Last Friday we packed up the van and headed south for what we thought would be a nice relaxing family vacation! The Doc had a conference and we decided to tag along. The drive down was brutal, hitting the Garden State Parkway during rush hour. Thanks to his older brothers, Evan learned a new phrase, and he would ask, over and over: "Mommy, when we go be there?" We got checked into our hotel (just outside of DC in Alexandria, VA) a little after 9pm, got the boys their jammies on and tucked into bed. It was late and we we needed to be up early to drive Daddy to the conference.
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| Ready for bed! |
Not even an hour after that picture was taken and the boys were sound asleep, and we were just about to call it a night ourselves, the lights flickered. It was quite a surprise and we weren't sure why. Then I heard it. The WIND! It was fierce. And a few minutes later it was lights out! We pulled up the radar and saw we were smack dab in the middle of a NASTY storm (the deep red color on the map!). Scary. Since we had no power all we could do was open the shades and watch the storm roll through and hope the power would come back on soon since it was starting to get a little warm in the room without the air conditioning.
Turns out the power didn't come back on in the morning, and thanks to smart phones we saw that not only was it a bad storm that rolled on in, but it came with 80+ mph winds and knocked out power all over parts of MD, DC and VA. We read that there were over 800,000 customers without service. We were not very hopeful that we'd be getting our power back on in the near future. The convention center had power so the conference was still on and we decided to wait it out in hopes that power would come back soon. I looked up the power company and began checking their website and Facebook page for updates.
Saturday June 30, 2012:
Strangely, the McDonald's across the street from our hotel had power, and it was the only place around with power so it was packed!! We headed over in hopes to get the boys some breakfast and the grown-ups some coffee! Unfortunately we couldn't wait in the massive line because we needed to drop Daddy off so we drove to the convention center and then went on a hunt for another open McDonald's. We found the nearest McDonald's to the convention center and no power there, so we drove a mile down the street and found one with power, but the same situation as the one by our hotel; a mob! It wasn't like there were a ton of options so we waited it out and thankfully there was a playplace at this one which made the long wait easy on the boys!
SIL had flown in to stay hang out with me and boys while Charlie was at the conference and so we made the game plan to drive to the Metro and head into DC to check out some museums. It was so hot, heat index was 100+, and so walking around the city was not going to be an option, but an air conditioned museum sounded great! So we got our Metro passes and hopped on the train heading towards the Smithsonian's.
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| Waiting for the Metro |
We got into the city and that is when we started to get a sense of just how bad the storm was. We saw trees down and everything was just a mess. There was supposed to be a big festival going on at the National Mall, but there were signs everywhere saying that it was cancelled for Saturday and then we saw why. Tents were down, fences were knocked over and there was debris from fallen trees and branches all over.
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| Storm damage at the National Mall |
I was starting to wonder if we were ever going to get power back. But we were in DC and we were going to make the best of it. I'm glad we opted to take the Metro because just trying to navigate around Alexandria without traffic lights was quite the adventure. We needed to get inside because we were already starting to melt in the short amount of time it took us to walk towards the Smithsonian's from the Metro stop. We decided to start with the Museum of Natural History, since I knew the boys would get a kick out of the animals, and dinosaurs.
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| Ready to see some exhibits! |
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| Evan saying hello to the penguin |
We spent a while walking around. They loved seeing all the bones and fish and they loved seeing all the cool rocks and gems. We ended up spending a few hours there and decided to grab some lunch and then head home for some down time before we had to pick up Daddy and figure out somewhere to eat dinner.
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| The boys with their bag of polished rocks from the Museum. |
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| Evan was tired, he didn't even last 2 minutes on the ride home before he fell asleep |
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| David really enjoyed the Metro! |
After we got back we realized we still didn't have any power, which meant no pool for the kids. I researched some dinner options on my phone and then we headed back to the convention center to pick up Charlie. With the power still out for a good part of the area, our challenge was going to be finding a place that was open and not packed. I found a highly rated Chinese food restaurant that was open and made reservations. The boys love Chinese and it was open! It was a little different than what we are used to back home and honestly I probably wouldn't go back if I ever found myself in that area again, it was just OK.
It was still too early to go back to a dark, stuffy hotel room so we drove around looking for a place to get a nice cold treat. We found a Rita's nearby. We used to have one down the street from our first house in Philly. The boys were just happy to get a cold treat! It really hit the spot as it was still saying 97 degrees on the van temperature gauge at 8pm. It was going to be a LONG night without any ventilation in our hotel room. And sure enough it was. I'm not even being dramatic when I say that Saturday night was the WORST night of my entire life. I was literally on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I grew up in a house without air conditioning, so I'm used to hot nights, but this was different. Not only was their no air conditioning, but there was no air period! It wasn't like we could turn on a fan to help keep the air moving in the room. The windows only opened about 4 inches, not that it mattered since there was no breeze anyway.
