A letter from Kris to his girlfriend about our trip

Dearest love of all—

I’m writing this letter to let you know all of the events that transpired on the ridiculous trip with John in July. All of the events depicted are true, and, of course, not many animals were harmed in the making of these memories. This trip took place beginning Monday, July 14, at 8pm, and concluded on Thursday, July 17, around midnight. The first thing you ought to know is why we took this trip. I do not know. John, being the restless and reckless adventurer that he is, decided that I needed to accompany him on a pointless trip to some part of the country. He had earlier tried to persuade me to go on a cruise to the Caribbean or a week-long visit to Peru, but I laughed these suggestions off. Instead, I suggested Vegas, but as John was getting the airline tickets, they went up in price. We ended up driving instead. Oh yeah—the point of this trip. I still haven’t figured that out. I think John was trying to avoid staying at his house and he wanted me to keep him company, but don’t tell him that.
So, we left for Washington D.C. from Atlanta on Monday night. We decided on D.C. because most of the attractions were free and because there was plenty to see. The choice of Monday night, though, was a little strange, since it is a 10 hour drive from Atlanta. The sad truth is that we were both too cheap to pay for another night’s lodging, so we thought that we could drive through the night and arrive Tuesday morning as the attractions were opening. All went according to plan, except that John drove too fast and we got there at 6:30, and most museums don’t open until 10am. We were able to kill some time by John’s inept driving, which took us through both Virginia and Maryland before we found a lady who cursed John for being a member of the Nazi party and a parking garage. By the time we reached our first destination, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, it was 8. We hadn’t eaten in a while, so we got some directions from a very bored security guard, who mumbled something about some building somewhere. So off we went, and after some searching, we found a cafeteria in the United States Department of Agriculture building. We had some omelets, which unfortunately did not contain vegetables, and then we played some stupid coin games that John remembered from middle school.
Dumps
Around 9 we walked back towards the museum, where we discovered a line had formed for receiving tickets to the main exhibition. We waited in line for our tickets and were inside by 10. But, sweetie, I just realized that this letter will be too long and tedious if I continue at this level of detail, so let me just tell you that after the museum, we took a nap on the grass of the National Mall before walking to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It wasn’t impressive, so we walked to the Washington Monument and the to the Air and Space Museum. It was cool because of all the cool space stuff, like the missions to the moon, and we also saw the very first piloted airplane by the Wright brothers. Oh, and the first plane to ever cross the Atlantic was there, too. After all that sightseeing and no sleep, we went back to find our hotel and eat some Burger King. We pretty much crashed in the early evening and woke in the middle of the night to watch Kill Bill Volume 1.
The next morning we woke late and ate some Wendy’s for breakfast. We were hoping to have a nice peaceful meal, but as we were eating outside of the Newseum, unruly guests about ten floors up began spitting near us. John found this event funny, but I was angry enough to spit a mouthful of snot into someone’s food, eyes, and face. After my Caesar salad soothed me some, we went off to the Capitol Building. Apparently they were giving away tickets for a guided tour, so we gladly procured some and got in line. The heat outside was extensive, so we were glad to get indoors. As we neared the entrance to the building, guides passed out headsets for us to wear during the tour. Somehow, John got the working one and I got the bad one, but they eventually got me a working unit. Inside we received a first-rate tour from a very nerdy woman who obviously appealed greatly to John. She offered a “special prize” to anyone who could stump her with questions about the Capitol, and John saw it as a challenge to do just that. However, after asking her a difficult and unnecessary question about the Congressional representation of D.C. residents for tax purposes, John relented in his questioning and just enjoyed her talk. I was pretty impressed with the big dome and the big paintings, but especially with the spot on the floor where the acoustics of the ceiling allowed a whisper on one side of the room to be heard in another. After the tour, we were told that if we had the right identification, we could get tickets to see the Senate and House of Representatives in session. Sadly I didn’t have my passport or driver’s license, because I didn’t want my pants to sag and draw needless attention to my sculpted butt, so we were not going to be able to go. Luckily, though, the nerdy tour guide gave both John and I tickets for foreigners (claiming he was Canadian) and we went! The Senate was boring because no one was there doing anything, but in the House of Reps we saw some people debating the use of the word “jihadists” by U.S. Intelligence services. This was temporarily interrupted by a special announcement: the President had sent a message to the House! All business ceased while the documents were brought in. Then they were placed off to the side, and business resumed as usual. We left the Capitol and did a whirlwind tour of the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court, and we then ate lunch at Union Station, where John was forced to remove his feet from a chair. From there we hurried on to see the National Archives, where I recalled that the Declaration of Independence was stowed. We were afraid the building might close before we got there, but we infiltrated a group of Hispanic kids and made our way inside. There we witnessed many cool things, but the best was my hero Nicholas Cage’s beloved Declaration and something called the Constitution. It was faded but cool. Oh, and John actually cared about some stupid paper called the Magna Carta, but I didn’t even waste my time looking at that crap. Finally we left there and walked to the White House, where we saw country star Kenny Chesney on his way to a party. We later made it to the distant Jefferson Memorial and watched the sun set before heading back to the car. John was suddenly talking about going to a Korean place, so we drove around looking for a WiFi hotspot to locate this place. We found the address and went back to eat at Outback and change clothes. I ordered this shrimp and scallops pasta dish, but got shrimp and chicken instead. I was too nice to tell the server she got it wrong, so I ate and tried to convince John that going to the Korean place was a stupid idea. He was fixed on it, though. So we went back to the hotel, changed clothes, and went on the stupidest trip ever. Thankfully we couldn’t find it, so we drove back and crashed.
Thursday was the final day of sightseeing for us. We got up a little late and drove straight to Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. It wasn’t that cool. The place was small, the guide was loud, and the information seemed suspect. We didn’t stay long. We were supposed to go to Williamsburg next, but ended up bypassing it for a few minutes to go to someplace called Yorktown. John was excited because it was apparently some important battle sight in some war, so I patiently watched the videos and listened the tour guides and endured the heat for his sake. Then we drove by the little beach they had before going back to Williamsburg. This was supposed to be the crown of our day, but it turned out to be lame because you had to pay $37 just to see the insides of the shops. I guess the whole town was preserved in the colonial fashion of the 1700s, so people dressed, ate, talked, and lived the way people did back then, but we couldn’t see all that there was because we didn’t buy those expensive tickets. So after an unguided tour and John being solicited by a lady there who thought we were the sons of some wealthy plantation owners, we began our return trip. It was a little annoying for me, because I went the wrong way on 95 for a while, and then I got stuck behind a cop for about 30 miles. But things started to improve once we went to Cracker Barrel and I had some cornbread. Then the rest of the trip went smooth as the butter they served at that all-white restaurant, and I was glad for its end.