DC excursion

*Warning: picture-heavy post and shameless travelogue follow below*

I "had" to take a trip to the DC area for work last week, and since the fabulous Arntz family offered accommodations and company at their place, I decided to stay an extra day to explore with them. I had such a good time, you'd never know I worked two full days! {but I did...just to clarify in case any co-workers or bosses are reading :) }

I arrived on Wednesday, but apparently forgot the existence of my camera until Friday because I'm awesome like that. (I didn't forget the camera itself - I carried that around with me the entire trip; I just forgot to use it for 48 hours.)

First stop: picking up the rental car at Reagan National Airport. I have to say, I was a little worried about navigating/traffic in the metropolitan area, but with a little help from the GPS, I did pretty well. I did, however, have a bit of trouble figuring out how to turn on the car. It was a no-key hybrid, so you just push a button to start it, and it's so quiet I could never tell if the engine was on or not until I tried to drive.

From there, I met up with Rebekah and Stephen (former carpool-ie and her husband) and they took me here for dinner:

I figured I should have some seafood so I tried the crab cakes...yum.

After work on Friday, I met up with Katie (amiga from my Salt Lake days) and her husband Spencer in DC. It only took me 9 years on the metro to get there (seriously, it was like an hour and a half where I started at last stop on the yellow line). But it was well worth the trip to check out a bit of downtown I hadn't seen before, eat a delicious mahi mahi sandwich, and conversate with great people, here (not my pictures - this is all during the non-picture-taking 48 hours):

After walking around the area for a bit, we took the metro back to Katie and Spencer's {amazing} summer living quarters. They let me walk home with them (past the local marsh - we had to dodge cute little frogs the whole way) and gave me a lift back to my car so I didn't have to ride the scary metro all the way to the edge of DC by myself at night ;)

Friday, Rebekah, Stephen, and I trekked through the Manassas National Battlefield Park, site of the first and second battles of Bull Run (or Manassas, depending on whether you had Union or Confederate ties in the 1860s), and where I remembered I had a camera - woohoo!

During our walk around the Henry Hill Loop, we realized we had a lot of questions, both about the battle and the war in general (were the first and second Bull Run battles really at the exact same spot? how far could a Civil War cannon shoot? what, exactly, are the cannons made of? why were the Confederate soldiers wearing blue uniforms? you know..the usual). We set a date with Wikipedia (I know more now. Still not an expert.  Anyone want to recommend a good book?).

Also, I discovered a nest in one of the cannons (not sure if that's a common occurrence or I just happened to look down the barrel of the one cannon harboring bird eggs) and there was a beautiful sunset.

Saturday was hot and humid, but that didn't stop us from covering several miles on foot (or it felt like several miles at least). We started at the Old Town Alexandria Farmer's Market:

After a walk down King Street (where we saw the awesome glass musician in the video below - sideways because, again, I'm awesome), we opted to take the ferry to Mount Vernon and finish exploring Old Town in the afternoon.

That last tree is one planted by President Washington himself at Mount Vernon!

It was a great trip - thanks again, Virginia friends, for showing me around!

With a name like Sherald's, it has to be good

So. On our way home from Moab this weekend, Steve, my mom and I stopped in Price for some ice cream (or those of us who are lactose-tolerant did - the rest of us just stopped in Price). We had some kind of small-town shake-shack in mind, so we figured we had hit the jackpot when Main Street led us to Sherald's.

The line started behind two teenage/early-20s guys ordering burgers. I don't know what these guys do for a living, but I sure hope nobody's life is depending on their ability to make quick decisions. It sounded something like this:

Guy: "Now what comes on the bacon burger?"

Sherald's Employee: (actually, I couldn't hear what she said; she was inside the window. But I think we can safely assume she described the condiments on the bacon burger)

Guy: "Hmm...and what about the cheeseburger?"

