Stephanie's Adventures in Running & Travel: September 2011

I know I know... I've been a very bad blogger. It was such a crazy summer that I didn't get much blogging done at all. I had a fabulous time on my "mother/daughter" cruise and then it was full speed ahead into regular life again.

The next traveling adventure that we had this summer was our long awaited trip to New York City and Washington D.C. My bestie, Debs and I had this planned for quite awhile. With our plans for NYC and DC, I asked my best friend Cindy if her and her husband would finally like to come to our lake place in the Adirondacks. This was something we've been wanting to do for years, but just never happened. Cindy and Paul decided it would work great... so the planning included 5 days at the lake followed by 5 days in my favorite US city, followed by 5 days in Washington D.C. It would become the "Natural Disaster Tour 2011."

We had a great time up at the lake with Cindy and Paul. It was really fun spending some vacation time with my BFF. We drank and ate way too much. Mostly I was excited to get to my city and spend some time with all my buddies. This was Paul's first trip to NYC. I think he ended up having a good time. We went to Mamma Mia on Broadway. The boys have been wanting to go to this play, so we arranged it. Cindy and I have seen Mamma Mia every trip to NYC. It's such a great show. We also took the boys on a bike tour around the Upper West and East side... through Harlem and Columbia University. We also met up with some cruising pals this trip. Judy and Michael from Connecticut took the train down and spent 2 days with all of us. It was a blast. We went to some great restaurants and had a fantastic time. I hated to see our city time come to an end. But it was time to say goodbye to Cindy and Paul. It was time for Dan and I and Debbie and Rich to head off to Washington D.C.

I had never taken the train within the US before. After this trip, I know why! OMG! We decided long into the planning of this trip that we would take Amtrak from NY Penn Station to D.C.'s Union Station. It would be fun! It would be different! It would be better than flying! Yeah, right. We were choo-choo'ing along just outside of Philadelphia when the train came to a stop and there we sat for a good hour. We learned there was an earthquake right outside of Washington and they had to inspect the whole track leading into D.C. YAY! It took us 6 hours to reach D.C. While waiting on the train for hours and hours, we were also following the hurricane coming our way from the Gulf.

We finally arrived D.C. with our besties and hurried off to check into our hotel and hit the ground running. I had written to my congressman months and months ago and had secured us all a visit to the White House, the Capitol and the Treasury. All and all it the tours were pretty lame. I don't know... maybe I've seen so many places now that I have a bit higher expectation of things. There were a few aspects of the white house that were interesting and thank god it wasn't standing in line for hours and hours like I had read about, or it certainly wouldn't have been worth it. One really cool thing about our visit to D.C. this year was the Martin Luther King Jr. monument that had just opened the day we arrived. It was incredible and I'm so glad we got to see it. Because... we probably won't be heading back to D.C. any time soon. Since Dan and I had been, it was pretty much all repeats for us. Something that I didn't think would be a big deal but ended up being kind of boring. THANK GOD we were with our besties! I don't think they'll be heading back there any time soon either. Don't get me wrong. I think everyone should go once. Preferably at Cherry Blossom time. That is the time I was there before and it's incredible. But it's kind of one of those places that if you've been, there really isn't anything new to see or do. Well... about 3 days into our time in D.C., Hurrican Irene decides to hit. NYC is expected to take a real beating and we are supposed to take Amtrak back to NYC for our flight home. Something I was really not looking forward to. Well... flights were canceled... trains were canceled and NYC shut down all the subway systems. It didn't look good for our return. SO... after many phone calls we got our flights home changed. We really did have a great time in D.C. We never lost power or anything and we only had one bad day that we couldn't really do too much. It truly was a great couple weeks away with friends. But Dan and I both agreed that 2 weeks was too long to spend touring our own country. Sounds horrible... but that's how we felt about it.