PART IV of a trip I took with Ammon to Virginia.
On Sunday morning (March 1), we woke up fairly early to get ready to go to church with Lisa and her family. They attend an Episcopalian church in Manassas, and we wanted to go to the 8:30am services so that we would have enough time to drive out to the Shenandoah Valley to see the Luray Caverns that afternoon. The services were nice, and I think it was the first time Ammon had been to a church of another faith. It was also the first time he had wine!!! For the sacrament, they dip little wafers into a golden goblet full of red wine. He didn't really like the taste of it, though (I think wine is definitely an acquired taste). After the services, we went to a social room and had donuts (they were huge and very delicious) and drinks with other members of the congregation. Lisa showed me the room where she teaches youth Sunday School, and introduced me to some of her friends in the congregation.
When we left for church that morning, it was raining. By the time we left church to go back home, it had turned into a freezing rain and the roads were super slick. We hung out at the house for a while, waiting for the weather to let up, but the forecast didn't look too promising.
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| Quinn played several songs on the piano while I was there. I loved hearing him play! |
Mack didn't feel comfortable with driving all the way out to the caverns with the slick roads, and he was concerned with having Lisa drive me to the airport on the slick roads early the next morning, too. I had been really looking forward to going to the caverns, and was bummed that our plans for the afternoon were cancelled. But, I decided to make the most of the time we had left. I called and made reservations at a hotel by the D.C. airport for that night; their shuttle would take us to the airport so that Lisa wouldn't have to drive me the next morning. Ammon and I hung out for another hour with the Fishers before we started packing our bags and getting ready to go. At around 1:00, we left for D.C. once again, but this time it was in Mack's truck.
Quinn took selfies to post on snap chat seriously the entire time we were driving anywhere: whether it was on the trolley, or in the back of the truck. So, I tried to take a couple of backseat selfies, too. Unfortunately the first shot was the ONLY one where the boys sort of smiled for the picture, and it was also the only one that was blurry.
The rest of the photos were in focus, but the boys weren't cooperating!!
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| I have several pictures of us that the boys look like this: annoyed & silly. |
It rained the whole time we were driving to D.C. When we arrived and checked in at the hotel, we said goodbye to the Fisher's. Ammon and I dropped our bags off in our room, and he laid on the bed and said it was like laying on a cloud and didn't want to leave. I had to convince him that we weren't going to spend the rest of our vacation inside a hotel room when we could still see and do so much! I had no plans whatsoever and had no idea where we would go, I just knew I wanted to GO. So I pulled out a map, and started asking him what sites/places would be of any interest to him. He kind of perked up at the mention of the Spy Museum, so I consulted with the Metro map (the Metro stop was just 2 blocks away from the hotel), and figured out how to get there. The shuttle dropped us off at the metro stop, and we went underground. The Metro had an automated machine, and I mistakenly bought one ticket with enough fares for both of us to reach our destination and back, but then as we were at the gate, the attendant stopped us and I had to go back and buy another separate pass for Ammon. Unfortunately that machine doesn't give a refund for unused amounts on the passes (which is stupid!), because I wanted to cash it in and buy two separate tickets for the same amount. I've ridden the underground system before in London, but this was Ammon's first experience riding the Metro!
When we arrived at our stop in DC, we were just one block from the Spy Museum, so we walked there in the rain. It was a super cool museum with lots of fun gadgets from the Bond movies, as well as historical artifacts from real spies in multiple eras and several countries.
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| I really liked this car. The car on display kept showing all the different gadgets and tricks it could do. |
There were several interactive parts, too. On the first floor, you are given a spy identity, then you have to learn what to do to be more like a spy, then you have to look for clues everywhere that pertain to your character, so that you can answer at the end to see how you did. In another area, there were these old machines that you had to decipher an encrypted code; it took me a bit to figure it out, but I finally did. And there was also this rising bar that was timed to see how long you could hang on--just like in a bond movie. Ammon did very well!!
