Friday - I went to pick him up from the bus stop Friday night around 10:45pm. I got there just as his bus pulled in, and we tracked each other down and greeted each other. We then drove back to my apartment. Craig was amazed by the size of the apartment and especially the fact that he had his own room with his own bathroom. He also liked the kitchen size and the fact that I had an oven. Ha! Since it was already late, we decided to just chill and watch a movie. While Craig unpacked his bags, he gave me a birthday present. When I opened it, it was the first two seasons of One Tree Hill (OTH). I was shocked by the gift because we really haven't gotten each other a gift for each other's birthdays in years (we typically just take the other person out for food...which is our favorite thing anyway). So that was super cool. He had wrapped the DVDs with paper from his workplace, and he drew a bowtie on it. :)
Saturday - Saturday morning we woke up at about 9am and got ready for the day. We first hit up the Fashion Center at Pentagon City (which is typically referred to as the Pentagon City Mall). There, we decided to eat "breakfast." I put that in quotes because what we ate could've easily been dinner. We both had these huge steak sandwiches. After eating that, I thought I wouldn't eat until nighttime.
We then checked out some places in the mall, mainly the Apple store for Craig's benefit. After browsing for a bit, we went back to my apartment where I went down to the main office to get my gift from Katie and her family. Her parents bought me a very cool, casual Fossil watch, and Katie and the sibs bought me a very clean, elegant Fossil watch. That was sweet of them since the burglars jacked all my watches several weeks ago. So I was touched by that. From there, we took the car and drove to Alexandria. I sort of got lost and didn't really have any place in particular to take him. We *did*, however, decide to go to T.C. Williams High School. I posted a blog on going to the Titans football field, but now I got to go with Craig and Craig's massive camera equipment. Man, he hauled all his camera equipment around the entire time there, and it was cool to watch him in photographer action. We walked on the field, and he took lots of pics. One of those pics is shown below.
After driving around a bit more, we got back to my apartment. We were planning on going to Ted Kennedy's burial which was set for 4-5pm. So before we did, we both wanted to eat. Ha! I didn't think that after the kind of breakfast we ate that we'd be wanting to eat again in less than 3 hours. Sure enough we did. This time we went to Baja Fresh where Craig had a monster burrito, and I had mahi mahi fish tacos. After eating, we went back to the apartment to figure out what to do in the mean time before Kennedy's burial. We ended up both having major food coma, and we didn't want to move. So we popped in some OTH, Craig edited some pics, and we just lounged.
Around 3:15 or so, we decided to get to Arlington Cemetery. We took the Metro there, and on the way there I dropped my watches off to get some links removed. I got totally ripped off, too. I don't want to talk or even write about it. When we got to Arlington Cemetery, we saw a lot of TV News vans prepping for their live feed of the motorcade. We also saw these three crazy protestors who were claiming the name of Jesus, but they were saying things like "Kennedy's in Hell" and "God hates gays" and stuff like that. That really irked me to the core. When people were fighting with them, these "Christians" would cuss and stuff, too. One calm, Christian guy from the crowd went to one of them and basically schooled him on the gospel.
Anyway, Craig and I walked up and down Memorial Bridge. It was scorching hot, too. We tried to find shade as much as possible. At one point, Craig was awestruck. He saw a photographer with this enormous lens (which I thought was a telescope it was so big) that Craig said was worth about $12,000. Eek!! Anyway, as we kept walking back-and-forth (and the crowd wasn't even gathered too much by that point), we overheard someone saying that the body probably wouldn't get there until about 7pm. It was only about 4pm by this time. So we debated and debated whether to stay or go. We were both hungry again, too. Ha-ha! We were craving Five Guys burgers. After much back-and-forth and hearing different people's stories as to when the motorcade would show up, we decided to hang in there. 4pm slowly became 5pm. We had to open Craig's umbrella to get some shade since it was so hot. 5pm slowly became 6pm. We found a new spot to stand, and by now the crowd was huge but scattered everywhere. We also started to mingle with the old couple next to us. They enjoyed yapping with us. Between 6 and 7 we kept hearing different stories again. Some people said the body landed in Andrews Air Force Base, others said that he was already at the Capitol Building. We were getting antsy and fed up. Originally we had decided to leave by 5:30 if nothing happened. Then we pushed it to 6pm. Then 6:30. Then we just said, "Forget it. We've invested all this time already. We're seeing it through."
Dad kept texting me, giving me updates as to what was really happening as he watched the news from back home. Finally, the first wave of police cars went through. Craig decided to cross the street to get a better shot, and I stayed back. Craig encountered some punk guy who was giving him a hard time about how Craig shoots with his camera. Craig was not happy with him, and eventually the dumb guy left. The old couple we were bonding with ended up crossing the street, too, and they kept Craig company as they all 3 chatted away. After many MANY more minutes, around 7:30pm the cops stopped all traffic and the motorcade was seen in the distance over the bridge near Lincoln Memorial.
As the cavalry came by, they were driving really slowly. We then saw the hearse that Kennedy's coffin was in. We could see the coffin in the back with the U.S. flag draped over it. I took pics with my iPhone, and Craig took lots of pics with his camera. Following the hearse were several SUVs and limos. One SUV had John Kerry in it. He was literally about 10 feet from me. His window was down all the way as he was waving to the public. It was weird to see Kerry that close.
