Dorothy was right: "There's no place like home!"

Dateline: Washington DC, New York City, Pollock Pines
December 15, 2007

We rolled out of our OWN bed this morning for the first time since October 8th!

The “Big Trip” has finally come to an end, at least what us IT types call “Phase One.” We were on the road a total of 77 days, travelled over 14,100 miles and visited more than two dozen cities, hundreds of historical monuments, and we enjoyed each and every one of them!

We rolled out of Washington DC right on schedule Tuesday morning. We spent our last day in DC walking the entire central city – a total of about 6.5 miles of hoofing it. We hit all of our favorite spots, went to the Library of Congress (our favorite hangout there), and took some GREAT photos of the Capitol, Capitol Christmas Tree, the Washington Monument, National Christmas Tree, the White House and downtown Washington during the holiday season. Check out the photos at Picasa in the usual place. We had lunch with our friends Steve and Suzanne Swendiman at “The Dubliner” Irish pub, and began our walking tour there.

There was a small demonstration against the President of Egypt in across the street from the White House in progress, but we decided to pass. President Bush was hosting the parents of Daniel Pearl (Wall Street Journal reporter killed in the Middle East) for dinner and we just couldn’t get into the demonstration mood. It was so cold even the woman who has been there since 1984 (Adelphia in the “Camel Club” book) was curled up in her tent across the street from the White House with her dog!! Steve made one last sentimental trip to his beloved “Gangsta’ Mart” Monday night to say good-bye all of his buds…. He has names for EVERY one of these characters so you’ll have to ask him about all of this!

Some of the really cool things about being in the "seat of power" is the news you get on television and the paper. We think this is the best story every. Check out this website… For our US Forest friends you will really enjoy it! http://www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/2007/barneycam.html

Tuesday’s trip was uneventful except for our run-in with “Typhoid Annie the Teacher” on the train to New York. We got on the train and these two teachers (obviously the university these women attended never had hygiene or health as an elective or requirement for graduation) chose to get on and sit right behind us. One of them was hacking, coughing, sneezing, honking her nose, etc., etc. Steve got REALLY pissed off, but to his credit, he said nothing. After having snot blown at the back of our seat for about 30 minutes, we moved to another seat. Low and behold, she moves over RIGHT BEHIND US, and I thought Steve was going to blow a gasket! To his credit again (which is REALLT unusual for him), we silently moved to the front of the car and had no more problems. Why people are so God Damned RUDE???!!! She could have at least covered her face with a mask or whatever….

New York is New York. Steve has been there many times, and Carol is becoming an old hand at the city herself. She knows most of the major streets, cusses like a taxi driver, and gets right into the whole New York City gig! Our apartment was a new experience (the board at the old apartment threw us “short-term rental/squatters” out) and it is very nice. It is a “corporate stay over complex.” If you want to rent a REAL nice two-bedroom, one-bath place with a magnificent view of the Westside of Manhattan (it’s actually located in Hell’s Kitchen for those of you who know the city), and only about a two-minute walk from all of the theaters, Times Square and the Ben Ash Jewish Deli (Steve’s favorite next to Jimmy on the Scurvy!), contact us and we’ll set you up. We had a great view of the city as you can see!

Theater, Theater, Theater!!! We GORGED on Broadway! Wednesday was a matinee for “Wicked” which is a favorite of both of us. It was truly as great as it is every time we see it, wherever we see it. Carol got a Playbill Poster autographed by the entire cast. Wednesday night it was “Spamalot” If you are not a big Monty Python fan this might not be your cup-o-tea, but the cast was TOTALLY not politically-correct in its hilarious commentary on everything front “No Broadway without Jews!” to Bush Baby and the Fuehrer and their stance on Iran to Gays!! We laughed our asses off and it was well done theater to boot! We capped off a wonderful day with late night drinks at Sardi’s, which has become a New York tradition for us on our trips here.