I had been planning on buying souvenirs for everyone in the family when we went to the caverns, because I didn't want to buy too much on our previous day in the city and then have to tote it around all day. But since we didn't end up going to the caverns, I decided to just buy souvenirs at the Spy Museum gift shop. Ammon and I walked around for a long time looking at all the cool stuff, and I had a hard time on deciding what to buy. He found some trickster golf balls, I got a gnome for Josh, dehydrated Nasa ice cream for the twins (I should've got them pens that shock, but I also contemplated getting the fart gas bombs), and Kanyon got a wand with a button that when pushed lights up the tip and spins it around.
Right across the street from the Spy Museum is the expansive and impressive Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was free, and open later, so we hit that next. When we walked inside, I started walking rather quickly down the main corridor, just peeking inside each of the gallery rooms because the place was so huge, and I wanted to make sure we would see it all in a short amount of time. Ammon, surprisingly, stopped me. He's like, "Mom!! Slow down! We're in a museum!". The last time I was in a museum this big and nice was in London, and Josh patiently sat by the doors and waited for me to see what I wanted to see inside it so we could move on. I thought that Ammon would be the same, so I was glad that he just wanted to take his time going through it. I followed his lead and slowed down, too!
There were certain pieces that I just fell in love with! Like this giraffe made from bottle caps:
Giraffes are my favorite animal, and I just loved the colorful, reusable materials that decorated it, too!
I also really liked this fancy display made from tinfoil. I'm apparently a sucker for reusable materials...
And this large horse made from wooden branches was so interesting:
This next piece really made an impact on me. I was in the middle of two college history classes when I went on this trip, and had just written a paper about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This display presents a photo from a Life Magazine in 1968 depicting Dr. King's funeral procession. The picture on the left is that photo, the middle picture highlights the number of black mourners present (with black dots on their faces), and the picture on the right shows the number of white people in attendance (with red dots on their faces). I studied all three variations of the same picture...
My favorite painting was this super odd one. It felt like it had multiple personalities captured on canvas, so here's my split-personality faces to go with it!
After walking around the entire museum, we were hungry. We went back out in the rain and walked down the street to the restaurant Shake Shack (right next to the Spy Museum). I had noticed it two days earlier when we were on our trolley tour, and thought it looked good--and it was geographically close, which was handy. Ammon ordered a Smokeshack burger and a shake, and I ordered cheese fries and a frozen custard. The restaurant was packed; we got the last 2 seats at a super small table. Practically everyone inside the restaurant was either wearing red or sporting Capitals jerseys. I thought maybe since it was a sports bar that the restaurant gave a discount for anyone wearing the local hockey team colors, or something. I asked a girl as we were leaving why they were all wearing red, and she said it's because there was a Capitals hockey game that night at the Verizon Center, which was 2 blocks down the street. I was so excited and asked Ammon if he was interested in going, and he was adamant that he didn't want to. So I decided I wanted to try a new cuisine since we were in the city, so I asked my sister Lisa where the nearest Thai or Indian restaurants were. She gave me a few recommendations, and Ammon and I started walking out in the rain again. We walked right past the Verizon Center, with the crowd of people waiting in line to get inside, and again I asked Ammon if he wanted to go, and again he refused. We walked to the nice Indian restaurant that she recommended called Rasika, but it was unfortunately closed. It was only 6:45, and I don't know if they just aren't open on Sundays, or if they closed early because of the game, so we walked back around the block to a fast food chain Indian restaurant called Merzi that we'd passed a few minutes earlier. Ammon was so annoyed with me at this point because he doesn't care about trying new cuisines (it's one of my favorite adventures in a big city!), and he was tired of walking in the rain, and he just wanted to go back to the hotel. Every restaurant we passed, he'd say "Look, there's a restaurant. Let's just go in there." I wasn't starving or desperate for food--I just wanted to have an adventure of trying something new! I didn't know what to order when we got there; the lady who worked there said the rice bowl is the most popular. I could hardly understand what she said, so as she went down the food assembly line, I just yes to every topping she asked about. I liked the Indian spices, flavors, and masala sauces, but I still have NO idea what meat I was eating (chicken? lamb? mystery meat?). Ammon and I were the only ones in the restaurant, and he just sat there impatiently watching me eat. It was absurd. But I still enjoyed every bite, and the whole time I ate, I tried to convince him to go to the Capitals game with me! I even called Josh and tried to have him convince Ammon, but Ammon wouldn't talk to him. He finally told me "I don't like hockey! But I would go to the game if it was with anyone but YOU." Oh mercy. (I took a moment in my mind, put myself in his shoes as a teenager wondering if I'd want to spend time with my parents...wondering if I would be bold to say what I would've wanted to say as a teenager to my parents...then realized I was glad he was at least stating his honest feelings in the moment and I left my somewhat-hurt ego behind.) Then I calmly told him that we will probably never be in DC again during hockey season, and this was just a one-time opportunity, and that in an arena full of people, it wouldn't matter that I was the one sitting next to him, because at sporting events, you're part of the entire crowd. Then he FINALLYagreed to go! So, we walked in the rain back down the street AGAIN to the arena, bought tickets, and missed half of the first period. But we did it! WE WENT!!! And I'm so glad!
