Goodbye to G...

Yesterday we said our goodbyes to Gretchen, who headed home one day before us. But never fear, we got the animal print robe picture in before she left...and, bonus, we posed on the treadmill!

Also, the night before G left, we headed out with the rest of America, it seems, to watch The Dark Knight - somewhere at a mall in Virginia, for us. We got small drinks,

and actually all thought the movie was very good. Even, I will say, thought-provoking. As one Slate reviewer wrote, the screenwriter "does more nuanced thinking about the war on terror than we've seen from the Bush administration in seven years."

Yesterday after G left, Lo and I dragged ourselves out on the town for a few more sights. I've tried to keep the weather complaints to a minimum on the blog, because after all, I'm on vacation, how bad can it be? Let's just say, though...walking around = getting very sticky very quickly.

Nevertheless, we did a pretty complete Mall tour - a few more works of art at the National Gallery first. (I got really into trying to see Wayne Thiebaud's cake painting, but sadly it is not currently on display.) Then we headed down the mall for a quick break at the fountain in the sculpture garden,
and on to the National Museum of Natural History. Right next to the room with the Hope Diamond, Lo found a crystal ball and pretended to be Madame Trelawney, complete with the dire warnings to HP. The weird thing is actually what the flash did when I took the picture - it's really just a plain quartz orb, but look, magic...

Then I pretended to be a bug on the wall, and we heard a kid say to his parents that "this is the scariest museum I've ever been to!"

We eventually headed towards all the monuments and meandered through them all, WWII, Korean, Lincoln, and Vietnam.

view down the reflecting pool (above) from the spot where MLK spoke (below)

Reflection on the Vietnam memorial, dusk

Pretending to look cheery and non-sweaty in front of Mr. Lincoln (you can see his feet)

We had two great meals yesterday - brunch at The Tabard Inn, which was well worth the long wait. Best brunch I've had in a long time, right next door to our hotel (!), and recommended to me by a very nice woman I met on the train in from NYC. Excellent! Then, on the other end of the spectrum, Lo and I had dinner at a place called Moby Dick's House of Kabob. Sort of a hole in the wall, despite it's various locations and website, very authentic, and super delicious. We walked slowly home down M St., in the still-hot night, along the old brick sidewalks with dry lightning flashing in the dark skies above us. Last nights of vacation are always bittersweet.