It was so stuffy and hot and I'm pretty sure I didn't get more than a couple hours of sleep. I know I tossed and turned a lot! Before calling it a night and trying to get some sleep, we had decided that if the power was still out on Sunday that we would either check into another hotel or just pack up and head home. We had called a few hotels near the convention center and found a Marriott that said they would have rooms available and to call back in the morning. I was glad to have a plan in place because there was NO WAY I was going to be able to survive another night in that stuffy hotel room. On the plus side the numbers of people without power had significantly decreased throughout the day and so I had high hopes that maybe we would get our power back at some point during the night.
Sunday July 1st, 2012:
Well we didn't get power back during the night but about 7:30 in the morning while we were getting dressed and ready to get Charlie to the conference I heard the air conditioner kick on. It was the best sound ever, and then it quickly went out again...but that was still a good sign! At the very least, they must be working on our area for the power to flicker back on like that. We headed down to the lobby so we could head across the street to the open McDonald's (still have no idea how that worked!) and I joked with the lady at the front desk that this had to be a good sign, and sure enough as soon as we walked out the door we saw the trucks driving up the street. Hooray! We were going to get our power back. It was nice to know that we weren't going to have to switch hotels or head home.
After a quick bit to eat we started heading over to the convention center when we got a text from SIL saying that the power was back on! That would also mean the pool would be running again and assuming nothing was wrong with the pool, we would be able to swim later on that afternoon. The internet was still down but at least our room was cool and comfortable. SIL and I decided to take a tour of our hotel since we'd been in the dark since we arrived and hadn't had a chance to see the pool. The front desk told us the pool should be ready by noon time so we decided to head out and grab some lunch, get the boys down for a much needed nap and then we would swim once they woke up.
Charlie had called me earlier that day to say that one of his former colleagues from Boston Medical was at the conference and had offered to give him a ride back to the hotel so SIL and I could take the boys swimming and not have to worry about leaving to get him. The pool was so awesome, the water temperature was perfect for being an outdoor pool. It wasn't too cold but it also didn't feel like bath water! It was nice. The boys loved the pool because it was shaped like a duck! We swam for a while and Charlie joined us about 4:30 for a quick swim before we all headed up to our rooms to get ready for dinner. We decided to head into DC because I had found a Bobby's Burger Palace and I LOVE Bobby Flay!
With the power back we were able to eat breakfast at the hotel. They had a great spread for complimentary breakfast. The boys of course, loved the waffles and I was just happy we didn't have to eat at McDonald's again! After we ate we headed back up to the room to come up with a game plan. It was still HOT, so we opted to find something indoor and fun, I found that the local mall had a little play place inside and so we thought it would be fun to take them there and maybe do a little shopping in the cool air conditioned mall. Well, I'm not going to lie, that malls play place was the lamest play place I had ever seen. What a huge disappointment. But the boys didn't seem to care and had fun regardless.
After that we headed back to our rooms for some downtime before we hit the pool again. This time I got a call from Charlie saying to pick him up early the convention center lost power and he wasn't interested in sitting in a hot hotel board room and after how we spent our first two nights, I didn't blame him. The boys were excited that Daddy would be back to hang out in the pool with them. We swam for a bit and then went to a local pizza/pasta place for dinner. It wasn't bad. The sauce was really good, but my eggplant left something to be desired. I should have stuck with pizza, which was delicious. One last stop at Rita's for another water ice, and it was back to our hotel for our last night. Have I mentioned that I love air conditioning?!
Tuesday July 3, 2012
Homeward bound! We got up and ate breakfast in the lobby, packed up all our stuff and headed home with a couple pit stops along the way. The first was to drop SIL off at the airport and the second was to visit our old stomping grounds, Philadelphia! We wanted to drive by our very first house, the house that David lived in for his first 2 years and Shaun his first week. We may have only lived there for 3 years, but we have a lot of memories in that house! What a nice surprise to drive by our old house and see the HUGE improvements! It looks beautiful! They added a beautiful molding on the roof and re-stuccoed the front green! The whole street looked so nice. And no stop in Philly would have been complete without a cheesesteak. Our favorite place was (sadly) closed for the holiday, so we headed to our second favorite place Tony Luke's! With our cheesesteaks in hand, it was time to hit the road in hopes to beat the traffic.
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| Our very first house! |
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| The Garden State rest stop, still a long way from home, but still smiling! |
