Lessee.

I didn’t get the DC stories written down fast enough; the whole weekend is starting to blur together already and I feel like I should have gotten at least two or three more decent blog posts out of it before that happened.  All told, it went exceptionally well; the last time I went to DC I got home ready to 1) never talk to anyone on the trip ever again and 2) quit teaching as soon as humanly possible; this trip was easily the best one I’ve ever taken.  Any of the snafus or setbacks that happened weren’t due to the kids and got resolved easily (worst problem: we rear-ended another car while merging from a highway, one of those “technically the driver’s fault, but everyone blames the dude who slammed on his brakes” types of situations) and two of the stops weren’t what I wanted from them.  I’ve already posted about the fiasco that was Ford’s Theatre; the other was the National Zoo, which does not appear to actually contain or feature any animals.  We were there for an hour and a half; most of my kids did not see any animal more exotic than a squirrel.  I think they have a giant elephant ass on a stick that they move back and forth from the inside pen to the outside pen periodically to fool people into thinking there’s an elephant; the entire rest of the zoo is an elaborate piece of performance art.

Other than that? The Jefferson Memorial at 7:00 in the morning when you’re the only people there is awesome.  The Iwo Jima memorial at 5:00 in the morning, likewise.  I got to see the FDR memorial in daylight for the first time.  We managed to accidentally find some parts of Mount Vernon I’d never seen before, including a place to take a cart ride behind some huge draft horses that was more fun than it had any right to be.  It was a good trip.

Since I got home, I’ve mostly been laying on the couch and moaning.  I have to get some work done today and tomorrow (and I have to go to OtherJob in…damn, an hour and a half, and it’s nice outside so we’re going to be busy) so tomorrow is either going to be hella productive and end with me feeling good about the world or be a nightmare of stress and kvetching and Sundaying.  Who knows?  We can all look forward to it.