car.  It was then that we noticed what happened/didn't happen.  We sat around for 45 minutes, then took off.  We didn't see the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial or the Korean Memorial because of that 45 minute block of time.  Then we drove back to Richmond.  All in all, a long but fun day.

Sunday started out as a day of rest.  A day of much-needed rest.  My coworker and I slept in.  He longer than I.  Much to my dismay.  The plan had been to sleep in and go to the 12:30 showing of the Mysteries of Egypt IMAX at the science museum.  Well, he slept until 11.  The only reason he got up was because his son called.  So the plan changed.  We went and grabbed breakfast/lunch/whatever at IHOP then met up with his son and daughter-in-law at the science museum for the 1:30 showing.  The IMAX was spectacular.  I love IMAX movies.  And I love ancient Egypt stuff.  It was a good combination.

Then we headed over to the VA Fine Arts museum and went through the Splendors of Egypt exhibit.  I took copious notes.

The exhibit was spectacular.  I absolutely loved it.  I could've probably spent a lot more time in it than I actually did.  I _really_ could have spent more time staring at the Book of the Dead.  (Have I mentioned that I'm a bit of an Egypt-a-holic?)

I wandered through the little museum shop dedicated to the temporary Egypt exhibit.  I was good.  I didn't spent as much money as I wanted to.  I only bought one book (the Splendors of Egypt book that had pictures of the exhibits since we couldn't take pictures in the hall).  And I bought 2 post cards and a little metal figure of a jackal.  I wanted to buy a little Anubis statue, but I couldn't justify spending that much money.  I also walked out with a list as long as my arm of books that I can now buy from Amazon.  I hate buying non-fiction without actually looking at the book first.. y'know?

The rest of the exhibits in the museum were closed by the time I finished looking through the Egypt exhibit.  I probably should've taken time to run through a few of them before looking at the Egypt exhibit since it was open later, but I didn't.

My coworker and I drove over to the Tobacco Company for dinner.  I had _amazing_ chicken.  He had wonderful prime rib.  I love that restaurant.  It's got great ambiance.

Then we drove back.  Something happened on the way back that I also promised not to mention.

It was a pretty darn good weekend.  And I came out of it with a bunch of stuff to flesh out an existing story as well as a bunch of story ideas.  I'm considering inflicting a museum weekend on my SO and housemate when I get back to Denver.  Maybe not this weekend, but _soon_.