Our last day of vacation dawned with snow showers, which turned to COLD rain and sleet shortly after we rolled out the door for our annual pilgrimage to Rockefeller Center for ice skating and the Christmas Tree, to Macy’s, SAKS’ on Fifth Avenue, and Lord and Taylor to see the Christmas finery (and of course lunch at Steve’s favorite Deli in the World, the (in)famous Ben Ash Deli on 7th Avenue and 56th Street (just think of a land-locked “Jimmy” on the scurvy in midtown Manhattan!!) We took some great pictures and you can find them on our New York Album on Google Picasa. We chose to pass on the skating as it ain’t a lot of fun in the sleet and cold rain, and the Steve and Carol Steinbrecher Annual New York Christmas Decoration Excellence Award goes to Lord and Taylor hands-down this year. They went ALL OUT and totally flushed Macy’s and SAKS. Steve was somewhat saddened to be in New York this Christmas, as his best friend Tom Strand passed away this summer, and when Steve and Tom came to New York on business, they ALWAYS had such a great time together! They had this book named “The Best 100 Bars in New York” and rumor has it they visited every one of them at least once. Steve hoisted a Manhattan in Tom’s honor at Sardi’s. You always miss your best friends when they pass, but no more than when you are doing things you used to share together. Tommy will always walk the streets of New York in spirit with us!

We got back to the apartment, dried out, cleaned up and headed out for “The Lion King,” which we are both thrilled to finally get reasonably-priced tickets and good orchestra seats for. We have waited a long time. Our seats were excellent and just where like them. Right in the middle of theater and about eight rows back from the stage. Although the story was pretty much along the lines of the cartoon, the costumes, scenery and music was superb. One woman who was from Africa played the part of the Shaman, and man, could she sing!

We got home at about 11:30 p.m., and had to roll out of the rack at 0300 (O’Dark Hundred in Steve time) to get ready to get to the airport. Carol was too excited to sleep so she ended up pulling and all-nighter. Steve slept for about three hours. Our ride was right on time at 0400, and we were at LaGuardia BEFORE United or the Terminally Stupid Administration even showed up for work. New York is so weird. When we got to Denver it was snowing and you couldn’t see the ground and there was very little disruption with flight operations. Man, in New York, you get one INCH of snow and everything is totally FUBAR for a day or two. We met people who had spent more than a day sleeping or hanging out at the airport attempting to make another connection after the small storm Thursday, and most of them were of the opinion that the airlines and airport people were TOTALLY worthless. We felt very gratified that our trip planning and the weather worked out so well. There is a monster Nor’Easter scheduled to hit Sunday so we escaped by our chinny-chin-chin once again.

We took off about 30 minutes late (they had to de-ice the airplane, and one of the morons spraying the plane couldn’t find his coat (that is NO joke). The past week or so in middle America must have been horrible. We flew for four hours over the Midwest and it was a solid sheet of ice and snow. All the way from western New York State to Denver it was just one huge white blanket. We have been really worried about Carol’s cousin Harris and his wife Salley in western Oklahoma. We spoke with them before we left Washington, but we knew that area was just getting pounded with nasty weather, so they were in our thoughts a lot. We approached Denver in a light snow storm and our captain (who makes Steve feel SO old – she was about 30 years old, stood about 4-foot-9 and must have weighed all of 80 pounds!!) gently laid her down on the runway and used very little braking to slow us down. It was a long, slow taxi to the gate. Steve the pilot always listens to all of the air traffic comms when we fly, and he said out pilot ended every hand-off with a “Happy Holidays” to whomever she was speaking with, and there was a lot of unusual “just chit chat” chatter all the way across the states… he figured the flight crews were trying to relax in anticipation of the holiday horror and pissed off, pushy, nasty passengers they will have to deal with over the next few weeks.

Our flight to Sacramento was late out of Boston (where they had snow yesterday as well) so we just kept tacking on additional minutes here and there. However, at least the airport remained open and our luck with the weather throughout our trip has been cooperative for 98 percent of the time! We got out of Denver about an hour late and arrived in Sacramento about the same. We saw a fire (and Steve heard the pilots report it) around Squaw Valley, but it did not appear on the news, so hopefully not a bad one. It looks so dry here.

Our daughter Erin and grand daughter Vara picked us up and Vara was JACKED to see grandma (especially) and grandpa again. As Ryan was flying in from Winnipeg late last night she had a FULL day for a 30-month old! Steve said he was glad she was going home with Mom. We’ll spoil her and the other grandchildren enough at Christmas.

