DC Diary- Back to Hamburger Hill

So much for a hiatus!

This 'historic' blog entry marks our very first one from the nation's capital, Washington, DC, though we have blogged about this town and its suburb Bethesda, Md, many times over the years.

Even though I am now in DC for a second day, I will reflect on each preious day starting with yesterday, and our musings will continue on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

Yesterday, we left Roanoke, Va., at almost exaclty 11 a.m. to make the four-hour drive to The District.

We stopped for lunch at Mug Shots, a coffee shop in downtown Staunton, Va., which some Christmas albums, including one by Jim Nabors (is he dead or alive), we need to ask our Honduran intern Javiet to look that up; as soon as we find out, we'll let you know).

There were some cute college-age girls behing the counter who were clogging in the kitchen as we eating our chicken sandwiches.

We then stopped in lovely Front Royal, Va., which has a small baseball stadium named after another Christmas-song legend Bing Crosby, but we just had time to stop there for gas. But, from living near the area, I can assure you it is a charming place with lots of horse farms and antique shops, though I have to ask: "Did they really need an Applebees?"

We finally arrived in DC a little before 5:00 p.m. And, then we briefly argued over what to watch on tv before settling on some cooking reality show on tv. Personally, I would have even chosen reruns of "Sanford and Son" on TV Land, but that's just me!

The funny moment during the drive came when we were in Fairfax, Va., a DC suburb. I told my sister and her husband, Sven and Eva Thomasson, who both live in Goteborg, Sweden, (they like me to take radical steps to assure their privacy, these are not their real names or where they actually live) that I was glad we were not going to the Vietnam Memorial again this year.

The reason is not because I am an unpatriotic far-left extremist who has every cd that Rage Against the Machine ever put out (though my zip code is so far right that all Democrats are considered Maoists), but simply because we went last year so my mom could find one of her students from the '60s who went to William Byrd High School in Vinton, Va. Since this student of her's alas died during the Vietnam War, his name was on the wall.

It was a very moving, but also a very somber experience.

As it turns out, Sven's stepfather in Vermont is a war veteran and he wants us to find the names of his fallen buddies on the wall. But, at least, we're not going back to The Holocaust Museum.