Rainy Monday

Suitsupply has the right suit for everybody,
even old guys.

On Saturday we managed to get in a bike ride. It was the one, true, though not quite warm sunny day. Including all the noodling, it was about a 25 mile ride which is pretty good for my first ride of the season. Once we crossed the Potomac we jumped on the Mt. Vernon Trail, a multi-use path which follows the river all the way to George Washington's home, though we didn't get that far ourselves.

But we did stop off at the Museum of Natural History on the way home. Oh my god. This museum alone is worth driving across the country for. Outstanding, fabulous and amazing.

And M. Lee's suit was ready yesterday so we picked that up. He looks great. Suitsupply is everything it promises to be but the guy who made it all come together was a fellow named Faouzi. He was wonderful. Fantastic. He knew exactly where the line was for an old guy, modern but appropriate. Photo to follow.

Okay. Gotta go. The Trip Tyrant, M. Lee, is rattling on about how we have to leave in a few minutes.


Note to my future self: 
Hey! Don't be like me. Bring your bike jacket and collapsible water bottle.

Slow Nickels TV

Washington DC

Slow Nickels is an odd name for anything but I suppose it makes sense as a laundromat although it would be more accurate to call the place Lots of Nickles. Anyway, we're at Slow Nickels doing our laundry this morning for the first time since we left Nevada. DC TV news is on. I don't know if its just me but it seems definitely different than TV news anywhere else I've been. The daily political scene plays out more like a battle in a Roman Colosseum, every strike broadcast, who is where doing what and everybody leaning in, keeping up blow by blow, the States themselves watching from front row seats, competing with one another, switching alliances on a moments notice like ringside hustlers buying and selling odds on each and every move. It's mad. OK. Time to fold laundry.

Notes and reflections

Five days in DC now. We're staying about 2.5 mi away from the Mall so everyday we get in a good walk going to and from the museums. The first few days it rained but the last two have been clear blue and warm in the sun. Makes all the difference. We've seen a lot of art, good and bad and some masters, including da Vinci and Rembrandt, and today we checked out the exhibit at the old patent building now the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Their portrait gallery was pretty bad but there is some wonderful, and disturbing, art brut. They refer to it as folk art for whatever reason but it's art brut aka outsider art. Anyway, the exhibit kicked our asses. It's huge. We got there at the end of the day and only had enough energy for the first floor.

Also I ran into a dear old friend from Oregon on the Mall today. Talk about a surprise! She and her husband are in DC visiting family. She called my name from across the street. It was phenomenal. We really don't know what's going to happen in a day, do we? So we did coffee. The event got me brooding again that we didn't stop in Kansas City and have coffee with Roy. I want to totally blame M. Lee for that. He makes plans way in advance and mostly alone. He decides destinations, reservations and even where we'll eat along the way. It's mostly all good so I am in the habit of just going along with things. I really hate admitting I'm so passive. It's a pathetic kind of flaw, a convenient weakness, but blaming him only magnifies it so I can't/don't want to do that. Arg.

Hwy 50 revisited and the wild guys at Suit Supply

Day Eight, DC and such.

Getting into DC we missed the turnoff Mrs. Google wanted us to take so we ended up exiting I-70 on good old Hwy. 50. It was like coming home. We only stayed on it for five miles then once again parted ways, it winding off towards its destination, as Don noted, Ocean City, MD 3073 mi away from its beginning in West Sac. We missed the cherry blossoms...or at least while they were still on the trees though we did pass voluptuous sweeps of fallen blossoms in yards and gutters. Even they are quite lovely, but perhaps that's just my expanded/skewed sense of beauty. Anyway, now that we are "somewhere" we are on military time. M. Lee has a busy day planned so, as usual, I have only minutes to dash off a note.

New Vrindaban didn't have wifi and I didn't want to fiddle with using my phone for one. In any case, that experience will require a little more time to digest so notes on Days Five, Six and Seven will have to wait awhile. Just to say, it was an amazing stop. Much has changed (and not changed) but even M. had a good time and that is saying a lot. So today we are off to Suit Supply. M. needs a suit for my nephew's wedding. He wants them to make him look like this, well except that he's going to still wear socks. 

Day four, "Eat your dinner LIKE THIS."

Columbus Ohio. Went to the Banana Leaf vegetarian Indian restaurant/buffet. Tasty but very strange place. Dinner began with a complete oral tutorial by the owner, six individually served appetizers and a glass of mango juice or mango lassi before we could get our hands on the buffet. We felt like children who had to be good little clean plate-ers with each and every serving before we could have anything else. Anyway, it was a vegetarian joint so, especially after the Limon Denny's, it qualified as a bonafide oasis.

Today, on to New Vrindaban to face down some ghosts and maybe liberate a few. Wish me luck.

Day three, ghosts and hard choices

We both hated Limon, M. Lee even more than I. And I don’t think it was because the place is so small or beat down or because so many of its residents work at the grim prison nearby. There is something else, something very wrong about Limon Colorado then, this evening, we read about the gruesome event that happened there back in 1900 and that feeling of dread and gloom permeating the place made sad and eerie sense.

We were back on the road by seven this morning. We needed to get an early start as today’s destination was Columbia MO, a 650 mile, 10 hour drive. I-70 goes right though Kansas City.  We also wanted to stop and have coffee with Roy. Even weeks before we left home, M. Lee and I discussed the possibility and decided the only way to do it would be to spend the night in KC. Stopping for an hour just wouldn't be enough and anyway, today’s drive was already too long. It was very disappointing but adding another night on the road just didn’t work with the rest of the schedule. We invited him to join us in DC instead. It would be great fun. We really hope he does. Who knows? Far-fetched perhaps but it could happen. We shall see.

Kansas points of interest:
8000 lb. prairie dog
World’s largest ball of twine
Kansas Barbed Wire Museum
Home of President D.D. Eisenhower

Day Two made better by pancakes and Louie C.K.

We stayed in Salina CO last night, had a veggie burger and fries at Denny's and today, after 537 miles, made it to Limon CO. The drive included a grueling passage over the Continental Divide during the tail end of a spring storm. Vail was closed which infuriated M. Lee. Skiers get crazy when they see fresh snow go to waste. At Grand Junction we left Hwy. 50 for Interstate 70 (sorry Roy) and tonight we're in what's left of Limon watching Louie C.K. after a pancake dinner at (where else?) Denny's. You know you're in a small town when photos of the high school prom court make the front page. Before leaving town we stopped at the thrift store and picked up a secondhand towel. We needed a throwaway.