On Wed, 05 Oct 2016 16:00:25 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 5 Oct 2016 14:12:56 -0400, Keyser Soze wrote:

On 10/5/16 1:50 PM, wrote:
On Fri, 30 Sep 2016 11:38:15 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

I had plans for this weekend that will take me
out of town.

If you are looking for a good and interesting restaurant between Dunkirk
and Ridge, I suggest Jerry's Place,

We were at Mama Lucia until pretty late and went straight to the
Hilton near Solomans. I thought about you when I drove through
Huntingtown tho. Maybe next time.

DC is still an interesting place. I fell back into the groove right
away. (AKA the crack of the ass)
It is funny that "aggressive driving" will get you arrested in SW
Florida but in DC it is just "driving". I was talking to some of the
reunionees and the comment was "if you leave 5 car lengths at 50 MPH,
3 cars will pull into the gap and another might just pass through at
high speed".
My wife wanted to walk through a "corn maze" but the closest I could
do was drive through a "government maze" around the capitol. Between
the one way streets, "no turn" intersections, construction and
security barriers it took 20 minutes to get from The Dubliner to South
Capitol street and you could walk it in 5. Then I ran into baseball
trafffic.Yikes.
We did get to see Chinatown ... twice. Judy asked where all the
Chinese people were.
Once I got across the bridge and got to Suitland Parkway it was smooth
sailing all the way to Southern Md.
The reunion was interesting. It was a pretty subdued crowd but it was
good seeing all of the guys. Harry would be impressed by the
credentials of the attendees and there was a good representation of
professionals. The guys who seemed the happiest were the ones who
dropped out of college tho. One guy was retired from the telephone
company, one was a plumbing contractor who was a millionaire, there
was the guy who wrote speeches for 4 presidents and me.
I am not a huge fan of the "capitol hill" Marriott. It takes a pretty
bad grasp of geography to say Florida Avenue is on capitol hill and we
were really looking at the switching yard north of Union station.
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/View%20from...Cap%20Hill.jpg
These boys do need to put a little more "fun" in their functions. I
may be working on that for next time. For the money we spent in DC I
could rent out a whole motel here on the beach and maybe another one
across the street on the bay side in case some folks want to drag a
boat.
My friends in Dunkirk are doing great and we had a good visit. I also
had a good time in Ridge with the family.
We wrapped it up at National Harbor. I recommend the Westin. We were
overlooking the harbor and the big Ferris wheel.
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/view%20from%20the%20Westin.jpg
You get a good look at DC from the top
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/DC%20from%2...ol%20Wheel.jpg




If we're going to a museum or a show of some kind on the weekend, I'll
drive into DC, but mostly to get there, I hop on the $4.00 Keller
commuter bus, aka the "Killer" bus.
If we're going to see the Nats, we'll drive up to the Metro stop and hop
the train...which lets us off a couple of blocks from the ballpark.

Chinatown, sadly, seems to be undergoing gentrification, which means the
inexpensive housing and low shop rents and family restaurants and
groceries are disappearing.

We talked about that while we were looking out the window at the
Marriott. We decided the right guy could revolutionize the grocery
delivery business if they would link insulated lockers in the condo
lobbies with a delivery service that responds to your phone.
You get the combo to the locker with your texted receipt and it could
hold cold or hot foods. Order what you want and the time you expect to
be home and it gets put in a locker that you open when you get home.

I read where the huge MGM hotel/casino complex is scheduled to open
later this year at National Harbor. I can't figure out the draw for the
hotel, though. It's hard to believe that casino customers will fill it,
and there's no easy transport to the other side of the river for access
to DC. Boat taxis? Gondolas? A magic walkway?

They do have a water taxi service right there but I am not sure all
the places it goes. I know you can get to Old Town.
http://gfretwell.com/ftp/water%20taxis.jpg
If they stopped somewhere near the So Cap bridge, there should be
plenty of parking when they were not playing ball.
There is probably another place near the metro tho.

I am still not sure what the real attraction is at Nat Harbor.
We kept hearing about the Gaylord but it is nowhere near the water so
we went for the Westin. That was good because you walk right out the
door and you are on the harbor view walkway.
I guess if you are in town for a convention, this is good for people
who want to get away from the problems downtown. It is not within
walking distance of any "disenfranchised" people or whatever the PC
term for muggers is these days. It does have a "Disneyland" feel to it
and the PG county cops have a presence along with a lot of private
security.
I still remember walking down there and playing along the river when I
was a kid. It was a lot different then ;-)
That was before the bridge was even there.

I believe that taxi goes only to Old Town, Alexandria. I suppose you noticed the big, empty docking
space. Once we were going up river and decided to stop at NH to get a cup of coffee. We pulled up to
the dock, which was empty - about a quarter mile of it - and a young man in a green jacket comes
running asking if he can help. We said we were just going to walk up and grab a Starbucks or
something. He then told us the docking fee was $10/hour. We left, went to the Old Town dock by the
park (free) and had our Starbucks there. I don't think I've ever seen any boats docked there, unless
they were in the marina.