Back from our DC vacation. We went up there to visit with the wife’s cousin and some of her family there. Had a pretty good time there, although there wasn’t as much time to tour around DC itself as we might have wanted. Still got to see a few things.
Arrived at the hotel just north of DC (in Laurel) on Friday. First order of business was to find the nearest dog park. After being cooped up in their crates for 6 hours (with a couple of stops at rest areas to stretch a bit), we needed to get them out and running around. Thanks to Google, we managed to find one that was pretty close to where we were staying and spent some time hanging out there for a while letting the dogs run.
Then it was off to the Bay ‘n Surf down the road. Nice little place, good seafood although a little pricey. They do have what is probably the best crab cake ever though.
Next thing we had to do was find a Chinese restaurant that did Dim Sum. Owing to the sad state of Chinese food here in Charleston (a topic for another blog entry), this is something we look for whereever we go. Saturday we jumped on the Metro and went down to Lei Garden in DC’s Chinatown area (much smaller than I would have expected) where we found a passable dim sum that was pretty tasty, although somewhat pricey for dim sum. Their selection was also a little smaller than other places I’ve been to. Then we spent the day downtown checking out some of the National Mall. Sadly I forgot to grab the camera, so no pictures of our adventures. We hit the National Air & Space Museum (very cool and fun stuff to check out) and the National Museum of American History. On the way back to the Metro, the wife spotted a sign for the Hope Diamond exhibit over at the National Museum of Natural History which naturally she just had to go see.
The rest of the evening we spent hanging out with the wife’s cousin and family.
Sunday we were pretty pooped out from all of the walking the day before, so we didn’t do too much. Went to check out Tony Cheng’s Seafood Restaurant for dinner. Pretty good food, but again a little on the pricey side. The dishes are pretty large though, and we did end up getting 2 more meals out of it, so in that respect it comes in pretty resonably on the value scale. Then it was more hanging out with the wife’s cousin.
Monday, it was finally time to head back, so all our stuff and the dogs got stuffed back into the mini-van we rented and we hit the road.
With the price of gas these days, I’m surprised anybody can afford to do road trips at all. Our little sojourn up to the DC area and back was maybe around 1300 miles and ran up a gas tab of about $180. Ouch. Well, we still had a good time. Maybe we’ll head back one of these days and stay a little longer next time.
