Before we went to bed next to our cunning little baskets of goodies, Jenny asked us what we wanted for breakfast. I’m not sure if she mentioned Eggs Benedict or soufflé, but ‘oatmeal’ sounded like the least trouble in the exhaustive list she presented, and it was good for us, so we said, “oatmeal!” The hardest thing about oatmeal at my house is finding the box of instant variety packets and hollering at the person/people who ate all the blueberry flavor, and Jenny obviously had her act together better than that, so I figured that would be the easiest.

And then I woke up and discovered that you must never, ever underestimate Mrs. C. We were greeted by a pot of really good, hot oatmeal that her husband swore was simple Quaker Oats but I’m still sticking with ‘steel cut,’ here. The table was set and had little crocks of everything you could ever want to toss into a bowl of oatmeal: brown sugar, raisins, butter…and a basket of every kind of bagel you’ve ever heard of.

Richard beseeched me never to mention the obvious phrase (“bed and breakfast”) to his wife, but it’s just sitting there like a big ol’ obvious bagel, really, so I just had to. Sorry, Mr. C.

After we were stuffed with oatmeal and accompaniments, Jenny piled us into her van and shuttled us to the Metro station, where she proceeded to beat me to the fare uploader, loaded us up with Metro Money, and explained the system to us. It was pretty simple: stay on the same train until you get to the Smithsonian stop. Which we did.

We emerged from the station on a day that looked like it was about to pour buckets, and stood on the city street wondering which direction the National Mall was. It was cloudy, so my innate directional system was off, and I guess we hadn’t decided yet that our little map apps on our phones would be up to it.

So we walked a few minutes, and then all of a sudden we saw it:

We saw pretty much every monument on the Mall. I won’t bore you with the details of each one, but if you want to see what’s on the Mall, click here.  We were there from 10 am to 6 pm, with only about an hour for lunch (at an amazing tapas bar, Jaleo) with a friend of Laner’s, Tommy, who met us and told us interesting things about everything we saw. Key observations for me:

• the Washington Monument is not as white as you’d expect, and it has different shades of white part way up the building.  Tommy told us that they had to visit a different quarry for the stone midway through the construction.
• The Vietnam Memorial was very moving, and I’m putting myself in the camp of people who really like it. I think it’s a fitting tribute to the entire time, and watching people who weren’t just browsing, as we were, but obviously visiting specific names on the Wall took me to tears. There was one older man who was on a ladder, taking a rubbing of a name. It reminded me so much of visiting the AIDS quilt, and how it feels to see a quilt block with Patrick’s name on it. Each name on the wall is preceded by a symbol: a diamond if the person was confirmed as killed; a plus sign means that the individual is missing. The plus sign is turned into a diamond if remains are found, and turned into a circle if the individual is confirmed alive. There are no circles on the Wall today.
• My favorite was the Korean War memorial. Nineteen men on patrol; it must be haunting on a foggy day.
  

  It makes Hawkeye Pierce seem far away.

Our last stop was the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where I went into absolute nerdgasms…Mercury capsules, the Columbia command capsule from Apollo 11, ICBMs (Soviet and US)….I sent bitweenie pictures back to Dad, Interrupted, who texted back discourses on SR-71s.

Of course. That’s how we roll.

We hopped back on the Metro (metaphorically speaking, of course; I was exhausted). Richard kindly interrupted football to pick us up at our spot (conveniently at the end of the line, eliminating all chance for error), and dinner was grilled salmon and asparagus, carrots, and an awesome french silk pie with raspberries.

And then it was time for some more reminiscing. Jenny had saved the Civil War paper dolls we used to play with, and nothing took me all the way back quite like going through those dolls.

One other thing: I traveled well-armed with allergy medication, since Jenny has three cats and I’m allergic. I was careful to keep my bedroom door closed, as the last time I’d shared a room with a cat I came out in hives. Every time I opened that door there were two cats (there’s always one cat who hides during the whole visit) hovering outside that door like two furry dementors, just waiting for a break in Dumbledore’s spell (“Sneezus Benadrylus!”).

I need to sleep now. I didn’t get a lot of rest last week.

© E. Stocking Evans 2012