the squibix family blog

We left home at 4:15 in the morning on a Thursday. Our friends who go to Washington more than once in a lifetime told us an early-morning departure is the way to go, traffic-wise; they also said their kids fall back to sleep as soon as they get going and sleep for the first third of the trip. That didn't happen for us. Everyone was too excited! Never mind, they're great travelers. And we did appreciate the traffic-free roads we encountered almost the whole way down (I guess it's impossible to involve yourself with New York City without running into some traffic).

Once we got through Hartford every moment brought the boys farther south than they had ever been; and soon, farther west as well. We eagerly took in the sights, especially the bridges. The boys are bridge fans, and the Bay Bridge in Maryland was easily the most impressive one we've ever crossed!

Once we were over it, it was only a little ways farther to Washington. Our route to the hotel took us by the convention hall where the Pokemon event was being held; in fact, it went right under a pedestrian walkway where hung a gigantic inflatable Pikachu! We had arrived.

School starts September 3rd here, for those folks that go to school. Jack is going into 6th grade, so he'll have more freedom after he gets out in the afternoon. We hope to see him around lots more!

Our hotel room, home for four long days, was very nice. We had two big beds, a table or bar sort of thing, and a L-shaped couch. Two TVs. The most important feature was the tiny refrigerator, which we needed so we wouldn't have to go out to eat for every single meal. The only downside to the place was the ridiculous bathroom sink—the only sink. It was a shallow box-shaped thing set on the countertop with a faucet that sprayed a flat sheet of water, maybe an inch and a half wide, out at a 45° angle. It made me think of hostile architecture—how cities install uncomfortable benches to keep folks from sleeping on them. Though in this case I think it was just bad design. Hard enough to wash hands in, never mind cleaning dishes.

We spent most of our time in Pokemon world—the main hall at the Convention Center. At least, Harvey, Zion, and I did; Lijah was having none of that (none of anything, actually) so he and Leah swam in the pool, walked the neighborhood around the hotel, and enjoyed the AC in the hotel room. Harvey and I played lots of Pokemon, and Zion played lots of Let's Go Pikachu on the game systems they had set up for him.

After the competition finished up Sunday at lunchtime, the bigger boys and I were free to be tourists. We walked down to the mall and through the Sculpture Garden, which is full of beautiful artwork. Also a giant fountain, by which we stopped for a picnic lunch. There was very definitely no wading allowed, but we could still enjoy dipping our tired feet in the luke-warm water.

Next we visited the Natural History Museum. We stayed for about three hours, and we would have been happy with twice that, but I had hopes of catching a glimpse of some more Washington-specific attractions (I mean, lots of towns have Natural History Museums). Unfortunately we were defeated by heat, distance, and the construction fence around the Washington Monument—but we did see it, at least. Then we got yelled at near the White House, without seeing that at all. That meant it was time to go home.

On Monday we finally got to do something all together: go to the zoo! After we got all packed up and checked out of the hotel, that is. Liberated our car from its underground storage where we had left it five days previously, I found that I had lost the parking slip—that meant we had to pay the daily maximum of $30. I'll take it! The zoo was wonderful, and we were entranced not only by the elephants and lions and gorillas, but but the otters and tamarinds as well. Plus the tamarinds were inside in air conditioned comfort! Did I mention it was really hot there?

We finally tore ourselves away from the zoo in the early afternoon and headed towards home. There was more traffic on the return trip but that was fine; we had a good book to listen too and lots to talk about—and we were happy to be sitting still. There were some adventures on the way: we went over the Bay Bridge again, we saw some more broken-down trucks, and we stopped in a little town in Eastern Maryland for gas. There we visited what was instantly my favorite convenience store in the world: not only did they have like 12 different varieties of pork rinds, but for once I didn't have to worry about the boys not having their shoes—there were barefoot adults in there too!

Did I mention that Zion didn't actually bring shoes on the trip? Traveling is fun. I'm also glad to be back home.

Interestingly, earlier today all three boys had been riding their bikes around the block with a couple friends. But nobody complained about that.

On a Sunday afternoon the place was a little crowded, which explains our error of doing everything backwards: just inside the door we headed straight for the closest cool thing we saw, some giant fossil animals. But it turns out they were mammal fossils, and as we proceeded through the exhibit we passed into dinosaurs, then eventually to the origins of life. The boys enjoyed some very well-made film presentations, and the big skeletons were interspersed with small, but very detailed, dioramas showing the animals as they looked with skin, which we appreciated.

We also went backwards on the second floor. As soon as we got up the stairs I rushed us over to look at the Hope Diamond, then we moved on to a few rooms of cut gems alongside the minerals they're made from. Through the other side of that we entered a wonderful space made to look like the inside of a mine—it was so realistic it was hard to believe we weren't deep in the bowels of the earth. Then the next section was on volcanism and plate tectonics. The Hope Diamond is actually kind of underwhelming—though I did enjoy learning about its history—but the other gems were very arresting. So was the world's largest flawless crystal sphere.

There was tons more that we would have loved to see—we were there for three hours and could easily have enjoyed a visit twice as long. As it was we were trying to leave for maybe fifteen minutes, but kept getting distracted by "one more thing!" Maybe we'll go back some day. How about in ten years?

But sometimes—often—things don't go as well. Lots of things can go wrong. Gardeners everywhere live in fear of the fungal blights that can devastate a previously healthy crop in just a couple days; and then there's less dramatic afflictions like blossom-end rot and tomato hornworm. Besides all those we have another challenge: our chickens. They like nothing better than to get in to the garden and peck bites out of every single one of the almost-ripe tomatoes in the row. It's brought me close to tears before. Today I finally just went and put a fence around the tomato bed. I should have done it a couple weeks ago but it makes it a pain to weed, and to pick tomatoes ourselves. But it was either that or kill and eat all the chickens.

We've still been able to pick plenty of unpecked tomatoes. And even the ones they got too still have food on them, if you're not too picky. Which I'm not. After all, these are home-grown tomatoes we're talking about!