Tuesday, July 11, 1995
It was a dark and stormy night…no…REALLY! There had been lots of heat/real lightning the night before. It was neat to watch.
Tuesday morning, however, was hot and sticky. We decided to hit the pool.
The pool is shared by the residents of all four 14-story apartment complexes…but since it’s Noon on a Tuesday…it’s not too crowded.
I didn’t bring a bathing suit (since I didn’t think I’d be swimming) but a pair of shorts worked out just fine. We jumped in to cool off and then sat around watching the people. Life is tough.
Fergie and I then decided to actually do something, so we went up and changed (leaving Jim and Nick by the pool to make passes at women…which they did.) After FINALLY convincing a door-to-door magazine saleswoman to leave, we grabbed some Metro tickets (with a whopping $.05 on them) and left.
We drove in to the College Park station and parked there. I followed Fergie’s lead…assuming he did this all the time. I was wrong.
I had to show him the price chart and point out how much money we’d need to get where we were going. No problem…but I figured he’d at LEAST know which direction Washington, DC was… Nope.
In about 5 minutes, we were in a place called “Greenbelt”…at the end of the line. We waited a bit and were soon on our way TOWARDS Washington, DC.
We were getting REALLY hungry…so I knew a place where I ate when I came down to see my cousins a year before. Johnny Rockets in the Pentagon City Mall. So we rode there and had lunch.
Fergie was amazed at the size fo the four-story mall…I told him it was small for the area and that he should go see Tyson’s Corner Mall if he wanted to see a BIG mall. (It’s the biggest one on the east coast…and not too far from DC.)
We then headed into Washington to tour the sites…or whatever.
We got off at the Navy memorial…seemed like a good place since we had no idea where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do. After wandering a bit, we found ourselves going in the rear entrance to some Smithsonian museum. We didn’t give a damn what it was…as long as it was air conditioned.
It turned out to be Natural History (I think). There was an exhibit of a tomb that we walked though…but I can’t remember the name of the guy. 🙂 It was really interesting though.
We got pretty thirsty and decided to find someone selling drinks.
Everywhere we went, there seemed to be a severe lack of liquid. We eventually found ourselves walking into the Air and Space Museum (which isn’t close to Natural History at all…) Not even a drinking fountain! We walked in one door and out the other side…I bet that was the shortest Air and Space tour ever. 🙂
About a block south of Air and Space, we found a vendor…CLOSING! We ran and asked him if he’d sell us something. Not the type to pass down a sale, he agreed. I grabbed a lukewarm Crush…but he got me a cold one. Fergie got something equally tasty. It was worth the $1.
There was a Metro (Mentos?) stop about a block away. We walked while drinking cool refreshments.
Upon arriving back at the car, we found that the gates in the parking lot were down (they were up when we arrived). Apparently, during rush hour, you have to pay to leave. If we arrived before 3 or after 7, it would be free. Oh well.
We went back to the apartment to crash. Luckily it was air conditioned. For the life of me, I can’t remember what we did for dinner that night.
At about 8pm-ish, we drove to Baltimore. There’s an area (I can’t remember the name) with a lot of bars…down by the docks. No…it’s a nice area. 🙂 We wandered around while avoiding beggars. Then we found a nice rooftop bar where we could watch the harbor. Nick and I had a coke while Fergie and Jim had a “domestic brew”.
Shortly later, we wandered into a Blues bar. I didn’t like it. It was very smoky and there was only a hard bench to sit on. Fergie seemed to be having a good time while Nick wandered out.
After 15 minutes, we decided to go look for Nick. We found him down towards the dock.
We walked all the way out on the dock and sat at the end. On the other side, there were some high-school kids. One of them started climbing down a latter and throwing up his clothes. His friends started to shout, “HOW’S THE WATER?!” We were surprised that he went in the water. Then, as we could see his head pop above the level of the dock, a ferry boat went by. His friends shouted, “Look at him! He’s NAKED!” He started waving. There was laughter from the boat.
We decided we had seen everything and called it a night.