Bukkit Tour Day Ten: Welcome to the nations's capital

We had another leisurely start to the day on day ten. The girls got up about 11:15, we packed up the room, and got the Escape loaded up for our 12:00 check out time. When we finished loading up the car, we went back into downtown Philly because Laela had seen a breakfast/sandwich shop about four blocks away when we were out walking the night before. It is called the Corner Bakery Cafe'. Laela had a salad, I had eggs/bacon/toast, and Miranda ordered French toast that was an explosion of awesome. It was a mini cinnamon raisin loaf of bread that had been rolled in egg batter and pan fried. It was then sprinkled in powdered sugar and came with a cup of syrup and bacon. I was immediately jealous. Fortunately being the svelte young lady that Miranda is, she was unable to finish it and I was able to reap the benefits. (Truth be told, she shared it while she was eating it but that doesn't make for as good of a story does it?) We left the restaurant and proceeded to pass the giant clothespin sculpture above a subway station. We had walked past that sculpture on three separate occasions and each time there was a different crazy person standing under it screaming obscenities at no one in particular. Gotta love the big city!

Miranda has been reading quite a lot while we've been travelling and had exhausted her supply of books so we needed to swing by Borders to replenish her stock. I made a quick phone call to the place where my motorcycle came from to see if the oil leak was fixed. They said it was still on the lift. Hopefully it'll be finished by the time I get back. After that we made our way back to the car and got on the road to Washington, DC. The GPS said it'd be about a 2 hour and 50 minute drive, but there was an awful accident on the interstate which ended up adding an our to our trip. We finally made it to DC a little after 5:00. We got up to the room and settled in. We're staying at The Churchill Hotel. After settling in we drove down to the national mall to have a look at the sites. We took in the Washington Monument, the World War II memorial, the Reflecting Pool, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Vietnam Memorial.

I was kind of disappointed in the upkeep of the area. The grass looks awful, there are footpaths worn into the sides of the Reflecting Pool, and duck poop EVERYWHERE. The monuments themselves are all massive and do a really good job of making you as an individual feel very small. I think I'd like to go back and re-visit the Vietnam memorial today because I'd like to see it in the daylight. It was tough to see after the sun went down even with the soft lighting.

After we'd finished site seeing, we went out to dinner at an Italian joint called Bertucci's. It was really good food, but I think they were pissed to see us walk in at 9:30. We didn't realize they closed at 10:00. I had a fantastic calzone with pepperoni, onions and sun-dried tomatoes. Got back to the hotel at almost 11:00, got caught up on things and went to bed. We're going to try to organize things a little better today and are going to give public transportation a shot because driving in DC sucks.