Day Twenty-Four: Well-fed, well-rested, and a little tanner.

Okay. Okay. Pheeeeeeeew. It's Day Twenty-Four, and I actually have enough energy to move my fingers across my keyboard. We're leaving DC tomorrow morning, and, after three full days here, I think I am finally prepared to give the thumbs up to our nation's capital.

Wednesday & Thursday mornings, we took the Metro train from our hotel in Rockville, MD into downtown DC. We learned, from a series of very intense and very brow-furrowing internet research sessions, that only raving lunatics actually stay in the city. Hotels are either super divey or super pricey, most all of them charge for parking, and traffic in and out within two hours of "rush hour" is crazy. So we opted instead to stay a little further away and ride the half hour each way.

When we arrived in our downtown station, we were quickly swept into the herd of people swarming up the comically tall escalators and onto the streets. With this herd we were pushed onto the street and were sometimes several monuments down before we even felt solid ground under our footsies. No matter how much we planned and how painstakingly we shaved "must do"s from our lists, there were always far too many things to do each day. So we rushed from place to place, our happy hipping and hopping becoming wailing limps of despair by the time the Smithsonians closed at 5:30.

Ah, but friends, it was worth it. I can say that now, after a day in sandals and a tank top, back in pajamas by 8 and happy to have seen the Atlanta Hawks take the Celtics to Game 7. I can say that because our last day in DC was the closest we could come to relaxing while still seeing something with the first name "National." (Surname "Zoo" if you're curious).

If you've been to Washington, you know how much awesome there is in every category. We got to see a Gutenberg Bible, a Shakespeare Folio, and the Supreme Court in the span of two hours. We were breathless at the Lincoln Memorial and solemn at Arlington, and then we were eyeing dinos at the Natural History Museum. So. Rather than try and enumerate all DC has to offer (which is much more than we were able to see anyway), here are some things that stick out (for better or worse), in no particular order.

* The Smithsonian. Yesh, I know. It's the first thing and already I'm cheating. The Smithsonian Institute is responsible for almost all of the non-governmental buildings in DC. That runs the gamut from the Natural History Museum (which, as previously mentioned, has dinos) to the National Zoo (which has naked mole rats) to the National Portrait Gallery (which just got one of Vonnegut's self-portraits). Mike and I are nerds, so the museums totally blew our socks off.

* Qdoba. If you've ever eaten at Chipotle, you may walk into this "Mexican" "restaurant" and think you might have found a good match. You will be wrong, and you will regret it. It is far better to go hungry.

* The Shakespeare Theater Company. We say Antony and Cleopatra last night, and it was amazing. A tip for travelers: most other patrons of this theater will be dressed in suits and dresses. If you arrive in Converse and road-dirty jeans, you may be looked at askance. But that's okay, because you don't need their approval anyway. They're eating veal paté from the snack cart in the lobby, so what do they know?

* Caterpillars. I don't know what their deal is, but they seem to think crossing the sidewalk is a safe and fun activity. They are wrong, and you can tell this because the pavement is littered with their failed experiments. If you don't want to be the enforcer of natural selection, for God's sake watch your step.

* Of course, I lied about the whole "no particular order" thing. By leaps and bounds the #1 most awesome thing about DC was Freakin Iron Man, which we saw today in Uptown in between being lost on the way to the National Cathedral and finding the giant pandas. To be fair, if you play the classic comic geek's game, Iron Man would definitely beat every other Washington DC attraction in a fight. Yeah, bear sloth. I'm talking to you. Ben Franklin statue outside the Old Post Office, you're next.

There's obviously a hundred more amazing things about DC, and I'd love to talk about them when we get home. But all of a sudden it's one o'clock in the morning and we've got to pack the car back up in the morning. Oh, that freeway's a-callin' our names!

Today we listened to: the sweet, sweet sounds kicking off the greatest summer movie geek-fest of all time: "Back in Black" by AC/DC.

Mystery words: "They look like chicken wings."

Mike's almost done. Show him some love: astoriedyear.blogspot.com