Days 20: Reunited and it feels so good

On the long drive the night before I had time to reflect on what I got out of driving 3 weeks cross country on my own. Needless to say, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to do so and am so grateful to Justine for understanding why I wanted to do this and not allowing it to become a wedge between us. It was hard for her and I underestimated by how much. All that is passed now as we are finally together again and will have a chance to create new adventures as a team going forward.

In Washington DC we stayed with our friend Booster whom we camp with at Burning Man. Booster has had some serious adversity thrown his way but he seems to have made gold from it and is always there with an encouraging and optimistic view on life. Booster ends every email with the following: "It's gonna be great!" and it always is, even with it isn't. I learned a lot more about my fellow Lost Penguin on this trip and I'm so glad that he was there in DC for us to share that leg of our trip with.

We met Justine at 5:30 in the morning, kissed for an eternity at the luggage claim at Dulles airport and hit the town straight away taking full advantage of the sunrise.

Pretty much everything in Justine's To-Do list centered around The Mall area of Washington and we walked from The Lincoln Memorial

through the World War II memorial,

around the Washington Monument, back down to the Vietnam Memorial

and then over to the Korean War memorial

before getting breakfast in Virginia near Booster's house in Mclean.

We napped for a few hours, then drove to Arlington Cemetery, walking around and playing junior detective trying to figure out the significance of the various insignia, symbols, stones used and placement of the over 220,000 national heroes buried there. The pomp and circumstance of the Tomb of the Unknown was particularly stunning. Watching the sentinel march his perfectly timed dance in tribute to his fallen man at arms was stunning and highly effective. The ritual surrounding honoring those who's identities will never be known illustrated the loyalty the military has for those who offer to give their life in the name of our country. I was really moved by this piece of propaganda and I doubt it will leave me for a long time to come.

Once the sun set we back into the city to catch the nighttime views of the same places we visited in the morning, this time also hanging out at the Jefferson Memorial.

Booster invited us back to his restaurant and we had a really nice meal there on the house.

written by

JRadhirsch on September 20, 2008 from Washington, United States

from the travel blog: The Great American Road Trip

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lovely, lovely photos.

written by cara on September 22, 2008

Soo glad to be going on this journey with you!
Thrilled that you are reunited, though Peanut is wondering why your work day is sooo long.

Love to you both!
TexCat

written by Cat Foshee on September 23, 2008

Ditto to Cara's comment.

written by jrad's mom on September 23, 2008

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