If only there were a photo of me, freaking out as the Air & Space Museum security guard pretended to apprehend me for touching the moon rock on display, then I’d put it up here, but I would have only just barely gotten over the incident, more than 25 years later. The rock was meant to be touched, but I was six, and justifiably scared of people in uniforms saying “Gotcha!” Oh well. The entire Smithsonian, or at least the museums we went to, was my idea of a perfect vacation, and I relished every moment of wandering among the historic aircraft, watching in the IMAX theater, and of course, spending some quality time in every museum and memorial’s individual gift shop, a very important stop on the itinerary.
I’ve only been to D.C. a few times since then – once in 1991 for some weird youth leadership conference I still don’t believe I went to, avoid as I did all forms of student government in high school; once on the road trip, for a brief afternoon of traffic; and once or twice since Scott and Sarah lived in the area, after college. My strongest memories of those later trips are of heat and indistinguishable subway stations.
Earlier this month, Aimee and I made a brief stop in D.C. to catch a game at Nationals Park, and we serendipitously parked across the street from the one and only Ben’s Chili Bowl, pictured above, where I had a delicious Chili Half Smoke after the game. I hope we’ll be back there (Ben’s in particular and D.C. in general) again soon.