What can we say about getting home? Our neighbors had kept an eye on the house and all was fine. Steve re-established the electricity and re-lit the pilots and we were back in business. For the first time in nine weeks we slept in our own bed and boy, did it ever feel good!! We are hitting the road again on the 20th to spend Christmas in Las Vegas and Corona, where all of us are going to celebrate Christmas together. Then we have about a month to recoup and it’s off to Australia for “Phase Two.”

We do hope you have enjoyed our travels in a vicarious sort of way. We sincerely thank Ron Saari (congrats on the new home!) for giving us the idea and guidance on blogosphere business. Yes Ron, we kept all of the mileage, costs, trip, etc., etc, spreadsheets you passed along to us. We are SO grateful for all of the new family (Rob, Pam and Kali) and friends we have met (especially Tim and Cindy), old friends we saw (Steve and Suzanne), our families for their support (Fred, Soni, Doug and Dee especially), and all of the opportunities to learn and grow we were exposed to along the road to nowhere. We hope you enjoyed what you liked and left the rest. We have truly enjoyed all of your thoughtful suggestions for stuff to do along the way, your wonderful comments about our travels and especially Steve’s photography (we will be replacing all of his work from past vacations on our walls next spring). Our final comment before we sign off until late January is this – if you are thinking about retiring, but wondering about it, DO IT if you can. If you have been putting off that long trip or special adventure because you weren’t sure about it, DO IT if you can. It is something you will never regret, and the memories will stay with you for a lifetime!

Until the next road report, we remain… Steve and Carol!

Last Days in Washington DC

Dateline: Washington D.C.
December 1 – 7, 2007

Well, we have only fourteen days left of our trip and we have spent this past week enjoying some of the “other” things to do in Washington, DC. We have been wandering the streets, popping in-and-out of locally owned businesses and eateries, enjoying the first snow of the season, and all of the different neighborhoods in the city. It is amazing what a small amount of snow can do to one city, and as you walk from one “district” (that is what they call a neighborhood here) to another, you can almost see their distinct internal personalities by talking with the people, looking at the buildings and businesses, and just the action on the streets. It was also quite humorous to listen to and read about all of the pissed off people who were inconvenienced by the snow and ice. They immediately blamed the bureaucrats (at all levels of government) for incompetence, who in turn, blamed the weather forecasters!! However, the Skins played Da’ Bears last night here (finally won a game), and they had 80,000 out at (RFK) Fed Ex Stadium freezing their butts off. As we have mentioned in previous blogs, the weather forecasters here are correct only about 50% of the time, so you have to take your weather forecast with a grain of salt, and be prepared for whatever. Because we walk everywhere or ride Metro, no big deal for us (of course we are used to much more snow and cold weather at home during the winter, so the couple of inches they got here is sort of “ho-hum.”)

Saturday, Carol went to Kennedy Center to buy and have personally autographed Caroline Kennedy’s new book. After being told that she couldn’t stay inside the building because it was closed until 10:00 a.m. she went outside to wait the eight minutes and watched the secret service interviewing the staff for the big gala on Sunday. Bush was attending the event and the S.S. preparations were EXTENSIVE! When the hour of 10:00 came the security guard told her she could come in and find her way to the gift shop. Well, guess what…our “it’s closed” luck stayed with us and she found out that Caroline Kennedy would not be signing books, but if she bought the books she could come back on Monday and the books “may or may not” be autographed. She took the chance, bought the books and got back on the train to come back to the apartment.

Saturday and Sunday we spent like most Washingtonians. We relaxed and watched football and read the nice, fat Sunday newspaper and generally enjoyed the peace and quiet of our apartment. Sunday evening we spent with Steve and Suzanne Swendiman and Joan and Larry Naake, with whom Carol used to work at the California State Association of Counties in Sacramento. It was wonderful to see everyone and catch up on old times. It was cold and rainy and Steve had a big fire roaring in his fire place, and the house was warm and cozy. It is great to enjoy an evening with intelligent people who actually live here, and have a good idea of what is happening on a day-to-day basis. Larry was the Executive Director of CSAC and came back to Washington DC to head up the National Association of Counties; Steve took Larry’s place at CSAC and then moved back to DC to be the Managing Director/CEO of the NACo Financial Services Center. Steve and Suzanne have a beautiful home out where many of the foreign dignitaries and our congress people live, and a kitchen to die for, which of course, sent Carol’s Steve into a state of lust! They gave us new ideas of things to do and see and we so enjoyed our time with them.

