Surprise Visit to DC

Andrea and I tend to be pretty “off the cuff” as some may say.  We weren’t exactly sure what we were going to do this Labor Day.  A few things were still up in the air, so any plans we could have made probably would have been changed anyway.  Sunday afternoon, following church, we were sitting down to eat when I started to think of something fun we could do.  By the way, I love to surprise my wife–then again, what husband doesn’t?  An idea jumped into my head: we could get a hotel for a night, then spend the day sightseeing somewhere.  Unfortunately though, those plans kind of went out the window when my employer called, and wanted me to come in for a little while and run our mission control.  “Oh well!”, I thought.

After getting home from church in the evening, I got ready for work quickly, and headed out the door.  As I was pulling out, I called my employer, and he pretty much said that they ended up getting done earlier than expected–no need for me to come in!  I turned right around (tires probably squealing) and drove around the block back home.  As I ran in the door, Andrea imagined I had forgotten something (pretty common), but I surprised her when I immediately said, “Get ready: we’re going to Sonic!” (one of our eat out after evening service places).  Then suddenly, something came into my thought process–we could go on a little overnight trip somewhere for the holiday!  I rephrased my command: “Pack a bag for a night.  We’re leaving in twenty minutes!”  Did I know where we were going?  No.

Priceline.com is one of my good internet friends.  As Andrea was packing, and I still needed to pack, I hopped on the internet, clicking the mouse and keyboard like a maniac.  “Washington D.C. sounds fun,” I thought.  I have heard that Bethesda, Maryland is a good place to stay outside of the city, so I entered in the date I wanted (that very night), preferred star rating (3 1/2 was the highest), and finally the price.  Forty-five bucks sounds like a steal.  I clicked the “Buy my hotel room now!” button, waited about five seconds, and BAM–offer accepted!  Now to pack my bag…

We drove off around 8:25pm, heading south into “countryville”, then eventually onto I-83 South towards Baltimore.  Hitting the insane Baltimore Beltway a little after nine o’clock, we figured we would be there around 10:00pm.  And so we we got to Bethesda with plenty of time to spare.  Both of us were famished (maybe not quite, but…), so we found a nearby McDonald’s while walking around the city some.  Bethesda has all of the good places to eat that we don’t have in York County: Ruth’s Chris, Mongolian BBQ, Cheesecake Factory, and some of those other once or twice a year kind of places.

Bethesda--Third most wealthy city in America

Our hotel was beautiful; it was the Hyatt Regency Bethesda Metro.  The design of it was very unique.  It’s hard to explain how it looks.  Pictures, I think, tell the best story here.

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We went to sleep that night excited for what the next day had for us.

…to be continued