GalesAZ: March 2016

Felt long overdue - but we made it back east to visit Kerry and Luis. Very fun throughout.

Awaiting lunch at the DC market.

Some things that happened:

Friday, March 11 - travel day; our typical smooth passage; K&L pick us up at the airport. PJr happens to be in town for some bond lawyers' conference; we meet him at their apartment and head out for a little house-hunting with the betrothed couple. This was fun - the housing situation in the Virginia neighborhoods differs quite a bit from what we see in Phoenix, to put it mildly. Houses of course are much older; a great deal of similarity in core properties in these neighborhoods, with variance introduced by subsequent "additions". We enjoyed seeing this. Later: short walk to a SW restaurant near the apartment; Richard Frank joined. Back to apartment for nightcapping.

Taste-testing at DC Brau.

More testing (DC Brau).

Saturday, March 12 - a very fun marathon. Our group of six (K&L, Christina, PJr, PJ, me) travel to some downtown market via Uber - fun to browse, nice spot for lunch. Onto a quite-fine local brewery - DC Brau - meet up with a few folks there. Fun chatting and sipping, they are doing good work. Onto another bar - this one German-themed - meet up with additional folks. We are consistently impressed with the really high-quality folks K&L are friends with - and that so many of those folks made an effort to come out and meet us even though it involves giving up a big chunk of their weekend - such a nice group. Steve & Carrie Jackshaw! We are at the German place for quite a long while, chatting and sipping and enjoying a wonderful afternoon; then we test a few possibilities for dinner and end up late at an Italian place. Fun day.

DC Brau, scene 3

Sunday, March 13 - K&L travel downtown with PJr and me to the National Gallery - always a treat - featuring Greek/classical era, lucky us as this sort of thing is unfailingly interesting. Then it's time for L, PJr and me to track down some Peruvian chicken and discuss current campaign events while doing so (at the level of "they took our jobs" a la South Park alien episode); shortly thereafter PJr heads to the (Baltimore!) airport for his return flight. In the evening, we travel out to visit Pedro and Maga - who happened to be hosting the Naples next-gen crew (Gustavo, Gonzalo, Gabriela) that we had enjoyed meeting back in November. Pedro and Maga are wonderful hosts, it was great to see them again after too-many years (last time was this trip, I believe). They also remembered our upcoming birthdays - cake and singing! A lovely evening.

"German" bar, scene 1 . . .

German bar, scene 2

Celebrating # 60 with Pedro, Maga and family . . . nice!

Monday, March 14 - L to work; K takes us to the French breakfast-place down the street; then we travel out into the Virginia countryside - this was quite excellent, and also brand-new territory for us. Did a tasting at some winery; then lunch at The Red Fox Inn (est'd 1728, they claim) in the lovely little town of Middleburg . Beautiful place, really good food - K and I split the Virginia peanut soup, as should be done here; yum throughout. And then K bought me a Red Fox Inn polo shirt (it being birthday #60), I like it quite a lot. Great outing, we would enjoy seeing more of this part of the world.

Birthday boy with K at winery.

Back to the apartment; K&L have thoughtful suggestions for my birthday dinner, and we make a rez. But there are intervening circumstances as the five of us (K, L, Christina, PJ, me) while away the late afternoon into the early and not-so-early evening: Five Crowns games (complete with our introducer, Christina); a pretty amazing charcuterie board (all my favorites); some pretty wonderful beer selections; and excellent wine hauled back for us by K&L all the way from Italy. Not surprisingly, my birthday afternoon/evening was flying by rapidly in a remarkably pleasant fashion; I eventually (though reluctantly) requested that we cancel our dinner reservation because I didn't want to break up the apartment fun; so later on we had a bite at a local place. Birthday #60 was a great one!

Birthday boy with K at Red Fox Inn.

Tuesday, March 15 - sad to say, this was our last day. K takes us downtown; we decide to visit the US Botanic Garden - very near the Capitol; something not previously visited; should be on the list. The place was featuring orchids - which was interesting indeed - but we enjoyed the whole site. Took a photo near the under-construction Capitol building; then K surprised us with a trip to Cafe Belga in DC (pleasant memories from our last trip). Interesting beer flight, quite-wonderful mussels; L carved out work time to join us. (Not to mention that K carved out a bunch of time for us throughout.)

The nicest b-day celebration - at Arlington apartment with our hosts -

And then it pretty much was time to head to the airport - sad to be saying our goodbyes. Though at least we knew we would be getting together very quickly in Arizona.