Scratchy goes to Washington

My eldest just got back from Washington with the school class. I’m jealous, as I never got a chance to do that when I was a kid. My wife didn't go as a kid, but went in her early adult life as a chaperone to her younger sister, but I never did.

We almost did a few years back… It was my kids’ spring break (a chance to get away from the snow) and our young family was thinking of something to do with the kids that would be fun and still educational. Like I said… we were a young family and decided to go to the Ashville, North Carolina area for furniture shopping to replace some of the hand me down furniture that we had. I still can remember the circa 1970’s Halloween colored floral print dining room chairs that my mom and dad gave us. Anyways… it was time for some of these things to be replaced. We decided that we were going to go to NC for a weekend and follow that up with five days in Washington exploring the monuments, museums and sights.

We were glad to get away from the Metro area as it was cold and snowy and we were looking forward to see something other then gray skies. We got to Ashville and it was sunny and warm. (Warm being in the low sixties) We had a great weekend in North Carolina shopping at all of their furniture stores and let me tell you there are a lot of them in that area. We eventually picked out a cherry dining room set (that we to this day still own). Sorry for the aside, but if you are looking for furniture you can save between 25 – 50% by going to Ashville. As long as you can wait to get the furniture made and then shipped, you will get a tremendous price break on the furniture. As the weekend progressed, we started to look at the weather for Washington area. We were getting worried as Washington and the whole Northeast was being pounded by a late season snowstorm. We hopped that it would pass away soon.

The snowstorm turned out to be a freakish blizzard and I was worried that the rest of the trip would be shot. We got into the car on the last day and headed towards the freeway. I turned on the radio to listen to the weather (it didn’t change… Washington was now under a blanket of white powdery snow just what we were trying to get away from). My wife asked me what we should do… I turned to her and said what about Florida! We are half way there and it’s not snowing in Florida. She looked at me in disbelief and said we didn’t pack any shorts or bathing suits an all we had was winter clothes. I told her it didn’t matter… we could always stop by a Wal-Mart and get shorts, bathing suits and sun tan lotion. She looked at me and said ok… let’s do it.

We spent the next day driving to Orlando as my wife worked the phone canceling reservations and making new ones. When we got to the Northern part of Georgia, it was turning greener and warmer. We spend the next five days at Disney and even saw a space shuttle launch. (That was the educational part of the vacation).

So, that’s the closest I got to Washington. I hear that the Marine Corp puts on a great marathon in Washington with the course going by most of the sites of the city. Maybe that’s what I’ll need to do.