From This Year's DC Trip

Theskinnyonbenny family had one long, full day to be tourists in Washington D.C this summer. We did the normal wandering around of governmental buildings and monuments.

Vanya started the day tired and whiny. I would complain that it was hotter than hell, except that I'm posting this from Louisiana in August, where the devil himself won't visit a house that has the air conditioning turned off.

After we walked around for a while, we stopped at this little store to load up with cold drinks. Vanya did some little favor for the cashier, and the man gave him a big, fake hundred dollar bill. While we were sitting outside and drinking from our plastic bottles, Vanya went back in and did him some other nicety, and he came back with two more over-sized fake bills.

Ice cream sandwich in front of the Washington Monument.

From there, we started walking toward the White House, and as we got close, he started chirping, "I have some dollars for Washington!"

Being in the middle of a budget battle, I thought about how they would probably take play money from a five-year-old, but I didn't share. Five-year-olds aren't all that good an audience for political humor.

It turned out that he thought that George Washington was the first, and still the current President. I tried to explain about how he was around hundreds of years ago, and he's long since dead. Vanya was more interested in asking about death than he was about finding out about presidents, so we didn't get much further than that.

Later, we were passing near the Washington Monument, and V needed a restroom stop. I walked with him into a men's room full of people shuffling in and out to the urinals and stalls. When he was up, he walked to the short urinal and dropped his pants. Then, he pulled down his underwear. (It's so funny how little kids pee with their pants and drawers down around their knees.)

Ice cream sandwich in front of the Washington Monument.

But Vanya had a pair of pajama pants under his underwear. They surprised him as much as they did me, and he laughed and talked loudly about the pants he had on under his underwear.

Then, he pulled them down, and there was yet another pair of drawers. He laughed even louder and pointed it out to me, and in effect to all of the people trying to come and go through the bathroom.

I'm not sure how hot it must have been in D.C. in June, through the middle of the day, with one's shorts area covered by four layers of cotton. It's making my balls sweat just from thinking about it.

I've posted all of the good pictures from the D.C. part of the trip on this photo gallery.