Back from Virginia/DC

For our first family trip since coming back to the US, we decided on a pilgrimage to Our Nation’s Capital.

Ok, not exactly. In truth, our old college friends have long settled down in Fairfax County, Virginia, and we’ve made several visits to stay with them over the years. The driving distance from us to DC area is about 20 miles less than that between London and Paris, if anyone needs a proof that it is a fairly simple and obvious weekend trip for us.

Our friends never made it to London in our years there, so we had plenty to catch up on. We tried to do a bit of sightseeing, too, with a visit to the National Mall, a stop at the National Cathedral, and a trip to Potomac’s Great Falls. It occurred to me that every time we come down, we end up with very little sightseeing, since we come primarily to see our friends, and any touristy activities are mostly coincidental. Kimmy especially wanted to explore much more than we could offer this time around, so I guess we need to plan a true “see DC” trip one of these days.

I got warmed up to the prospect of planning a future trip around taking Kimmy to see monuments and museums that I myself have very dated, if at all, familiarity with (we did conclude that most of our DC sightseeing occurred in the space of roughly 24 hours on our very first, Greyhound-enabled trip to Washington in 1993, during which time we managed to see several museums around the National Mall as well as the Capitol, stopped by several monuments including going up to the top of the Washington Monument, and even toured the Pentagon). In the meantime, we had a great reunion and an overall grand time.

More trips needed.