Strawberries and Scammy Corndogs

One thing that's fun about Washington is that some of the agricultural products are different than those in the midwest. If I've ever been strawberry picking before it was a long time ago.

I sort of thought picking your own fruit was sort of a boring old white people activity but now I realize it's like an extreme sport for cool dudes that very likely could lead to my own death. But at least I would die doing what I love, bending over and picking up dirty fruit in a field.

Biringer Farm in Arlington was the site of my almost assured death today.

Something something picked the sweetest berry of them all.

Apples are one thing but strawberries are quite small so this was actually a lot of work,

We stayed on brand and next headed over to Marysville for the Marysville Strawberry Festival.

I was excited to have a corndog or some other fair food as it had been a while. The prices at these places were laughable. I don't know what the heck was going on. These people wanted $16 for curly fries.

We did end up finding one little stall run by Knights of Columbus or some similar charity club that was selling strawberry shortcakes for a reasonable price. Other than that I don't think there was even any reference to strawberries at this strange place.

We went to town to find some more reasonably priced fare. We first stopped in at 5 Rights Brewing Company for a brew.

We ended up eating at Dos Agaves Mexican Restaurant, and the day was saved.

West Wing's Eve

Today was a rushed one. I started off with the second day of Strange Loop and learned all the things.

This talk about the Python programming language was fun because they used Simpsons analogies throughout. I'm easily amused.

I left early in order to make a quick appearance at Viry and Lolo's baby shower at Wellspent Brewing Co.. It was fun to see them as well as several other of our mutual friends. They had really good Frenchy food such as these great looking crepes.

We noticed a couple of days ago that our friend Joel had an unexplained wedding ring on. Busted, he explained that he and Wing got married, without my permission, at the courthouse. Asked why, he said it was for tax purposes. Very suspicious indeed.

They were even passing out free beer tokens but I was drinking water because I had been partying with my friends every night for the whole week and was close to death at this point.

I drove by Hank's house on the way to the airport. He was very rude and didn't come see me on this trip but I am like Gandhi and Mother Theresa's lovechild level nice, so I dropped off a bag of all the swag I collected from Strange Loop at his house for his kids. Ok, partially because I'm nice and partially because it probably wouldn't have all fit in my suitcase anyway.

Things were not supposed to have been this rushed, but frat bro Frank came through last minute with a West Wing tour so I changed my flight from a Seattle return to the opposite direction to D.C.. Lydia was heavily ambivalent about this plan. She was still in Seattle and was not that interested in the White House. I convinced her to come because this was a rare chance as far as I was concerned. My understanding is that your congressman can get you a tour of some areas of the tour, but only a White House staffer can get you a tour of the West Wing. I got her to watch some episodes of the West Wing tv show in order to get her more interested.

This was the first time I'd ever flown into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. That was fun.

Lydia found a room that she liked at the Sofitel Washington DC Lafayette Square. It was right in the thick of things so it was perfect.

We did a little stroll around the area and saw some sights. We took a peek at the outside of the White House in preparation for tomorrow.

It turns out several people work for the executive branch, and they are definitely not all fitting into the White House. The Eisenhower Executive Office Building is next door and is where Frank works.