Delightful Day in D.C.

I absolutely love living in D.C. (if it weren’t for Husband moving away for residency, I’d be content to stay here permanently!), but after living here for almost 8 full years I’ve discovered that I’ve just started to take everything for granted.  Whereas we once used to seize every opportunity possible to enjoy all that the city has to offer, over the past two or three years, Husband and I have just been so overworked and exhausted that if we happen to have a free weekend, we either spend it running errands, having a low-key night in with friends (or once in a rare while a not-so-low key night out, with appropriate recovery time the next day), or the most likely scenario – we each sit on our respectable couches, and he relaxes with his Playstation and I do some data analysis from home and then catch up on reading blogs and do a little knitting.  That’s not to say that we don’t get out at all – over the past several months, we’ve made it to the new location of the Newseum and to the Portrait Gallery, but if we are able to have a day off, chances are that we don’t do anything with it at all.

So, I was thrilled when the absolutely delightful Preppy Chemist, Ph.D. moved on up to D.C. and I had the opportunity to take her around on the standard monument tour two weekends ago – a reason to head out on what turned out to be a beautiful afternoon (once we waited for the rain to pass), visit some old sites I used to frequent back when I was in undergrad, and even catch the tail end of the cherry blossoms, which I would have otherwise missed in my typical “I live in D.C., I can see them any year” attitude.  We took the typical tourist route: Vietnam War Memorial –> Korean War Memorial –> Lincoln Monument –> Tidal Basin –> Bench where Husband Proposed (what do you mean that’s not a standard tourist location? it is most certainly a Very Important Spot!) –> FDR Memorial –> Jefferson Monument –> Washington Monument –> White House and back to where we started.

We had a lovely time, and I am looking forward to more adventures with Preppy Chemist (perhaps the zoo on another nice day)?  And of course, should any of you other blogfriends happen to make it to the D.C. area, certainly come give a knock on my digital door beforehand – showing people around reminds me of how much I love this place!