(Yes, you Iowans, Missouri actually belongs to the Midwest and NOT the South, as you seem to believe and so often try to convince me.)
I spent a wonderful Christmas in Missouri with my family and the Doctor. I got a Dirt Devil and a Cuisinart Food Chopper. Am I being sent some sort of message here? Natasha the Kitty made out like a bandit with her new kitty tree, toys, and treats. Some other highlights were seeing Avatar (3D! I looked so top secret in my glasses!) and visiting the St. Louis Arch. Going to the Westward Expansion museum in the Arch was really like “Westward Expansion: The Behind the Scenes Real True Story” because I learned interesting facts throughout from my brother like: Native Americans actually learned to scalp heads from Europeans.
Then it was off to visit Doctor Dave’s new home in Maryland, which will be a longer story than the Missouri story only because it was new and intimidating and scary, plus I managed to visit three states and Washington D.C. AND ride a subway for the first time. My plane arrived in Virginia at about 12:30 am, an hour late. Dave had been waiting patiently at the airport, and proved this to me by “accidentally” missing an exit on the way back and giving me an unplanned tour of D.C. at about 1:30 am (I thought he was joking when he said, “Hey look, it’s the Washington Monument. I don’t think we should be driving by that.”). Actually it was kind of nice to drive by the White House without worrying about traffic, but it was less nice to make wrong turns into bad neighborhoods at this time of night. Anyway, we finally found our way and made it back to Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, where Dave is working (and staying until he moves into his apartment in a few weeks) around 3:00. The next day Dave went to work for a little while and I tagged along. Later in the day we took a long walk in Patuxent (the Center sits on a wildlife refuge) in the cold. We didn’t see many birds, but we did find where they keep their whoopers! Patuxent has been rearing whooping crane chicks since 1967. They have a year-round resident flock with breeding pairs and each year they send babies off to join migratory flocks. The crane area is closed off to the public, and while we couldn’t see them we could hear them very clearly—which was cool!
That night was New Year’s Eve so I took my first subway ride into D.C. where we met up with other Patuxent folks for dinner at a fancy restaurant near the White House. It was ExPeNsIvE. Good thing I’ve got me a sugar daddy now. I think it was the fanciest dinner I’ve ever been to except this one time when I was a little kid and I went with my cousin and her parents to a big meeting for my uncle’s work at the Lake of the Ozarks and we went to this banquet and they served lobster and I was like, “What the HELL is this?” Except I probably said heck because I was like 10. Then we hung out at a classy apartment belonging to a girl Dave works with until the ball dropped at midnight on tv (but I didn’t really celebrate then because I live on central time) and then we rode the subway back to Maryland. I was glad when the night was over because all the people and horn-honking and girls in their high-heeled boots and ridiculously expensive everythings were so overwhelming.
The next day we drove to Delaware to hang out with my dear Lisa and her friend. The drive across Chesapeake Bay was cool (that bridge is LONG) and beautiful because the sun was setting. Going birding in that area is definitely on our To-Do list. We stayed the night with Lisa and the next day we all tried to go for a hike at a state park but it was cold and windy and we were weenies and gave up. Also, we visited a Wawa and I saw a peregrine super close-up while going over a bridge. Then we drove back to Maryland.
On the 3rd we again took the subway into D.C. to see cool buildings and museums and stuff. It was so cold though, that once we got into the Museum of Natural History I demanded that we stay put until it was time to leave. That was fine though; you could spend days exploring there. Also, this day we finally remembered to bring the camera along for the first time during my visit. We took a few photos, but they are stuck on a camera in Maryland. So I pretty much have no proof of this trip. That night we had dinner with a couple who I know from Mizzou and Dave now knows because they are in Maryland. And then we got up really early the next morning to drive in the cold back to D.C. (I think D.C.? Actually, I don’t know. Somewhere.) to the airport and I flew back to Iowa where it turns out it was so cold that Maryland didn’t really seem all that cold.
The End.
He couldn't even stop working on it the next morning while he ate breakfast. I practically had to drag him out to the bus so we could go to school.
Unfortunately it didn't get finished before he left. I've worked on it a little, but just don't have quite the motivation he does, so it might just stay this way until I have to move out of my apartment in a few weeks.