Monday found us back in Georgetown picking up our books from the Kennedy Center and yes they were autographed! Carol is JACKED! We really love Georgetown; there are so many things to do, to see and to experience. It is a great place to spend the afternoon just walking and that is what we did. We walked back to the Foggy Bottom Metro stop and made our way home against the evening commute.

Tuesday we just wandered around the “hub of power” in the downtown area. We hit the big Barnes and Noble downtown (Steve cranks through a book about every three days and we have a bag of them here now), and went to the Money Factory (otherwise known as the Bureau of Printing and Engraving) for their guided tour. It was all very, very cool. ALL OF THAT MONEY IN ONE PLACE! They print hundreds of millions of dollars every day of the year, and destroy about as much. Did you know the life-span of a one dollar bill is about 20 months? Did you know they only printed fourteen $100,000 bills and that they are ALL still in circulation? One man working there held up a stack of a million dollars and teased us with it through the window where they actually pack and ship the money out. We have very few pictures, because we were told if we even “Thought” about taking a picture inside of the building or the equipment, we would be escorted out of the building and “be dealt with accordingly” by the federal police, as well as losing our camera FOR EVER!

We did have a chance to get measured by a stack of money, we found out that Carol would be worth $1,537,800 and Steve is worth a whopping $1,794,100 give or take a couple of thousand! Also we saw a million dollars in $10.00 bills… kind of cool so check the photos on our Google Picasa photo album.




We also made it to the Jefferson Memorial. It was our last monument to check out, and we braved almost hurricane- force winds to get there (Steve estimated 50 – 60 mph), and it was crystal clear and ICY, ICY cold. Steve was even wearing gloves, which if you know him, happens about once a century. We took some great pictures of the Jefferson Memorial and the Tidal Basin (the infamous site of Senator Wilbur Mills’ famous swimming adventures). If you don’t know what we are talking about check out http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911535,00.html for the skinny (those of you who know about it, please excuse the pun!)


The winds were howling across the water and wouldn’t you know it, the next day they found a body in the Tidal Basin, right where we had been shooting pictures. The Jefferson Memorial is just that, a memorial to his life. We have included some pictures so check ‘em out.

We walked from there down the mall back towards our apartment and searched out the studios of NPR (Steve calls it National Communist Radio)! The people inside were really cool to us (NO Gestapo Police behavior here!) because we are card-carrying life members, and we took some pictures of Carol at Studio 3A in Washington, DC. It’s fun to do the tourist thing. They gave us two NPR stickers to put on the computer and the car! Carol is excited she got to be a part of National Communist Radio (we are listening to NPR right now on the computer as we write this blog). For those of you who know Steve, you know he is a giant liberal at heart, but he just likes to get his “conservative views” some equal air-time in between Carol’s liberalist thoughts!!!

Steve DID get even with the Gestapo though. Remember the “photographing the security barrier” incident of last week or so? Well, take heart, we have pictures and no one noticed Steve taking them (even Carol didn’t know he had taken them), so here for your pleasure, we give you the pictures that almost got Steve arrested!! Pretty intimidating aren’t they? You NEVER tell Steve he “Can’t do something….” It just whets his appetite to be bad!!


Wednesday was the first snow day in Washington DC. In Pollock Pines, the amount of snow that fell would have been a complete disappointment for the kids because the schools would have still be open and we don’t think the plows would have come out. But here in Washington DC, they closed most of the schools and there were tons of accidents, the Metro was completely off schedule and the AAA was calling for people’s heads because of all of the problems.

We decided to go to the Library of Congress and get serious about the genealogy project on our family. Anne Marie and Anne Cain eat your hearts out!! This library is FABULOUS!! Although the research is extremely tedious and many of the records are piecemeal and fragmented (especially the 18th and 19th century stuff), Steve has found so much about his family and Carol kept up her research and traced her family back to King Edward II. Now she has to prove it. The Library of Congress is a wonderful place to spend a winter day – or any day for that matter (and the evenings too as the place is open until 9:30 p.m. most nights!!); there are so many research sources and so little time. We had the opportunity to take a seminar that provides links and secrets to genealogy research from of the staff research librarians. It was invaluable and we feel like we have just touched the tip of the iceberg. There are just TONS of documents and data bases available, and all of this is absolutely FREE! All you have to do is spend 15 minutes obtaining a “Researcher’s Reader Card.” We are pretty sure we will be coming back next year and spend a week or so actually looking at all of the source documents that we are sure we are going to need. We have been in there so much most of the cops know us now, so when we walk up to the “Researcher’s ONLY” (kinda cool, eh?) entrance at the back of the building, they let us right in and are very friendly with us….

