Washington DC - Day 2 & 3

The saga of our trip continues . . .

Day 2 - Sunday, October 12
This was a pretty low-key day with not a lot of activity. Alec was hoping to get to town in time to watch the Redskins game at 1 PM. But, he slept through his alarm and didn't even wake up until I called him around 10 AM. Since he was a good 4 hours away, clearly he was not going to make it!

J. and I had a nice brunch at the Original Pancake House. Though this is a chain restaurant, and I try not to eat a chain restaurants on vacation, this particular place falls into Chain Restaurant Rule Caveat #1: Places that are unique and that I don't have regular access to are allowed. I had yummy lemon crepes. J. had the croissant French toast.

After brunch, we headed to Whole Foods to pick up supplies for "Mom's Famous Chicken" which J. planned to fix for us that night (her her gorgeous new kitchen, I might add!). As we pulled in to the shopping center, I noticed an Ulta! As I posted back in May, we don't have Ulta here. I fell in love with it in Tulsa, and I miss it. Anyway, we decided to go in. As luck would have it, the liter size of my shampoo was on sale for $9.99 per bottle, so I stocked up again. I'm almost out of the bottle I bought on that trip in May! I picked up a few more things and then we headed to Whole Foods. I love that place. It's expensive, but so nice.

Alec got to the house about the time we did. We watched the end of the game and then headed out to Target to get a few things. The Target nearest the house is two stories, and has a special escalator you put you cart in to take it upstairs. Usually when we go there, we don't need a cart and I'm always disappointed because I want to play with the cart escalator. But this time, we were buying soda, so we needed a cart! Mind you, we didn't need anything from the upstairs floor, but I went up anyway. Just to play with the cart escalator. Yes, sometimes it's the little things that make me happy. One thing to remember, though. It's not a good idea to leave your purse in the cart while it's on the escalator. The escalator might break and your purse will be stuck and you'll be late for your nail appointment. (Disclaimer - this did not happen to me, but to a friend who told me the story after I shared my glee at finally getting to use the cart escalator.)

We went back to the house and ate the fabulous Mom's Famous Chicken. After dinner, we headed over to see Alec's best friend from high school (who was the best man at our wedding) and his family. We had an nice visit with them and made plans to hang out later in the week.


Day 3 - Monday, October 13
Monday was Columbus Day, and we'd made plans to meet up with my college friend, "Archer" (she works for the government, so she had the day off) and check out the Ansel Adams/Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the National Museum of American Art. Archer had been sick all weekend with the flu, but she came anyway since it was a rare chance to see each other!

We met at the museum, but were hungry, so we headed to the restaurant Archer had suggested for lunch, Matchbox, just a few blocks away. I had heard of this place from keeping up with Tom Sietsema's reviews and I was excited to try their pizza! The restaurant is a cool space - the original building (the recently expanded into the one next door) is only 15 feet wide! Each table has a different matchbox embedded in it. I wish I'd thought to take pictures. (Later in the week, my cousin Belle asked why I didn't take a picture of my meal for my blog - duh, that would have been a great idea to do all along!)

Anyway, about the food. We all had pizza. I thought Alec might try their other famous dish, sliders (mini hamburgers) as the only red meat eater in the group but he wanted pizza. Alec had the "matchbox meat" pizza, Archer had the "veggie" and I had the "chicken pesto." Besides mine, I did try a bite of Archer's and they were both fabulous! Alec really liked his as well. Even in the 10-inch personal size they were a bit too much food for me, but with Archer being sick, we didn't really want to share (and Alec wanted red meat). Half a pizza and a side salad would have been perfect. But, I'm still glad we went and I think it will be on our list of places to eat next time we're in the city!

After lunch we went back over to the museum. As I mentioned in the Day 1 post, I was an intern there in college. The museum has been totally renovated (it was closed I think for 3 or 4 years) since that time and it looks gorgeous. It is connected to the National Portrait Gallery and between the two spaces we saw 4 exhibitions: Ansel Adams/Georgia O'Keeffe, "Women of our Time," an exhibition of photographs of 20th century women, an exhibition of Herblock's political cartoons and the permanent exhibition of Presidential Portraits.

The Adams/O'Keeffe show was good. I enjoyed seeing the photographs juxtaposed with paintings, if not of the same subject, then of similar shape and layout. "Women of our Time" was interesting, but with a lot of wall text to read, as there was a short bio accompanying each photograph, so we kind of skimmed that one. We went through the Herblock show backwards, starting with the more contemporary stuff and going back to his cartoons from the 30's & 40's. What struck me about it was that while the presidents changed, the subjects were pretty much the same! Just goes to show that some things never change! We also ended up going through the presidential gallery backwards so it was funny to go from the first two rooms where we recognized everyone to the later ones where for the most part we were thinking "who the heck is that?"

After the museum, we headed to Macy's at Metro Center so I could purchase my cousin K's wedding gift. They didn't have anything from the registry that really caught my fancy so I didn't buy anything. We said goodbye to Archer after that. She was really not feeling well and we were going to Filene's Basement which is not one of her favorite places, even when she's healthy! It was wonderful to get to spend some time with her, though!

After Filene's, I felt in need of some caffeine so we walked up to the Dupont Circle area, where I knew there was a location of a coffee shop/restaurant I really like, Cosi (another place that falls into Chain Restaurant Caveat #1 - henceforth to be known as CRC#1). But, just as I spotted it, we also spotted a place that looked really intriguing, Hello Cupcake. It's a bakery that sells only cupcakes. I happen to love cupcakes, and M.K. had christened me with the family code name "cupcake" so we decided to go in. In lieu of a coffee, I had the "pick-me-up", a chocolate cupcake with espresso icing and a chocolate-covered espresso bean on top. Alec had the "peanut butter blossom", a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter icing. The were both awesome! Well, I guess they both were. It's not like Alec shared or anything. There was a photo shoot going on in the store, supervised by the owner, Penny, so we were able to chat with her for a few minutes. She was super nice, and her store is super cute. If you're in DC, you should go. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

After that, it was back to the house for "taco night." After dinner, we headed over to visit with Grandma A. for a bit and then went to another Macy's to try to get K's gift again. They still didn't have exactly what I wanted to get, but I found a good 2nd choice. (Sorry, K, I really wanted to get y'all the cream & sugar set and the butter dish, but neither store had the right color!) Then, it was back to the house & early to bed for me, as I was not feeling well and I didn't want to put a damper on the next day!

Coming Up Next: The National Museum of the American Indian, more quality time with M.K. and E. and a trip to Alec's favorite restaurant . . .