The Final Episode

This is my last installment of our trip to "Merry"land last month. I saved the best for last.

Seriously.

I'll start by telling you that we began making plans for the 4th last year. It was decided that since our friends were moving to Maryland, which is a short drive to D.C., then the 4th of July should obviously be spent at our nation's capitol.

Obviously.

We discussed a few times over the course of the year that:

A) Yes. We will be coming for a visit over the 4th of July.
B) Yes. We will be going to D.C. to watch the fireworks.

Please don't bother to take the time to share your words of wisdom in planning such an event. First of all, we read about all sorts of wisdom in preparation and second of all....it's a little late, don'tcha think?

The day started innocently enough and there were even moments of clarity where certain adults wondered whether it be wise to venture into the downtown area since there might be STORMS later on that day.

Down with the naysayers.

We filled up on good food and waited to depart. Basically we had a 30 minute drive to the nearest metro station and a 30 minute ride on the metro.

The metro was basically empty and really filled us with some unrealistic optimism. The emptiness really didn't do a good job of preparing us for what was coming. As you view the following pictures, imagine some sweet little doe-eyed calves right before they are ushered into a large pen of smelly, stinky, angry, Americans cows.

Please notice the matching earrings and bracelet. My girls made those for all the ladies on the trip ;)
What you have right here is a few portraits of "Blissful Ignorance".

The baby seems to have some sort of instinctive reservation. Can you see it?
O.K. The next couple of hours took place without opportunity for photographs. Oh, and how I wanted to photograph.

But I was busy. Very busy. Because just about the time we were making our way through the security tents the lightning struck, the thunder clapped, and I cried for my mommy.

I was the last one under the tent and since I was holding a small baby and had yet to get hold of my umbrella, I held my spot for a moment. I was trying to get hold of my umbrella so I could COVER MY BABY when people from under the tent started pushing.

Pushing me with my baby. They were saying that I needed to MOVE IT! GET OUT! MOVE OUT FROM UNDER THE TENT!

And I was all selfishly thinking about, ya know, MY BABY!!! I was just about to start in with the whole primal growling and clawing when I was gently reminded by Jesus and my common sense that it would be more wise to walk away.

Thoughts collected and umbrella in hand, I found my soggy clan and we made our way towards the mass of soggy people and we waited. Basically, we waited out the rain for about an hour and then made our pallets and took a deep breath. We got comfy, snacks were given out, trips to the porthole to death port-o-potty were made:


And we waited for this:

And then it was over. And all those people in the above photographs decided it was a good idea to "come together as a nation". Kinda like this:

Except we were not trying to be set free, but rather.....catch the metro. However, the urgency and stench had to be similar.

My baby and his instincts were right again:

I won't bore you with the details of how we were nearly trampled to death or how I rescued my foot from underneath a wheelchair or how the crazed lunatics die-hard patriotic folks insisted on firing off bottle rockets across Constitution Avenue, because some would argue at my dramatic retelling.

I also won't bore you with the unbelievable truth that the first metro train that pulled up looked like this:

And there were people actually clamoring to get ON. Seriously. Check out this video of some
folks in Japan. Our situation wasn't quite like this.

We didn't have metro employees helping us out.


So, I'll just leave you with a couple of photos of the D.C. Metro Station and some words of wisdom....
If you ever think it wise to visit Washington D.C. on July 4th, please come for a visit to my home. I will make you dinner, and we will chat for a bit, and then....I will shake you violently until you come to your senses.

With love of course.