We spent Thursday enjoying the Library of Congress again and Steve brought his camera and managed to get some really great pictures of the giant central reading room. On the tour they told us (as usual) NO PHOTOGRAPHS!!, but the research librarian gave Steve a tip on how to get the shots on the sly, as he always does. The photos are of the central reading and research room of the Thomas Jefferson Building, which is just too beautiful to describe with words. Take a look at these pictures and see what we mean when we say we could spend a month in the library and not even dent the number of books this library has. It is a researcher’s dream. Carol has decided to have her ashes spread in the reading room when she goes to the great library in the sky!!! Now THAT will be a challenge for Steve!

We were going to wander over and watch the National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony on the Ellipse, but we decided all of the people and security would just be another downer for us, so we decided to catch the highlight films on T.V., and then go over some other night before we leave after dark and shoot some photos of the tree, so this will be coming with the final blog for the trip.

As much as we hate to say it, our vacation trip is coming to a close. We have accumulated a TON of stuff over the past two months – much too much to carry home on the airplane when we leave New York next week. So, we spent Friday packing up and getting everything down to the local UPS store to have it all shipped home. What a job! However, Friday dawned real cold and drizzly (the weather forecasters stated Thursday night that it would be warming and cloudy – go figure) so it turned out to be a good day to pack and ship!

Just so you know, the hot story today is the CIA destroying films of interrogations of detainees. We smell a long drawn out investigation and Steve is hearing shades of "I am not a crook!!" We'll let you know what we hear on the streets of DC!

Until the next blog we remain…..

Washington DC - Week Three - Lots of News

Dateline: Washington D.C.
November 23-30, 2007

Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is just about here!!! Your electronic Christmas card is out on the blog!



Well, we have managed to avoid the holiday shopping spree and have not contributed to the national consumer debt by much but we have managed to see more of Washington DC and have stories to tell…. So here goes!!!

Day after Thanksgiving, instead of getting up early and fighting the crowds at Macy’s (yeah, Carol has found the local Macy’s – well, she knows where it is but is exercising CONSIDERABLE restraint) we navigated the Metro and the bus service and made our way to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. Don’t ask about the name. It is simply a VERY wealthy man’s last name who gave a LOT of money to the museum. This required us to take the Metro to downtown, find a bus and catch a bus to the Airport and then transfer to a Shuttle to take us on the final leg of our trip to the museum. It was great fun and the only really scary part was sitting next to two guys who were sneezing and coughing. We immediately broke out the Zicam to ward off their evil germs!!

The museum was pretty special, especially for Steve the pilot. We had an opportunity to see the Concorde, the Enterprise space shuttle, the Enola Gay B-29, a Boeing 337 (pre-cursor to the B-17 WWII bomber) and the prototype for the Boeing 707. Boeing has spent a HUGE mint restoring these aircraft and they look brand new. Steve felt bittersweet in that he got to see a LOT of old airplanes he used to fly in with his Dad as a kid, but realizes now just how OLD he is. He figures to have himself hung in the museum when he goes onto that that big airliner in the sky! Note to self: Even though there is no school the day after Thanksgiving, even on a bright sunny day, EVERY family with kids goes to the Air and Space Museum ‘cause it’s free!! The crowds were HUGE! For those of you who are airplane nuts like Steve, check out the Udvar-Hazy Photo Album on our Google Picassa Photo Album.

After we finished the museum we made our way back to downtown and with lots of time to kill, we decided to head out to Arlington Cemetery to finish our tour there (no pun intended). Please take a look at the pictures at our Arlington Album on Google Picassa. We visited the memorials of Bobby Kennedy, JFK again, the Civil War Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers (all 2,111 of them) and the space shuttle crews of Columbia and Challenger. Arlington is such a special place in the quiet of a pretty, cold fall afternoon. It brings to mind the words on the wall next to Robert F. Kennedy’s grave:

“It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.”