Sherald's Employee: (again, assuming she listed the condiments. Besides cheese and bacon, I can't imagine the two burgers really differed that much)

Guy: "And what about the pickles? Do I get those too?"

...this continued for a good three minutes at least. Poor kid probably broke a pretty good sweat worrying about ketchup, onions, and lettuce. I guess if you're craving a really good burger though, you don't want to screw it up. Or maybe this was his last burger before going on a meat-free diet. I have no idea, but he was taking it more seriously than can possibly be healthy.

Anyway, he finally decided on something (and then went to his car to worry about it until they actually brought it to him, I'm sure) and we ordered. (Well, Steve and my mom did.) Steve got a large Reese's Peanut Butter Cup shake and my mom got a small chocolate shake. They told us it would be "a minute" as they were "a little backed up." I'm not sure what was going on in there, since the only other people in sight were the burger duo and two other girls waiting for milk shakes.

Anyway, about 10 minutes later they brought the shakes out - they were both the same size (which I assume was a small), but we were pretty sure she only charged us for two smalls and we were tired of waiting, so we hit the road. Steve was driving, so I broke out the spoon to help him eat. By this time, we were well on the way to the freeway.

I dug the spoon in for the first chocolate-peanut-buttery bite...but only saw white.

Me: "Huh, I don't see any Reese's yet."

Mom: "I saw her unwrapping some in there so I know she had some."

Me: "OK, they must be deeper inside I guess..."

So I crushed up some Oreos we had in the car to flavor up the first few bites. But after a few bites, all I was seeing was still white - with a few Oreo crumbs here and there. So I dug around a little more. Still nothing. It was barely even vanilla - it just tasted like milk. I added more Oreos thinking maybe the chocolate was all at the bottom and hadn't gotten mixed in right. But by the time enough of the shake was gone that I could really dig around, I was confident there was NOTHING in that shake but milk and a little vanilla ice cream.

But don't worry - I found something eventually! At the very bottom there was literally 1/4 of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Just a quarter of it, sitting on the bottom of the cup in two pieces. Nice.

So be forewarned if you're ever in Price and craving a good milkshake...unless you like to eat a lot of milk-flavored shake with one small bite of chocolate flavor at the very end, Sherald's may not be the place for you. There is, however, a McDonald's across the street.

(Note: I really do promote patronizing mom-and-pop places like Sherald's. And it may have been that girl's first day. Or maybe she just figured she could stick it to the out-of-towners and eat the rest of the Reese's, who knows. )

Blonde bridge blunder

Earlier this month, Steve and I drove to Arizona for a friend's wedding. We decided to go the Vegas route and check out the strip since I hadn't been there in years (and I probably won't go back for years - I know the rest of Vegas is probably a lovely place, but I maintain the strip is just bizarre...like a cracked-out Disneyland). We stayed the night to break up the drive and early the next morning we headed over Hoover Dam and on to Phoenix.

There was construction everywhere, especially driving near the dam (of course during which time I heard every "dam" joke Steve could concoct) where they are building a new bridge. Steve, having passed that way more often than I have, knew all about the bridge construction. When you read the conversation below, you'll understand why, following said conversation, Steve told me I had to blog it. It's only fair, since I have called out some of his more impressive moments here.

Steve: Wow, that's going to be weird to drive over.
Me: What? The bridge?
Steve: Yep.
Me: Drive on that thing? No way! It's way too steep - they can't have cars drive on that!
Steve: Um...
Me: Seriously! You'd never make it up the side.
Steve: Yeah...so that's the support for the bridge. They're going to put the actual bridge on top.

Oh.

Yep, in my foggy early-morning daze, I thought this was the actual BRIDGE (sorry for the weird angle - we were driving):




Good thing I'm not an engineer. You can see my concern though, were this the actual bridge, yes?

