The Changing of the Guard

Wednesday  we actually had a destination in mind rather than just driving and seeing where we ended up.  We planned on driving to Ocean City, MD, with a quick stop in Washington, DC.  Is there such thing as a quick stop in Washington?  We left the hotel a little later this morning because we would have a relatively short drive, only 230 miles and about 4 and a half hours, much of it on highways.  We were on the road by just after 10 and we drove for about a half hour before we made a quick stop to send a couple of post cards home.  We stopped in Markham, VA at the post office because it was really close to the highway.  We sent our postcards and we got back on the highway and headed east.  As we started getting closer to Washington we were getting hungry.  Unfortunately, there were far too many options.  Roadfood eateries were all over the place.  There were food trucks and even dozens of places from Chris’s TV Food Maps app (this app tells you nearby restaurants that have been featured on food shows such as Diners Drive-Ins, and Dives; No Reservation; Man Vs. Food; The Best Thing I Ever Ate; etc.).  We had too many choices so we went for something that sounded really great in Fairfax, VA called Chutzpah Deli.  Chutzpah is a New York deli just outside of Washington.  They have a 40 oz. rueben sandwich and they put pickles and cole slaw on each table.  Jackie got the rueben (not the 40 oz. version) and Chris got a special: 3 sliders, one pastrami, one roast beef and one corned beef, each on different types of bread.  We also got 2 black and white cookies.  This reminded us of a friend of ours whose father in law makes these in his bakery, but we’ve yet to try. (we’re talking to you Matt).

After lunch we walked across the street to a geocache (a virtual cache..no container, just a cool spot).  We found ourselves in a park which was at the site of the Battle of Ox Hill, which was a Civil War battle.  It was interesting to find this little tiny park right in the middle of strip malls and office buildings. 

We then drove to Arlington National Cemetery, where we ended up staying far longer than we had planned.  At first we had planned on just walking around and taking a self-guided tour.  But since we had never been there before, once we arrived we opted for a guided tour, given the enormity of the place.  The bus tour took us to a few of the more popular stops in the cemetery, including the Kennedy graves, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the Arlington House, which was once home to Robert E. Lee.  We got off the bus at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and we were fortunate to watch the changing of the guard.  The Tomb of the Unknown s has been guarded by a sentinel continuously since 1937.  Every hour on the hour the guard changes in an elaborate ceremony, which one can watch during visiting hours.  We both found the ceremony to be moving and powerful.  We both agreed that witnessing this had been the highlight of our day. 

We explored a little bit more of the cemetery. We were surprised to learn that only two US Presidents are buried there (Kennedy and Taft) and by about 4 PM we were on our way.  We still had one more thing to do in Washington before hitting the road.  We also had a 3+ hour drive ahead of us still, not counting the rush hour traffic that we would likely hit.  We then drove straight through Washington to the Hard Rock Café which is located downtown.  We only had to circle around one time before we found a place to park the beast on the street.  Jackie commented that driving in the city reminded her of driving in Manhattan, which she is not a fan of but Chris seems to thrive on.  While Jackie sat in the car which was mostly legally parked, Chris ran two blocks to the Hard Rock to collect our souvenir magnet/bottle opener.   Once leaving there we were a little hungry again so we decided to take a look at the TV Food app to see what was anything nearby that sounded good.  In the Capitol Hill section of town there was a Mexican/Salvadoran restaurant that sounded pretty good and had been featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives.  They had featured pupusas, which are a traditional Salvadoran dish made of thick, handmade corn tortilla filled with some kind of filling, usually cheese, beans, pork, or some combination of all.  In addition to the pupusas, we ordered chicharron con yucca (pork with yucca), a corn tamal, and horchata (a rice-milk kind of drink).  We have had pupusas many times before and we were not all that impressed with these, we summed it up to the fact that the TV show probably made this small eatery into a more popular place than they can handle, so we think they prepare these things in mass quantities in the morning then reheat them as they are ordered, rather than making them fresh each time they are ordered.  Despite the pupusas not being the best we ever had, they were still good and we left with full bellies and leftovers for later.

We then got on the highway and sat in traffic barely moving for about a half hour before the traffic finally cleared up and we got moving again.  We were heading east towards Ocean City, MD where we would be staying for the night.  The drive was fairly uneventful until we got to within an hour or so of Ocean City where it started raining.  This wasn’t a light rain, this was the type of rain you might build an ark for.  When we got into Ocean City it was raining so hard that the catch basins couldn’t keep up and the streets were flooded pretty good.  As we drove down the road we were pretty much creating a wake.  It was that bad.  We arrived at our hotel, given the fact that it was raining and obviously cloudy as a result, it had gotten darker a little bit earlier.  We had planned on exploring Ocean City a little bit but with all of that rain we weren’t going anywhere.  So we stayed in and went to bed early.