Travelin’ Thornberries and Go-Go Greers Slog Through Nation’s Capital

May 10 to May 14, 2008

Hello, Our Darlings!

And welcome once again to another exciting narrative of our annual vacation!

This year, May 2008, Jennifer and I figured it was high time we opened ourselves up to the exhilarating challenge of sharing one of our personal traveling odysseys with another couple: the Greers. Call it an exercise in cultural diversity on a small scale. The Greers were certain to exhibit values and priorities far different from us, and adapting to their needs (as well as having them adapt to ours) was sure to leave everyone more worldly and wise.

So, please put your paws together and welcome our Leda and Robert to the stage! [You, the blond…yeah, you know who you are…I can’t hear you. Clap louder!]

Jennifer and myself, with Robert and Leda eagerly aboard, decided Vacation 2008 should be a visit to Washington D.C. Unlike most of our trips, both couples had actually visited the city before. Jennifer and I had popped our Washington DC cherry way back on July 12, 1999. The Greers too had history with the Maryland area. Leda had family there and some fond memories from her visits in years past.

Sunday, May 11, 2008—From Coffee Buzz to Lackadaisical Fuzz

The night before travel day, sleep was long in coming for Jennifer and me. But we thereafter slept the sleep of the dead. After we dressed and prepared for the trip to the airport, we went upstairs to find Leda bouncing off the floor, up to the ceiling, back at a sharp angle onto a wall, then off like a sling-shot back to the floor. She was a blur of motion, much like trying to track a ricocheting superball. We thought she had Flubber© on her feet, head, buttcheeks and hands. She would later explain she had ingested her favorite intoxicant…caffeine! Yes, a good cup of coffee had gotten her going, and she was buzzing with eagerness to blast off through the skies, aircraft optional!

The Usual Plethora of Airport Hassles

We always include this heading, since there is no such anomaly as a friction-free airline trip, even for the most seasoned traveler. This one was no exception, and it was especially trying for the Greers, who had far less experience with the intricacies of airports. Lucky for us, Jennifer caught their first error, after Leda directed us in the wrong ticket line; she pointed out that the billboard overhead did not include our flight number, thus sparing us from wasting time. Otherwise, there’s little to tell that we haven’t covered in one of these narratives before. Probably most significant was that the airline had split all of us up on most of our flights, so that Jennifer and I weren’t even sitting close together on some of them. But that was trivial, and we managed to get it changed on the first flight out.

Our connector flight in Detroit was a different sort of suffering. It was delayed two hours because a computer part wasn’t working right on the plane and had to be replaced…twice. Jennifer and I were split up from the Greers on this crowded plane, and we sat on the tarmac for a whole hour, listening to periodic updates and trying not to be mindful of our steadily filling bladders. At this point, we were draggy and starting to feel like we were pushing our way through fudge.

With quiet dignity, Robert rots slowly while waiting to board the plane.

Eventually, our plane was repaired and it prepared for liftoff. If I said it was a smooth flight, I’d be exaggerating. No, we flew through horrid storm turbulence. The plane would doodlebop along perfectly okay for a few minutes, then it would

P L
U-U-
-UN
GE

SU-U
-DENNN
-LY,

--then it would sh-sh-sh-ake and ju-ju-ju-judder back and forth, causing clenching among man-parts and shimmying among woman-parts. Then the captain’s voice would crackle on the intercom and tell us everything was fine. Deceiver! My insides felt so churned I was surprised I didn’t wretch up solid sticks of butter into the back of the head of the person in front of me. Robert said later that he deals with those aircraft movements by reframing it as an exciting roller coaster ride. The man has courage!

Arrival in Gaithersburg

Yes, we had originally tried to get hotel reservations in D.C. itself, but we ended up getting started too late, and they were all booked up. So we ended up at a hotel way the hell out in Gaithersburg, with plans to use the mass transit system, known as “the Metro” to get to the city proper. It ended up working out because the prices were cheaper anyway. But first we had to get to the hotel, and our plane landed at the Baltimore Airport.