*Warning* lengthy travel post ahead

In spite of my good intentions to keep my blog updated while traveling, there just wasn't enough time to sleep AND write. When there's a contest between sleep and almost anything else...sleep wins. The sad part is I know there are 100 funny stories I probably won't remember. But if I had been sleeping all day and writing all night, there wouldn't have been any stories at all. You see the dilemma.

For those of you who don't know, Steve and I just returned from three wonderful weeks in Europe. Well, the Mediterranean, to be more precise. We spent about a week in northern Italy (Venice to Rome), and the next two between Greece and Turkey (Istanbul and Kusadasi/Ephesus). Since Turkey is part of the Asian continent, that means I doubled the number of continents I've been to in less than 3 weeks!

This was my first trip to Europe. It was also my first trip to a country (or countries) where I don't speak the language. Italian and Spanish are close enough that we did fine, but Greek...that was a bit of an adventure. You know it's going to be rough when the alphabet isn't even the same. I at least managed to learn a few phrases, which is more than I can say for Turkish. After half a week in the country, I was still limited to "hello" and "thank you." (Although I at least mastered the pronunciation enough that one store owner started speaking to me in Turkish. When I just stared back at him blankly, he laughed and said in English, "I thought you were Turkish! You said 'Merhaba'!" Probably just flattering me. It worked.) Luckily, almost everyone we met in Istanbul spoke at least some English.

I'm sure I'll share some more detailed stories in the next week or two, but for now I'll just sum up a few highlights in a lovely bullet list.

• Most memorable piece of art: Hands down, Michelangelo's David. I love art, but I'm not any kind of an expert, so when I heard people talking about what an amazing sculpture this is, I figured I'd think it was cool, but I didn't know if I'd understand enough about it to get the major "wow' factor other people talk about. I was not expecting the reaction I had when I walked into the room. I'm not sure how to describe it, except to say that I just felt like it was perfect and inspired. Art is a lot like writing in that when something is "finished" is sort of arbitrary. There is nothing arbitrary about the David - it is certainly complete and to have added or omitted anything would have diminished it. It's probably good that we weren't allowed to photograph it - no picture could capture what it was like to be in that room.
  

• Best site for historical ruins: This one is tough - we saw a LOT of Greek and Roman ruins. Ephesus definitely stands out though, particularly the Library of Celsus. The Colosseum was, of course, incredible as well, and it was unreal to walk where Paul did - Mars Hill and Ephesus again.
  
  

• Most fun: This is a tough one too. I'll go with crusing around Santorini on a scooter (which we lovingly dubbed Kermit).
  
  

• Most stressful to navigate: Athens. I guess you could also call this one "Most adventurous travel." Inaccurate subway maps, limited information on city-to-city transportation, "information" employees unwilling to help you, stretches of non-functioning railway. Also a slight communication barrier and lots of people who said "I don't know," even though we knew they did. Oh, and even when you have the directions, good luck finding a street sign.

• Most picturesque: This is a toss-up between Venice and Santorini. Venice was beautiful, but a little strange because everyone there is a tourist. It almost felt like a very beautiful and historic Disneyland.
  
  
  

• Most relaxing: Greek islands. After two weeks of running our feet off, it was incredible to cruise around on a scooter without any agenda except finding good beaches and great food.

• Biggest surprise: Geting a 52 Euro bill (about $75) for two plates of sea bass, a Coke and a Fanta. If you order fish charged by weight, be smarter than us and make sure it's in a unit of measurement you understand!

• Biggest food obsession: For Steve, Italian gelato and European Coke. For me, Italian pastries, Greek salad and Fanta.
  
  
  
  

• Least favorite food: Honest-to-goodness Greek yogurt, unflavored. The picture on the container leads me to believe it was sheep yogurt. I will NOT try it again in a few years to see if my taste buds have matured.
  
  
  
  

• Most amazing moment: Sitting between the Haiga Sophia and the Blue Mosque at dusk and hearing the call to prayer from 5 different mosques.
  
  
  
  

• Best sunsets: Santorini.