Turpins take DC, day one.

We're finally in the District! It is so fun to be here with my mom and my aunt Pam and cousin Amanda and my friend Fletcher, seeing all the sights and sites and eating all the amazing food and laughing and laughing and laughing. First laugh -- this is the complimentary companion goldfish that our hotel supplied us with. His name is AJ, like Aj Macnearney, fictional President Andrew Shephard's chief of staff in the best movie ever, The American President. So, here's AJ.


Today we saw like 9 billion amazing places in DC but I took most of my pictures on my real camera and those will not be uploaded until I get home. We went on a boat tour on the Potomac, and then dinner at the fabulously senatorial Old Ebbitt Grill (where I forgot my wallet [and therefore ID] and had to take a cab back to the hotel to get it and get back in order to be able to have a glass of wine at dinner hahaha), and then we went on a tour of the West Wing of the White House! Amanda, as a staffer, gets to take people on tours of the West Wing, which is probably the coolest job perk of all time. Standing in the doorway of the Oval Office, knowing that my dearest President Barack Obama spends a lot of time in it....breathtaking. And standing in the White House Rose Garden and staring down the corridor that he walks down every day...from the residence to his office. And every image of Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Jed Bartlet and Andrew Shephard walking down that hallway...I love America. I love American politics. This election season is going to be ludicrous, but I know how I'm going to survive it. Every time someone says something crazy and hurtful and slings mud at my candidate, I'm going to remember that hallway. Oh, I'm going to remember that hallway.


The World War II Memorial 


The Lincoln Memorial

The view from the Lincoln Memorial is of the Reflecting Pool and the Washington Monument. You've seen a lot of movies and TV shows where the characters sit up on those steps and look out over DC and talk about whatever feat they accomplished that day. I blogged once about wanting to live in DC so I could do that. I don't live in DC, but I sat there with my family and looked and loved it. And besides West Wing characters and Bones characters, you know who else spent some quality time there? The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And you know why that's super important to me? Because when I was a kid, my liberal Mama taught me about Dr. King, and I told her that I wanted to be a Rev. Dr. because MLK was a Rev. Dr. and I wanted to know what he knew so I could do what he did. I was like, 8. And you know what? Yesterday, I emailed in my last final to complete my first year of seminary. That's the Rev. part. I'm on my way, Dr. King.