Words from the other stone touched Carol in a very personal way. We hope it will touch you too:

“Aeschylus Wrote: In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

The other saying is something we as human beings should never forget:

“What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black. Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

For Carol, the Kennedys embodied the ideal of what was right with politics. It has been a struggle for her to see what has happened to her ideal of the politics of the world. Washington, DC does not embody the idea of a government of the people and for the people. As we all know, Carol has always been a very idealistic person…. being hit with the “real world” of politics in 2007 has been very difficult for her to comprehend.

We have spent a considerable amount of time visiting everything and anything the past week, so you will have to go out to our photo and movie galleries and check out our film. However, some highlights of the past week would have to be:

The Supreme Court

We stood in the freezing wind for two hours to snag the LAST two open spots to hear Supreme Court oral arguments, which was a REALLY big deal for the two of us, as we both studied a lot of Con Law in undergraduate and grad school. The two cases before the court on this morning dealt with Trust Tax Law and States’ Rights (a war over a LNG Terminal on the New Jersey/Delaware River Border – something that is familiar to all Californians considering the LNG war down in Long Beach with the Governator). Listening to 11 lawyers arguing about the meaning of one word or letter can be frustrating for many people, but the humor and intellect of these people is inescapable. One thing that interested us was Justice Thomas. We have heard time and time again (on both National Communist Radio and television) that he looks like he just sleeps through the oral arguments, and never even asks a question. True. He leans waaayyy back in his chair and listens, and has his law clerk bring him written material to look at from time-to-time, but not a peep. The others make up for it however, and they are quite a collection of personalities. Justice Scalia could be on Comedy Central – he had us in stitches for two hours. Justice Souter can be REAL cranky. Justice Bader-Ginsberg is ALL business. One of the best parts was during the second argument for the tax law case. About three minutes into the second half of the show (if you don’t know, each side has exactly 30 minutes to present their case to the court, and no written scripting is allowed, so these lawyers have to be on their toes all the time!), Chief Justice Roberts interrupted the lawyer who was droning on about tax law, and he asked him, “Sir, I am assuming you came into this court with a plan B, is that correct?” The lawyer answered, “Yes, Mr. Chief Justice, of course…” Roberts looked at his watch and then stated, “Well, this would be an excellent time to star with plan B….” Needless to say the place went nuts!

We took some pictures of the Courthouse and waiting in line. If you would like you can find these pictures at our Supreme Court Album on Google Picassa. Please take a look at the video below to get Steve's REAL feelings about the Supreme Court!

Police State Update:

Life is good in Berlin still. Sunday we went to the National Gardens to walk and take videos for our grandchildren of the wonderful Christmas display set up by Sweden, which is full of outdoor garden Christmas trains and stuff. On the way back we, along with about eight other parents and young children, were standing at a corner waiting for the light to change. As usual, there are about 6,000 cops all around the Capitol and congressional area, which is bordered by the National Gardens. This poor (by the look of him and the fact that he was having trouble speaking) Hispanic guy made the mistake of driving his Budget rent-a-truck down the wrong street. All of the sudden all of these sirens start screaming right in our ears, scaring the shit out of all of us, the cops cut this poor slob off in the middle of the street, haul his ass out of the truck and begin screaming at him. We are ALL standing on the corner wondering, “What the Hell is going on here?” as this guy looks pretty harmless to us. The kids with us began crying and their parents are getting pissed off. So they make this guy open the back of his truck and Oh My God, it is full of…. NOTHING! Totally empty, so they back off and let him go. Bet he had to visit the laundry to get his drawers cleaned…. Woman next to us with the kids looked at us with this real sarcastic face and says, “Now THAT was real impressive…”

Second event happened on the way back from the Supreme Court. Nosy Steve, who is enthralled with machines of ANY type, decided to take a photo of the barrier system in front of the Capitol building, because he is amazed at how strong this thing looks. NOT! All the sudden this cop comes up, confronts us, and asks Steve what he is doing. Steve made the mistake of moving his camera over to the cop to show him the photo he just took, and the cop JUMPS back and starts to pull – NO SHIT!! Steve jumps back and thing settle down. Carol thought she was going to have to come home and tell every one Steve got shot for pulling a Nikon D40 on the cops!! Photos are VERBOTEN of ANY security stuff the cop told us, so Steve gladly erased the photo and we were allowed to keep the camera. We are getting to the point of just staying away from that area.

