Americana Panorama 2008

This past week, I was actually able to get away for a few days, leave work behind, both job-related and school-related and head down to Northern Virginia to see my sister, brother-in-law and nephews. Okay, I didn't actually leave all my work behind... when you are a grad student you can never entirely leave work behind, but the laptop stayed at home so I actually made a conscious effort to forget about everything... most of the time.

Anyway, the trip down reminded me of a suggestion I made a long time ago about the state of Pennsylvania. When you drive into PA, the sign should say, "Welcome to Pennsylvania, You're Going to Be Here a While." There is no relatively quick way to go through this state, certainly not in the summertime. There will always be road construction, and in this case it was on I-81 through the mountains, and on this day, the traffic was so bad that it was backed up from one construction zone through another one and 4 miles back. This immediately added 40 minutes to the trip, caused me to take a detour that probably added more time to the trip... and yet I still managed 34 mpg on my 2000 Stratus for the trip... ask me sometime how I do that.

Speaking of gas, when you're on a trip outside of New York (where it is STILL $4 a gallon), you need to do your best to bargain shop. As I traveled farther south through Pennsylvania, the gas prices kept dropping... $3.80... $3.72... and on. Passing through York on I-83, I saw a sign for $3.66 a gallon and got this feeling in the back of my mind that if I didn't stop there I'd be sorry. However, I decided to see what it would be over the state line in Maryland. Stopped at the first station I saw in Maryland... $3.85. Damn.

One thing I had to deal with for my entire time in the DC area was the notorious Beltway Driver. You can spot Beltway Driver pretty easily when he's outside of his native habitat... Maryland or Virginia license plate, blowing past you doing about 20 miles an hour over the speed limit. The more I drove down there, however, the more I realized that I've seen this type of driving behavior before. Riding your tail and flashing high beams because you're ONLY doing 63 in a 55? Natural characteristic of Northeast PA Driver. Ignoring yield signs like they weren't even there? Common trait of both PA and Central New York drivers. Weaving across lanes at any given moment without giving a thought to signaling? Hell, Central New York Driver does that on city streets. Plus I made sure that when I was going somewhere that involved Beltway driving, I went during off hours.

The next misadventure had to do with the efforts of my brother-in-law and I to find a golf course. This should have been a pretty easy task, as there is a full 18-hole course right there on the base where my brother-in-law is stationed. However, on this particular day, the entire golf course had been reserved. We went into the pro shop and asked the guy there if there was anyplace else nearby, and he gave us a couple of options, a county-owned course and a public 9-hole course, both more or less up the road from base. We went to the first one, brought our clubs up to the starter's shed, where an older good-ole-boy Southerner told us that the course is packed with senior citizens right now because this is the time reserved for them... which would be followed by the time when the course is reserved for high schoolers. So if we wanted to play, we would have to join a foursome of fossils. No... thank... you.

Then at our last option (the public course), the cost of 9 holes was almost as much as 18 holes at the county course. End result: we hit a bucket of balls at the driving range and called it a day.

I had never been to Washington, DC before the last couple days, and considering I lived 90 minutes away for 3 years (when gas was much cheaper even) and did not make my way down there, I took advantage. The family and I did some sightseeing in our nation's Capitol on a fairly decent day, saw the Smithsonian (although the American History museum, the one with Archie Bunker's chair and the Fonz's jacket, was closed for renovations), walked from one side of the Mall to the other looking at all the monuments, went to the National Archives and saw the Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, many of these old documents are badly faded and you can't really read them all that well, but it was still very cool to see these things, and besides, if I wanted to read the First Amendment, I can just walk outside of Newhouse III and read the windows. Put me down as the 50 bazillionth person to tell you that this is quite an experience and one you need to do at least once in your life (DC, not Newhouse III). And of course, you can't do it all in one day, so I will be making return trips, especially because as a group we didn't feel like paying $20 a head to see the Newseum.

On the way home, I followed an old personal rule of mine: Always take a different way home. Not wanting to deal with the I-81 construction again, I instead went through the mountains on US 220, down a winding path of small towns, nice vistas, and on and off showers. Strangely, it seemed like I would be under dark clouds and nothing would happen, then as soon as the sun came out, it would start raining. Taking in the scenery like that is the way to go if you can spare the extra time on your trip to do so.

All in all, it was a great vacation and of course too short. Now that I am somewhat recharged, I'm ready for a return to classes and jobs and responsibilities... and of course, more blogging...