The long and Halted road.

laura and i about to see the eco house competition
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So the technical first leg of the trip was to Laura's house in Long Island. I left a day later than expected, and the both of us ended up leaving a day later than we'd planned to drive to my brother Pat's in Chevy Chase, MD. Figuring we'd stay that Thursday to the following Monday or Tuesday (and then depart for Charlottesville) we thought we'd split time between Patrick's and my sister Christine's in Virginia. All went well for about two days until on Saturday morning as we were driving to the Base to replace the brake pads, and change the oil etc. (all very simple tasks in hindsight), a large ugly green truck driven by a man named Joel Garcia sideswiped our Mercedes, sheering off our bumper, breaking the side turning lamp, and leaving our Spaceship with a formidable dent in its side... and us with a dent in our plan. So, in true Stephanie and Patrick fashion, we made the best of our time there. As we sat waiting for an estimate, and then waiting for parts to arrive in the mail, we rented movies, ate popcorn and drank lots of Maryland beer. Patrick and Heather took us to the Dogfish Alehouse, and although I refused to try the crab dip I had a delicious pizza and The Sampler, which is... hmm... 6? different specialty beers. My favorite was the peach one. Laura and I explored a lot of Washington DC, taking our bikes in on the first day. We didn't know there were rules concerning this action, so all day we took our bikes up and down escalators (later we found out that this is a $300 fine...), and traveled during rush hour. We saw the Museum of Natural History, the food court where all the I.R.S employees eat, the Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum. We saw two Imax films, “Sea Monsters 3-D” and “Space Station 3-D”. I’m going to have to sum up this trip in a sort-of nutshell… so here’s what else we saw: an exhibit on totally green homes on the National Mall (UT Austin had a very good showing… much better than the Aggies), we biked to the White House- and I was upset that although I’m a voting citizen of the U.S, I couldn’t just go up and knock on the door and ask George W. for a sandwich, even though I was hungry. That seems unfair. I saw Kermit the Frog and Mister Rogers’ sweater and a Julia Childs recipe that I took a picture of for my mom. Laura saw Susan B. Anthony’s gavel. We traveled up (and down) an enormous escalator, and went to the zoo, ate the Most Delicious Yucca Fries at the Parkway Deli in Chevy Chase, had a decorate-your-own cupcake fiesta at Christine’s with my nephews, went to the boys’ soccer games, shopped at Target, got more Yucca Fries, saw an amazing school bus that a guy had transformed for his families enjoyment, drank more beer, watched Open Water I and II, Indiana Jones, and THE HOST (not recommended, though it broke international box office records*). Lots of work was done on the car, while I waited for a cell phone to come to me in the mail. I forgot to mention I dropped mine in the toilet.

eco house we liked
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I know.

So, we fixed up the car, slept a lot on comfy couches, drank enough coffee to stir a small addiction in Laura and myself, had a few fires in the fire pit, got tons of food and support and time from Patrick and Heather, made a comic book with my nephews, had a birthday dinner for Heather, and left, 2 weeks later than planned, the same day we spray painted our patched car. J