Places:

We have now walked around most of the areas of the District that are safe to walk through. We do three-to-four miles each day, and once you get oriented; everything is pretty easy to walk to, going from one neighborhood area to another. The weather is beautiful and we love the different neighborhoods here. Check out the Walking around Washington DC album for some of our favorite Walking around spots!

The National Cathedral rivals those of Europe, even though it was rebuilt in the early 1960’s…. still has that “Auld Medieval Charm.” If you are into Gargoyles or churches, this church (according to PBS) has the largest collection in North America, and YES, Steve shot close-ups of almost ALL of them, so check the photos if ‘Goyles be your gig!

Georgetown

We LOVE Georgetown (of course, it is the MOST expensive part of D.C. so why not?). We have been out there a few times, and we love to walk the streets and just enjoy the quiet and the beautiful quiet of the place. The original building (now a residence hall) of Georgetown University is beautiful, and we have found our favorite pizza place in the entire city there. The prices there are TOTALLY outrageous though. A nice little “fixer-upper” of a Federal style place (see the photo of the three distinctly colored homes -- two bedrooms and two baths that encompasses about 800 square feet with NO garage) goes for a mere $850,000! We looked at a few of them last Sunday and decided we like Pollock Pines just fine, Thank you. Adams-Morgan and DuPont Circle is another really nice neighborhood. We have some really cool pictures, including pictures of Georgetown University, the Halycon house, the home that President Kennedy announced his presidency at and the last church President Kennedy attended before his death. These and other pictures can be found at the Georgetown Album on Google Picassa.

We hit the National Zoo and got to see the Pandas and all of the other cool buildings and animals, and stayed for the “Zoolights for Christmas” special they are doing. Carol, if you do not know this, HATES snakes, so Steve had to do the reptile house on his own. There are just so MANY free things to see and enjoy here. We think some of our BEST photos were taken at the zoo. Be sure and check out the Gorilla photos!

The “Lion” movie is pretty good, too. Sounds just like Steve when he gets out of the wrong side of the bed in the morning. For the Grandchildren, there is a MANDATORY video test out there. We will bring you the answers at Christmas. The adults can skip this part!

We’ve walked through DuPont Circle and the Embassy Row area of Adams-Morgan, checking out all of the foreign embassies there, which was cool. We can even take photos there. No “visible” cops or guns, even in front of the Chinese and Russian Embassies. Interestingly enough, we have found the Consulate of Honduras, and it is located right over a small convenience store right across the street from our house. We just stumbled over it one evening last week. We have been to Chinatown for dinner, and just pop in-and-out of various eateries that look different and interesting, Like California, there is ALL kinds of food to experiment with, and we LOVE it! We have also learned alot about the area we live in. Check out the pictures at the Walking Around DC album on Google Picassa.

The Kennedy Center continues to be our favorite place to be… Saturday night found us there to listen to Rolando Matias, the founder of The Afro-Rican Ensemble. They were awesome! The program was great and the venue was packed! There were small children running up and down the steps and people of all ages listening to great music. Steve bought a couple of the CD’s and wants to tell the Saturday night poker guys… “Look out, there is some new music coming to the game!”

We returned on Sunday because Carol wanted to see Davy Jones from the Monkeys…When we got there we realized it was a children’s show and we didn’t want to take up space but we urge any of you who are reading this to check out Sandra Keith Boynton (born April 3, 1953) is a popular American humorist, songwriter, children's author and illustrator. Boynton has written and illustrated more than forty books for both children and adults, as well as over four thousand greeting cards, and four music albums. There were tons of kids there and the music was pretty cool!!! Carol went back yet again to meet Carolyn Kennedy and buy Christmas gifts of her book, and she cancelled! We have this thing about getting “cancelled out” back here!!

We went to the Holocaust Museum and it was, as expected, a gruesome and sorrowful reminder of that happens when people give the police-types too much power. Definitely a NO NO for younger children, but an extremely thorough exhibition of 15 years of genocide and craziness. Also a large, credible amount of evidence (presented very politically-correctly we might add!) that America was very much aware of what was happening from 1941 or 1942 on and did nothing to stop it. We recommend it highly to the President of Iran and Dick Cheney.