Now the Travelin' Thornberries have long-accepted that automobile travel in an unfamiliar place is always a logistical nightmare. Ergo, we prefer to just skip the whole ordeal and rely on the locals to help us navigate. Airport transit or a taxi cab can really spare one's peace of mind after a long flight. But this was a joint trip, and the Greers wanted to rent a car and take on the challenge for themselves. We decided to keep quiet and let them have their experience. But man, I hate it when we're right. Sure enough, it was a logistical nightmare just getting the car. But finally, with Leda at the wheel, we eventually set out for a fun-filled vacation, filled with exotic food and exotiker sights.

Instead, we stopped at McDonalds.

It was laughingly called McMaryland. Not much story there. It’s McDonalds, what’s to tell? ;) Jennifer was already frustrated from the time lost renting the car, and she had gotten two inches shorter from digesting her body’s own bone mass. So food was a priority. For fifteen minutes, she spoke not a word, her head completely obscured up to her shoulders in a deep bucket of garden salad. When she finally cleared the dish, she wiped the dressing off of her chin, forehead and back of her neck and gave a satisfied smile…she was again skeletally intact.

Leda then took the driver’s seat again and brought us to our destination on a very sharp route. Again, true to our prediction, the experience was a traumatic one. Traffic was awful, the weather atrocious and the route perilous. Leda ripped the steering wheel violently to the left, then to the right, trying to keep us clear of huge trucks in decaying circuits around this buzzing city. Small but multitudinous bits of hard rain hit the car’s windshields like the worst rainstorm in the area’s history.

At one point, I caught sight of the taillights of a familiar car through the front windshield, and only belatedly realized it was our own! Somehow, the highway had looped us around to smack face-first into an ass-kissing smooch of our own back end! I quickly warned Leda, as she had asked us to tell her if we started feeling “ass-kissy.” A simple course correction did…well, very little actually, but I still felt better. The traffic was horrible and slow. We’d been traveling the better part of twelve hours by this point, and just wanted to get there already.

The arrival was worth it. We stayed at the Comfort Inn, which was perhaps the best hotel in our experience since we discovered the Drury Inn way back in Our Tale of Two Cities adventure, July 2005. Our stay began with an exchange with a charming male desk clerk who spoke with a seductive European accent that soon had Jennifer and Leda swaying on their toes, eyes rolled back in their heads and drool streaming down their chins. Eh. I was just amazed he didn’t know what a “wi-fi” was. It’s kinda like not recognizing a VCR in the 1980s. Anyway, we got our stuff and journeyed up to our rooms.

Nice! The Comfort Inn resembled the Drury Inn in that it sported a refrigerator and microwave, both good features for the cost-conscious traveler. As a married couple, Jennifer and I eagerly sought a nap in the vast king-sized bed in our room. By contrast, the Greers sought comfort in a room with twin beds. Why a married couple would seek beds separate from each other was a mystery to us, but we were there to experience another couple's values and we figured it would be impolite to pry too deeply.

After we got settled into the hotel, we split up from the Greers for awhile, they in their room, us in our own only a couple of doors up and across the hall. Using the time to repair the ravages travel imputes on a couples’ nerves, clothing and pelts, we discussed our next move.

Self-portrait by Leda Greer (2008), which via serendipity, captures their room at the Comfort Inn.

Jennifer and I finally got to engage in an institution we reserve for breaks in our normal lifestyle routines — the Lackadaisical Fuzz. Yes, remember Leda had her experience of intoxication, her Coffee Buzz, that morning. Ours would be from a sip of bourbon from the bottle we brought with us from home. Essentially, the term “Lackadaiscal Fuzz” evolved from the institution of having an alcoholic drink early in the day, usually several hours removed from a celebratory evening. Think of it as a pre-drink. Jennifer and I have them after stressful trips or responsibilities and usually have a nap afterward. Since we feel lighthearted from relaxing and “fuzzy” from the alcohol, the name wrote itself (or in Latin, nomen se scripsit).

Other than having a decent meal later in the evening, then slogging back to our rooms for the night, there is little else to tell about the evening. But we were warm, safe and eager to begin the explorations of this world tomorrow!


NEXT: The Natural History Museum for the Greers, and the National Gallery of Art for the Travelin' Thornberries.


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