Visiting Former President Bush laid in state

Tuesday was our final day in the capital. We packed up our things and checked out of our hotel at about 9:30 so we could get some additional exploring in before heading up to Baltimore to catch our flight home. We were in the Logan Circle neighborhood and we LOVED it. There were great stores, restaurants and grocery stores available to the folks in the area. It felt more like a little NYC than D.C. to us. We saw that the place we had breakfast the other day, Ted Bulletin's, had another location in this neighborhood so we stopped in.

Homemade Pop-Tarts again!

Round 2: breakfast burrito and a breakfast sandwich this time

Ted's did not disappoint. Again. Now with full bellies we opted to walk around town despite the temperatures and the wind.

We walked by the IRS building
I spent an inordinate amount of time speaking to
folks who sit in here...

We went to the National Archives to see an exhibit they had on Vietnam and because we'd never seen the Charters of Freedom (The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, and The Bill of Rights) in person. Not surprisingly, they are fading. You can still see John Hancock's signature on the Declaration, though! It was really cool to see these documents. The Vietnam exhibit was also very interesting. No one was around on a random, cold Tuesday so we were able to cover a lot of ground quickly.

Everyone kept asking if we would go see former President Bush while he was laid in state so we decided to go see how long the line was. It didn't look too bad so we jumped in at about 13:00.

Approaching the Capitol

Waiting in line to see President Bush

The looks are deceiving. They were just getting us from the street line to the visitor center's entrance (line 2), from the visitor center's entrance (outside) to the lobby of the visitor's center (line 3), then from the lobby to the next waiting area (line 4) before finally leading us up the escalators and to the rotunda. It took us right about 1.75 hours to reach the rotunda.

What a guy

The memorial cards

We were amazed once we got there, though. The room was spectacular. It was massive and ornate. The armed service members guarding the casket were motionless. I don't know how they stay so still. We stayed for a couple of minutes paying our respects and then exited the building. They passed out the little memorial cards I post a photo of above for everyone who visited. It was a really special thing and I'm glad we had time to see him.

We still had a little bit of time before we needed to gather our things and head for the airport so we walked over to the United State Botanic Garden to see their Christmas exhibit. The best part of D.C. is that everything is "free" (we pay with our tax dollars) so you can pop in and out of locations without pressure. The garden was really pretty. All of their pieces on display had to be made of plants of plant materials so they got very creative. We wandered around for a bit before heading back to our hotel to head for the airport.

The Capitol made of plants

White House made of plants!

Pike's Peak cog railway

They had a cinnamon tree. Gross. 

Jackson by the poinsettias 

Welcome to the jungle

We left early for the airport as the traffic had gotten terrible with folks getting into the city to attend services for former President Bush. Our Uber driver took a different route than we'd ever taken before so we got to see some new parts of the D.C. outskirts and also Maryland before getting to BWI. We grabbed dinner, checked and responded to emails and then caught our flight home. It was on time and uneventful which are my favorite kinds of flights.

We landed in an icy Indy so the drive home was annoying, but we made it without issue. We had a great trip to D.C. despite the cold and the rain. President Bush's passing causes some of our tours to be canceled, but it opened other opportunities up for us. I'm glad we got to pay our respects to such a fearless leader and that we got to see the Supreme Court, too. 

SCOTUS Oral Arguments

I hopped out of bed (after two snoozes) on Monday morning at 4:45 full of nerves about whether or not we would make the arguments. Only the first 50 people in line are guaranteed seats so the early bird gets the worm. I am not a naturally born early bird. This time, though, it was Jackson who was not feeling the early morning. I guess because this was a dream of mine and not his. Who knows?!

EARLY morning views of the Supreme Court building

The sun finally came up!

Stunning.

We got ready and grabbed an Uber to the courthouse by 5:30 a.m.. Well, as close as we could get to the courthouse. You could not get close to much due to the funeral for President Bush. We got to line and were numbers 31 and 32!!!!! SUCCESS.

Once we’d locked in our spots and the hour hit when a Starbucks would be open, Jackson went to get coffees and sandwiches while I held our spots.

We were in line with two brand new attorneys from West Virginia. Ah, youth. They're still excited about the impact they think they'll make. I don't kill dreams outwardly, but I am now an inward cynic. Age does that to you. There was a government teacher in line who was so similar to Uncle Charlie that I began suspecting he was a distant relative! There was a young paralegal from California who could hardly deal with the cold. It was quite a group. Even though we had to wait over two hours in the cold (roughly 50 degrees) with the sun not even coming up until after 7:00, the time went fairly quickly.

SO EXCITED TO BE GOING IN!
*Uncle Charlie like teacher with the purposeful photo bomb*
See what I mean about a distant relative?! ;)

They eventually let us in the building and through security. We then had to kill about an hour in their cafeteria before being let into the courtroom.

