Veterans' Day

On my first Veterans' Day as a federal employee (meaning this is the first time I had the day off of work) and, coincidentally, the first Veterans' Day since my father (a Vietnam Veteran) died, I attended the Veterans' Day Observance at the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Wall in DC. It was a moving enough experience to walk the length of the mall on Veterans' Day, and the ceremony itself was touching, respectful, and inspiring.

Scottish Rite of Freemasonry meets Geocaching!

On November 1st, I attended a geocaching meet and greet event at the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry "House of the Temple" in DC. It is a gorgeous building, including the bathrooms--I highly recommend it to anyone who has time and is in the area. In addition to meeting more geocachers and touring the building, there was a lecture on the codes and ciphers of freemasonry by Dr. Brent Morris (his credentials are listed here: http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/brentmorrisfr.html). It was a fun and informative morning, on another beautiful day in the metro area.

Yes we did.

Family Visit

The weekend after our Atlanta trip, Ken's family came to visit us. His brother and sister-in-law had not been to the area before, and so we had the full range of tourist potential available. We went on the Tourmobile, which mainly served to remind me of all the things that we have not yet done in the district, even after living here for over a year. We stopped at Union Station for lunch, and just as our meals were being served to us, we were evacuated!


We spent more time in Old Town Alexandria than in the district. We walked down to the waterfront and saw some of the regular entertainment, most notably the musical goblet guy and the parrot people (these are not their official names). Ken's mom agreed to having her picture taken with a bird on her shoulder.

We took the trolley from the Potomac to the King Street metro station then walked up to the George Washington Masonic Memorial. Ken and I went there with my parents last winter, but there is so much to see and read that I wanted to do it again. Plus, the day was beautiful, and so the view from the top was a consolation for not going up in the Washington Monument (standing in line early in the morning did not rise to the top of anyone's must do in DC list). Also in Old Town, we toured Gadsby Tavern and had lunch there, and went on the Ghost and Graveyard Tour.


But being a tourist is really tiring, and so we also spent some nights in playing Wii. Fun for the whole family!

Atlanta

In early October, we traveled to Atlanta to visit friends who have recently relocated there. Ken has been to Atlanta before (in fact, it was at an Atlanta APS meeting that Ken first encountered these people who would become his coworkers and, later, our friends), but it was my first time there outside of the airport.

We did some touristy things, but we anticipate being back a few times, and so we didn't knock ourselves out trying to see everything possible. We took the MARTA downtown and saw that many skyscrapers still have broken windows from the tornado on March 14, 2008 (coincidentally, our 5th anniversary). We walked around Centennial Olympic Park, and we went to the Georgia Aquarium, which turned out to be really cool (I was skeptical).

Ken took many pictures of the Atlanta skyline from every place we went (downtown, midtown, GA Tech, Piedmont Dog Park, Jimmy Carter Library and Museum...) but this one at dusk in Piedmont Park is my favorite.

We also went to a great pub in Decatur, The Brick Store Pub. Their Oktoberfest celebration was in full swing, and so we were lucky to get a table (even luckier that it was in a corner of the upstairs where the music was not as loud and the patrons were not stomping on the floor and pounding on the tables like their downstairs counterparts). There were people in lederhosen and beer wench dresses, and I don't think that many of them were the pub staff. There was also a crowd of people getting "warmed up" before a 5k race.