Dash to D.C.

Right in the middle of it all, we visited our Nation’s Capital. Pedro’s work trip had been scheduled months in advance, and I bought a ticket to join him for fun, like I did on his work trip to Durham, NC last year. At the time of airline ticket purchases, we didn’t realize that we would both be trying to get our homes ready to sell during that week. As a result, we spent the whole week worrying, and being too far away to do anything about it.

One of the main ways it affected me is that instead of gleefully exploring while Pedro sat in conference rooms, as I had envisioned, I spent the first two days in the hotel room working on Belle Brigade race business and real estate buying and selling tasks.

I literally did not step out of the hotel building the entire first day, until Pedro got out of conferences and we stepped out to find dinner. We weren’t really in Washington, D.C. per se, but rather the suburb of Rockville. That is how I kept myself at my desk in the hotel room: not a whole lot to see outside.

The next day I was embarrassed of myself, and put on walk-in-the-heat clothing (as you see in the photo at the top), and circled the hotel block to get my bearings and buy some more water for us at the grocery store.

On that walk, I also found the route to the closest trail. As soon as Pedro got out of conferences for the day, we changed into workout gear and took off. They had kept him late, but it was summer and still light out. We walked to Rock Creek Trail. It was truly a nature trail right there in the city. A group of whitetail deer proved it to us.

The trail was in good shape, which invited a lot of cyclists. I could tell that many of them were commuting home from work. The path was often busy with people, too. I always like seeing that: people using nature trails.

It was very pretty in places, too.

All the while we heard the traffic noise of the city. What you see in the photos is honestly a beautiful park, and it made up for all the noise around us. It still kept surprising us that such a wild pretty place could be found right in amidst the Washington, D.C. metro area.

We were starving for real, and rather than go to the hotel, we began looking up places to eat once we left the trail. We spotted La Brasa Peruvian Cusine. It was a humble-looking place but the food was excellent. We were excited to try their yuca dishes and pupusas. You know how when you are hungry, you order too much? Well, that happened, naturally. But we stuffed ourselves and took the rest home, and that is what I ate for breakfast the next day in the hotel room.

In the morning, getting ready for our day, we had the TV on. We got some terrible news. Our visit would coincide with another person’s visit. We hoped it would not cause too much hullabaloo while we were trying to enjoy our touring the next day.

Our last night, we left the Rockville suburb and got a hotel right off the mall and steps away from the Capitol building. I’ll show all those pics in the next post.