See those chairs? They push them together and put you in a line.

The seats they give you are horrid. What a bummer. It was the tiniest chair imaginable. We were squished in like sardines. They make you put everything into a locker so you’re without a phone which is basically naked. At right about 10:00 a bell rang and in came 9 of my favorite government employees.

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

The justices sit in order of tenure with the Chief at the middle

We sat at the back left of the courtroom so we looked right at Justice Gorsuch.

From our vantage point the bench looked like this:

Justice Gorsuch looked vibrant and Jackson called him a silver fox. He seemed super friendly and likable. He exuded his Colorado roots.

Justice Sotomayor had on a lot of gorgeous bracelets and seemed very personable. She looked much younger than her 64 years.

Justice Breyer looked like every old attorney. He was quite vocal, though, and very engaging.

Justice Thomas, my current favorite, did not disappoint. He leaned back in his chair. He looked annoyed. He chatted with Breyer. He was awesome. (He has quite the reputation for hating oral arguments.)

Chief Justice John Roberts was a handsome devil and I do mean devil. He was very tough on the attorneys arguing before them. He was very sharp and I was quite impressed by him. (He’d not been high on my list since I thought Scalia should have been named chief and because he called the Affordable Care Act a tax when it was obviously not something the IRS should have been burdened with administering but I digress.)

Justice RUTH BADER GINSBURG was the tiniest, mightiest woman. She still seemed very intelligent, but her body seems to be betraying her and her words were very hard to understand. I really wanted to see arguments while she was still on the bench because she has been pivotal in women's rights.

Justice Alito was much more fiery than I anticipated. He was also handsome, but now I wonder if I just have a thing for judges? ;) He certainly did not look to be 68!

Justice Kagan was very vocal and seemed approachable and fair. She also seemed genuinely interested in getting to a fair resolution.

Justice Kavanaugh started out a little iffy for me because his first question seemed to be one of someone who just wanted to hear himself speak. I loathe people like that in meetings. After that, though, he bounced back and contributed some interesting arguments to the discussion. He seemed the most nervous which made sense. It was also striking how young he looked compared to most of his fellow justices. At age 53, he is the second youngest (behind Justice Gorsuch who has white hair which makes him appear older) justice and though his confirmation process probably accelerated his need for Botox, he still looked like a kid compared to the others.

The case was what they call a “dog” because it was boring. I disagree. It was about whether or not West Virginia could tax Federal law enforcement officers’ retirement payments while exempting state law enforcement officers’ retirement payments from state tax. Each side got 30 minutes to argue their point. The petitioner had two attorneys present and the second was much more dynamic than the first. The respondent, West Virginia’s Solicitor General, was just appointed late in the summer and had to suddenly argue before SCOTUS. She went to Harvard Law School and graduated near the top of her class. You could not tell. That sounds harsh but her appearance was terrible. She looked unkempt and had a hard time piecing together arguments. Repeatedly she contradicted herself. It felt like she thought she could just fake her way through arguing before the Supreme Court. That does not work and she got shredded. Though they do not announce their decisions on the same day, I have a feeling they will rule against West Virginia.

We opted not to stay for the second and final oral argument of the day due to the squished nature of our seats. Also, since I am short and was in the back of a flat room, my neck was hurting from straining. I had seen what I wanted to see so I bid my 9 pals farewell.

We took a quick tour of the building to see some of the paintings of favorite justices before heading back out to move on with our day.

Scalia. The absolute best.

Thurgood Marshall was another
excellent justice!

Sandra Day O'Connor was the first
female justice so she'll always be an
inspiration

The sun had finally come out and it was a gorgeous day. We walked to the shuttle bus to our hotel, grabbed some lunch at Shake Shack (yum) and even ate outside (in December!) before heading back to our room for a nap!

A view of the harbor from our room

You can see the floating ice skating rink! So cool!

After our nap we had to leave the fancy hotel. It is inexpensive-ish to stay there one weekends, but weeknights are insane due to business travelers. We moved to a Holiday Inn in the city center so we'd have an easier to walk to sights. 

That evening I bundled up and Jackson proclaimed he'd be fine without a coat and we set out. We stumbled upon a gorgeous church with its doors open so we popped in half to warm ourselves up and half to see the decor.

Stopped to see a church, of course

We did a little shopping as Jackson has a big presentation on Thursday and wanted a new outfit. We grabbed a quick dinner and then went out to check out more of the city. I always love to see the White House but it was extra locked down this evening. Bummer!

One side

The other!

As close as they let us get!

It turns out that Jackson was cold without a coat. Imagine that. We ended up being weenies and calling an Uber to get us back to the hotel as we'd gotten a couple of miles away and were too cold to walk all the way back.