We had nose bleed seats (of course), but I didn't mind in the slightest; I'm used to sitting at the top row of venues! The game was against the Canada Maple Leafs. I had only ever watched hockey one other time when I was in high school (about 20 years ago), so I had no idea what was happening, but it was still so much fun! There was a big group of guys in the row right in front of us, so I kept asking them questions about the game. Ammon was so embarrassed every time I did that, because he always knew the answers, and it made it seem like we were dumb, but I didn't even think to ask him first, since he told me he doesn't like hockey. Hockey has 3 periods. Did you know that? I sure didn't!
The Capitals won the game 3-0, and it was pretty awesome! We had a great time! The hockey crowd is a fun one! The guys sitting right next to me won a free t-shirt, and gave it to Ammon! He was really happy with that, and I was thrilled! Those guys came mid-way through the second period, and were hilarious! And we had some nice guys behind us too that took our picture for us.
After the game, Ammon bought a nice knit hat with the Capitals symbol on it, and he wore the Capitals T-shirt the next day. It ended up being one of his favorite activities we did in D.C.!!! So...good thing I convinced him to go and {gasp} sit by his mother, huh?!! We had to wait about a half hour for the Metro to pick us up. There was a giant crowd that had just been at the hockey game waiting at the Metro station with us, and it was interesting to observe all the people around us. There were a lot of drunk guys, a few people dressed super weird, a few families, and one couple who kept doing the "ew" skit from the Jimmy Fallon show. They were embarrassing to be around, but I played along with them for a bit. They ended up getting on the same metro line as us, and when they got off, they walked up to my window and blew me a kiss! We walked back to the hotel (still in the rain) from our metro stop, and got to our room about quarter after 10 pm, totally exhausted. Ammon went right to sleep on his bed that felt like "a cloud".
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:50am on Monday morning (March 2), so we were up at 5:30. We got dressed and packed, and the hotel shuttle left shortly after 6 to take us to the airport. Ammon and I both got stopped in security--we got in trouble for having too much liquid in our bags. I'd packed a mini gatorade thinking that it would be fine, and he had a chocolate milk leftover from breakfast and forgot. I was nervous that we weren't going to make the flight on time, but thankfully we made it to the gate right before they started loading. I went to a little souvenir shop near our terminal because I realized I hadn't gotten any gift for myself the entire trip. I purchased a cute pink DC hoodie, and by the time I returned, Ammon was frantic because they'd already loaded our section onto the plane. No worries, though, we got on board just fine!
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| That's his new Capitals hat! |
It had been a long day of travel, and we were both super tired, but were so happy to be home. Josh and the boys were glad to see us, too. I am so thankful that I went to go to visit my sister and her family! It was a wonderful trip and I'm so glad for the opportunity I took to teach Ammon how to fly and to have this experience with him!
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