After all the vehicles had left, Craig crossed the street back to my side, and we both looked at each other and said, "Five Guys?" So we booked it to the Metro where there were a billion people there. Luckily we caught the first train back to Pentagon City. I first picked up my watches. Then we quickly went outside to Best Buy. Craig ended up also buying me season 3 of OTH, and I bought season 4 and 5. Ha! Craig needed to use the bathroom at Best Buy, and I said, "I don't think they have them here." Craig saw a sign and said, "Ah yes! Banos [the Spanish word for bathrooms]." As soon as he said that, a black guy that worked there goes, "Banos? Si, es alli [Bathrooms? Yes, it's over there]." LOL! He thought Craig was Mexican. We were thirsty and starving by this point, and of course, it took forever to checkout of Best Buy. There were only two people in front of us, but they took forever to purchase their item. Craig yells, "I'm sweating!" with his high-pitched voice, and the lady in front of us started to crack up. :) Anyway, after that we FINALLY got to drive to Five Guys. We had only been craving it for 5 hours by this point. We grabbed our food and started to drive back. On the drive back we ended up laughing harder than I could remember. I mean my stomach and throat were hurting so bad after it because for several minutes straight, we were both laughing incredibly hard. Craig had tears coming down his face. I guess you'd have to be there and also know how Craig and I laugh at the exact same things and have the same sense of humor, but it all started when my car started to flash "Trunk Ajar." Craig had put his camera equipment in the trunk, but it did not close all the way. So as I was driving on the highway, I kept telling Craig to get out at the next red light and shut it quickly. As I was driving, we must've hit about 30 traffic lights, and all of them were GREEN. Every time we saw a red light in the distance, as we approached it, it would turn green. Also at that point, two cars almost hit us and as I swerved them both, we both gave these long, girlish screams. ALSO, we drove past this black neighborhood where some cops were arresting people, and Craig was like, "Drug bust!" So all of those things at the same time meshed into hysteria.
When we got home, we scarved down our food, and eventually called it a night.
Sunday - Sunday morning we got up at 8am per Craig's request. He wanted to get to the cemetery early to take pics of Ted Kennedy's gravesite, and he also had never seen the eternal flame over JFK's site. So we spent several hours on Sunday at the cemetery. Craig took a ton of pics. We got to the Kennedy gravesites (Robert, John, and Ted). One guy had some massive camera equipment, and this cop drives practically in the middle of Ted Kennedy's site, parks all crooked, gets out, and yells at the guy for not having a Press Pass. The guy was like, "These are just my cameras. I'm not press." LOL!
Craig and I kept walking. We ended up checking out the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Craig videotaped a lot of it. It was great, but it was bloody hot! I almost passed out from heat exhaustion. Craig was drenched in sweat. Nasty hot day. Eventually we headed back. We took the Metro to the Pentagon where Craig and I walked around to the Pentagon Memorial. He took pics of the memorial along with the Pentagon. From there we went to Crystal City to...guess what...eat! We went to Potbelly Sandwiches and had a monster sandwich. It put us in a food coma again. We almost got ice cream at Cold Stone later, but I couldn't stomach it. Well, I might've been able to handle ice cream, but we wanted to get Red Velvet Cake. That would've just killed me right there.
After eating, we headed back to the apartment to relax and rest with a pit stop at the mall again to look at the Gap, Banana Republic, Apple store, and an Outdoors Sports store (much like REI). At the apartment, Craig took a nap, and I was laid out on the couch. My knees were killing me from all the walking. I think I hurt it the most back at the Pentagon when we were trying to catch the train. I had got through the gate with my Metro card. Craig attempted to follow, but there were insufficient funds on his card (he needed an extra buck or so). We saw that the train was arriving in 1 minute which was why we were bummed, because Craig had to go get more money on his card, and the next train would be in 10 minutes or so. So Craig went to get more money on his card, the train arrived, and I was like, "Okay, we can handle 10 more minutes." Just then, Craig is literally running and yelling, "Joe. Go, go!" He apparently got the money quickly, he got through the gate, and we both booked it down the escalators to try and catch the train that was just about to leave. We made it! We got in the train just as the doors were closing. But then I realized I hurt my knee. :(
Anyway, after resting for a while, it was about 4pm. I had to drop Craig off at the bus stop by 5pm. We decided to go downstairs...and eat! Of course. But we decided to eat light, since 1. We were still full from the Potbelly sandwiches, and 2. There was a cool looking Crepe restaurant that we wanted to check out. We went with the mentality to get some sweet crepes, but we both ended up ordering humungous steak and pork dinners. Ha-ha. So much food. Like I said, Craig and I like to eat. After eating, we got in my car, got lost for a minute and panicked for a second as we thought the worst was about to happen (that we wouldn't get Craig to the bus in time), but luckily we got ourselves back on track. I dropped him off, and that was that.
Unfortunately, the only pics of Craig and me on this adventure (from his camera) was the one pic of me shown earlier and a pic of Craig that I took as he was smiling, coming out of the bathroom. :) But Craig took some amazing pics that he will be posting here shortly.
Thank you for reading about my fun weekend with Craig. Now please go check out Craig's blog which will have some pics throughout the week.
http://rockstaradonis.blogspot.com/
Some pics from my iPhone
Ted Kennedy inside the hearse
John Kerry's SUV. He's waving. Craig's across the street not paying attention
JFK's Eternal Flame
Seems like you both had fun, full belly ,achy belly and humor to top it off.
ReplyDelete