It was incredible to get to see oral arguments. I've loved the Supreme Court since at least sixth grade when my middle school was renamed for Justice Thurgood Marshall and I was selected to be one of the presenters at the naming ceremony. You guys, I still remember a lot of my speech about how important his achievements were and that was a LONG time ago.  Even now I often read SCOTUS opinions for both work and just to be an informed citizen so it was just a real treat to be there in person. A huge thank you to Jackson for suffering through a cold and early morning to make this nerd's dream come true! I love you! 

Exploring D.C.

Robe life!!!

Sunday morning got off to a slow start. I blame the robes for being too cozy. We eventually got around and headed over to the Marine Barracks area of town to get a late breakfast. We were not alone in reading good things about a certain restaurant and ended up with about an hour wait. We did not mind as we wanted to explore the neighborhood anyway. The Marine Barracks were super cool. We even got to hear them practicing for a performance at former President Bush’s funeral.

The Commandant of the Marine Corps' home

Our breakfast place was worth the wait. They were known for homemade pop-tarts which were a bit of a delicacy for me growing up. My Grams almost always had strawberry frosted Pop-Tarts or strawberry toaster strudels for us when we visited. Sometimes tasting a memory is extra sweet. Ted’s tarts did not disappoint. I also had their delicious breakfast burrito while Jackson had biscuits and gravy. We left full!!

Homemade Pop-Tarts? YES! 

We'll be here again...

We decided to just wander around the area and were happy to find an outdoor market that took up many street blocks and had ever kind of vendor imaginable. We strolled the market for a long time just soaking it all in before heading back to the hotel.

A view of the Capitol on our walk

Back at the Peloton

We did another Peloton ride, still loved it, then went down to take advantage of the free drink coupons we got at check in.

I do not drink much so Jackson cashed in. He got a girly drink that went for a cool $18 for free. Woohoo! We had reservations at a Mexican joint down the road from the hotel.

Enjoying his free, girly drink! 

While the food was pretty good, it was a $60 meal that was more of a $35 meal. D.C. is a pricey place! It always shocks me when we visit just how expensive EVERYTHING is in the capital city.

$60 worth of Mexican food?!

The Wharf is a new neighborhood. They redeveloped an old fish market into high end restaurants, hotels, apartments, theaters and so on. The neighborhood association is still trying to attract folks to the area so they got creative and came up with a s’mores station. It was genius. We bought a pack of 4 for $10 and were off to the races.

The s'mores stand

S'mores packs

Jackson used a Reese's Cup instead of a
Hershey bar. What a chump.

You never see me happier than when I'm holding a traditional
s'more!

I don't even care about the mess!

It was a fun and delicious way to end our date night.

We had to retire early as Monday morning was a big one. We were to attend oral arguments before the Supreme Court. In order to do so we needed to be in line by about 5:30 a.m. and early calls mean early bedtimes.

Rainy day in Washington, D.C.

Jackson has been traveling a lot for work and was one flight away from hitting a new status with Southwest. He needed that flight before December 31 so we decided to head to Washington, D.C. for a long weekend. We love the nation’s capital during the holidays.

We booked an early Saturday morning flight and got to D.C. on a gloomy, rainy day. We didn’t really mind the rough weather because we were staying at the Intercontinental D.C. Wharf which is one of the fancier hotels around. We didn’t mind having a reason to just lounge around our room in their robes soaking in the view of the harbor.

He loves to pose with this sign!

We did grab an Uber into town to hit our favorite pizza joint.

Waiting for our Uber in the rain!

The best pizza in DC!

SO GOOD! 

It was still rainy so after lunch we went back to our robes and Netflix. Since we have been packing and showing the house it felt like we had not relaxed much recently. Sometimes you just need a new location to really unwind.

Pelotons!

 The hotel also had two Peloton bikes in its fitness center that were calling our name. We’ve been considering getting one for about a year and the idea of testing them out in tandem was cool. The class was much harder than we anticipated, but we finished. We loved the Peloton! If only it did not cost about $2,500!!! After an intense workout that we claimed to ourselves erased our pizza consumption, we cleaned up and headed out to explore the neighborhood. The rain had finally passed.

The Christmas tree is all lit up now!

Awesome fireworks

We stayed in the same hotel at the same time last year because they have a big Christmas festival and it was worth visiting again. They had a parade of decorated boats, amazing fireworks and even s’mores (more on that later). We did some browsing in the cute little stores around the Wharf before catching the thrilling end of the Alabama vs. Georgia football game outside of a bar with some new stranger friends we’d made.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Eventually the cold set in and we retired to our room to finish watching the silliest Christmas movie on Netflix. A Christmas Prince is worth watching. The sequel, A Christmas Prince: The Royal Wedding, just is not. We were pleasantly surprised that the hotel had left us a goodie tray since we mentioned having just celebrated 12 years of marriage when we checked in! Chocolate covered strawberries are my favorite fruit.

What a great day!