It was billed as “Mount Vernon by Candlelight” and by diggity dog it was! We made it to Mount Vernon by riding the Metro to the end of the line and finding a bus and explaining to the bus driver that we didn’t know we were supposed to get the bus transfer at the BEGINNING of our metro trip but that we were stupid tourists and would he please have pity on us. Well he did and only charged us 35 cents to ride to the end of the line out to Mount Vernon and back to the Metro station. It was a great bus trip; we went through the rough parts of Fairfax County and on to the nicer parts of Fairfax County and finally were dropped off right in front of the building for Mount Vernon Shops and restaurants. Note to any of you who might be living in an historical monument…open up a shop and restaurant and you are set for life! Every historical monument that we have seen has a small restaurant that charges at least $4.00 for a cup of coffee and $8.00 for a sandwich! And trying to buy things for the kids and abide by our new “Nothing from China” guidelines is pretty tough…Although I did have to drag Steve away from the wooden pistols and the little hats!! You know Steve…always trying to find a way to get a gun in the house!!! The tour was pretty good, we managed to get in before the really cranky lady who DEMANDED to her husband that she was to be FIRST in EVERY line and we selected to be in group one, she ended up in group three I think. Some people! We went through the house, met Mrs. Washington (who looks pretty darn good if you ask me for her age!) and got a tour of the house, we then made our way through the grounds and Steve took some great pictures, you can find them at the Mount Vernon album on Google Picassa

And you know me…I found a couple of guys to take their picture with me…as we know…any port in a storm or something to that effect!!!

After the tour we made our way back to the bus stop and met a very nice local woman whom we talked with all the way back to the Metro station and then to her stop on the yellow line. She is a nurse who lives in Georgetown and was here before, during and after 9/11. It was interesting to get her perspective on politics, the “police” state of Washington DC and what happened after 9/11. Her office was very close to the Pentagon and she felt the vibration when the plane hit, she said that going back into DC that day was surreal and she believed that most of the people of the City were in shock. She said that for a very long time after that, only those with Federal ID’s were allowed to get off of the Metro at the Pentagon and Pentagon City stops. She also told us how the trains, the buses and the city were full of police and military people with dogs, M-16’s and all that good stuff for a very long time. It is as if the people have become accustomed to this type of behavior and when we talk about the military state, they look at us and say, “Well it is much better today than it used to be.” She also talked to us about how the lobbyists really control the government and asked us what would we do differently? We agreed that the aura of power and money are very addictive and that this is where things must be changed. As it always goes, we talked of ways of fixing the problem if we were in charge…too bad Dick and George weren’t on the bus!!! We gave her our card and asked her to stay in touch!!!

The days, for the most part, have been just beautiful and pretty warm (high 50’s) and sunny for DC in November, but the weather people tell us that is changing beginning today for a bitter cold snap, so we shall see. The weather folks in California are much better – these guys get is right about 50% of the time. Our last week here will be busy, busy, busy.

Good News! Carol finally made it to Macy's! Here she is just happy as can she can be with her Macy's bag. She is taking the bag home...Just to remind her...there's no place like Macy's, there's no place like Macy's!!

And, Finally, a Word about Garbage:

Say What? Unlike Pollock Pines, DC is a HUGE city. Huge cities generate HUGE amounts of garbage. As you know, every one needs a job in DC, so there are 8 million different garbage companies, and most of them work in the small and narrow alleys right behind our bedroom (even though we live on the 7th floor). Since each apartment building has a different company, they (of course) do not coordinate their schedules, so EVERY day except Sunday, at about 0700 (which all of you know is NOT when Carol is interested in getting out of bed) the following scenario begins, and lasts for about 20 – 30 minutes:

Large BLAST of diesel truck jakes; air-brakes; BEEP-BEEP-BEEP as it backs up (some times punctuated by an EXTREMELY loud horn ‘cause the driver feels like it); high engine revs as it starts the hydraulic hoists; BOOM-BOOM-BOOM as it pounds the dumpster against the truck; car alarms begin going off (Steve’s favorite part is the fugal horn screamers!!), BOOM as the dumpster is dropped and slammed against the concrete (car alarms set off once again). This process is repeated for perhaps six-to-eight dumpsters daily!!

In Pollock we have to LISTEN to hear if the garbage man is coming up the road so our stuff is out on time. One of the things we will certainly appreciate when we get back to at home!

Until the next update, we remain…. On the road