• Family tradition: Attended Takoma Park Independence Day Parade with entire family, including a brother home from college and another brother visiting from out of state.
• Took metro to Union Station to meet visiting friend. He had been bumped from his flight the night before, but got a sweet settlement from the airline.
• Walked from station to look for other friends. Stood in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue yelling into cell phone trying to figure out where they were.
• Got searched (several times, actually) by dutiful police officers manning security checkpoints around the Mall.
• Availed ourselves of free free food from the rather large Hare Krishna encampment on the Mall. Listened to repetitive chanting for about 20 minutes. Worried mildly about possible sedatives in the lemonade.
• Visited the Silk Road-themed Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Were soon deterred by near 100 degree heat, so escaped to the (air conditioned!) Natural History Museum to look at Mammoths, Mastadons, and bugs.
• Went and got less holistic food at the Old Post Office Pavillion. I remembered this place from school field trips, but apparently no one else did, since it was nearly deserted. We had to go through a metal detector and have our bags x-rayed to get in.
• Hopped on Metro and, after some confusion over the bizarre holiday routing changes, took it to Arlington Cemetary. Then hiked a ways looking for the Iwo Jima memorial. (Turns out it's closer to the Roslyn stop.) Eventually found another friend, and decided to stay there to watch the fireworks. This picture is almost exactly the view we had. It's a pretty great place to watch from, although you don't get as much booming as you do right on the Mall.
• Followed throngs of people to Metro, and went our seperate ways to retrieve cars and luggage. Then met back up on the Maryland side of town and headed to the Route 1 IHOP. Returned home sometime after midnight.
That's it for now -- more later...
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