Walk and Talk / Are we nearly there yet?

It's busy here. Busy and hot. Whilst there are downsides to this (my FEET!) there are positives too - it makes the people-watching fantastic. Lots of people, of course, look like they are working for the federal government and they are everywhere, milling about the train station and Capitol Hill and the parks and coming out of office buildings. Always they carry phones and computers and they have the little plastic ID passes hanging from their necks or belts. They talk to each other in the street or down their phones and it drives me crazy because I don't know what it is they are talking about! They are in the loop and all I have is 156 episodes of The West Wing to fill in the blanks. Gah.

Anyway, here is today in similarly positive/negative fashion.

GOOD THING: The Smithsonian Institute is just one of the best things ever. Mr Smithson was English, loaded and decided to leave all his money to the fledgling USA so they could have some culture, learning and whatnot. Then he died and his executors had to post 100,000 gold sovereigns to the federal government in a box. Alright, 11 boxes. We did the Natural History Museum which was fabulous and sucked up most of the day...

BAD THING: ...which left us just a sliver of time to dash around the National Gallery of Art and see almost nothing. We're going back tomorrow, dammit.

BAD THING: There is just so much to see here. We're going to end up skipping the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR Memorial, the Newseum, the Spy Museum and goodness knows what else.

GOOD THING: Well, it's an excuse to come back. And we HAVE to get back on the road!

We have two more days here in DC but already I'm thinking about it. It's funny but sometimes it is the days where we just drive that I like best. The boys are so good in the car and it's just wonderful to actually see the land and the cities as we pass through. Also, I can't deny that I am looking forward to going home. I always reach this point in a holiday - I like to go out and SEE STUFF, but I wouldn't enjoy it if I had to travel forever.

We're 1500 miles from home but after Williamsburg our stops will be brief, to the point and forced upon us by exhaustion so we shouldn't take too long to get back to Houston. In any case the advice is to put our foot down through Alabama. I can't remember who told us that, but I shall treasure it always.