Washington, DC trip report - part I

Jon and I had a rare long weekend away this past week as part of Christmas to us from my parents.  They kept Ella for us, and we took off up to Washington DC.

After dropping off Ella and taking the dogs to puppy camp, we hit the road late Wednesday morning.  We had our usual road-trip stop at Cracker Barrel, and picked up an audio book on Billy the Kid, which turned out to be a dud.  The rest of the drive up was uneventful, aside from going around in a few circles once we got into DC proper, which is pretty much standard operating procedure.  Our home base for the next few nights was to be The Fairfax at Embassy Row -- we used our Starwood Points to book it, and on the whole, it was super-nice.  (We did have some ongoing hot water issues, which were kind of a pain, but no major complaints other than that.)

After we got checked in and dumped our stuff in the room, the first stop for us was a Washington Capitals game, and they just happened to be playing the Hurricanes that night (yes, we planned the trip around the game).  We had originally planned to grab dinner before the game, but we ran short on time, and wound up going straight to the Verizon Center.  We knew which stop we needed off the Metro, but weren't sure where to go after that -- luckily, there were plenty of Caps fans heading the same way we were, so we just followed them.

Our seats were AMAZING -- 3rd row, right behind the goal where the Caps were shooting twice.  

The game was tons of fun, despite being two of the very, very few 'Canes fans in the building (which was sold out -- the Jumbotron told us it was their 48th sell-out in a row!).   No one harassed us for wearing our enemy jerseys -- except for Slapshot, the Caps mascot.  He came all the way down to where we were sitting, pointed at our jerseys, then at his, then shook his head at us. Ha!

Much to the surprise of both Jon and myself, the Canes gave Washington a run for their money.  Given the season that both teams are having (them: fantastic; us: not so much), we really hadn't expected a whole lot, but the game actually wound up going to overtime, which was completely nerve-wracking.   The Caps won in the end, though.

After the game, we headed over to Matchbox, where we had originally planned to go before the game.  We had some delicious mini-burgers (part of our whirlwind cheeseburger tour of DC...more on that later), and split one of their wood-fired pizzas.  Yuuuuuum.

On the way back to the hotel, while we were waiting for the Metro,  Jon poked me, nodded towards a group of very well-dressed gentlemen, and said, "Don't look now, but I think that's Ron Paul over there."  I took a glance, but wasn't really able to tell.  Once the train arrived, the man in question wound up on the same car with us, and sure enough -- it was Ron Paul!  He was chatting with another passenger about the hockey game.  Kind of neat.

A great start to our trip!