Well, the weather for Halloween here was rainy, cold, and miserable. We debated long and hard about going to DC again but FP- said "why not". So on Saturday morning, we packed enough stuff for an overnight stay in DC and headed out of New Jersey at 2 PM ... once again our only hold-up being that little section outside of Wilmington, Delaware for the toll road booth. *wishing they had better designed how they had 3 lanes on the right and 3 lanes on the left merging into the only three (already existing) lanes of traffic on I-95 just to get toll money from the drivers* After 5 1/2 hours of driving in the rain, we arrived in DC at 7 PM -- plenty of time to get ready for Kimba's party that was due to start at 9 PM.

We used a coupon this time out of a travel book -- having had good luck with the one we used in Boston, MA area prior. FP- called around to see who were accepting the coupons that week-end in the area nearby to where Kimba lived and decided that we would stay at the Royal Pines Motel in College Park, Maryland. You had to register at the little drive up window after sunset, so we didn't see the interior of the motel until we were carrying in our luggage and Robby. I took one look then looked at FP- whose jaw was about ready to drop to the floor ... but he said, "well, you can't expect every motel not to show some signs of wear and tear" in a hopeful voice. We gave it the benefit of the doubt and headed up to the third floor where our room was located at.

It didn't look much better, but it appeared that they were doing some kind of renovations on the floor... so we hesitantly thought maybe our first impressions were wrong as we unlocked our door. I cracked up laughing when my eyes were hit with orange wallpaper on one wall, green wallpaper on the other wall, dark red carpeting, and 2 bent brown vinyl swivel chairs that sat in front of the sliding glass doors that barely had the curtains hanging from the curtain rod (the curtain holders all were bent or missing). I don't even want to speculate as to what caused the stains on the bedspread that was already laundered past it's prime ... we just immediately removed it from the bed before anything else, nor what used to be bolted above the toilet in the bathroom . The dim lights didn't help alter the appearance of the room but rather increased the comical overtones of it as we then noticed what we labeled to be cobwebs behind the television (though it really didn't look much like cobwebs ...) The TV was a satellite TV, with HBO ... no remote control, but you had you choice of 5 stations repeated on all the dial notchings so that all the channels had something -- even if it was repeated. The only thing I could figure that they needed the satellite for was maybe possibly HBO to be shown on 3 channels... but I am not for sure, since all of the other channels were local ones. *shrug* The only thing the motel room was lacking was a few Herbies and Oscars running about ... in case you don't know what a Herbie or an Oscar is, those are cute nicknames for mice and cockroaches some folks use to make it sound like they already have company in case someone wants to come over to visit them. *chuckle* "Oh darn, I wished you had called sooner ... but Herbie just stopped by unexpectedly for a visit this week..." *laughing*

As we left for Kimba's party, we witnessed some guys lugging in cases of beer and bags of ice ... they had strong some Christmas multi-colored twinkle light sets around the sliding glass doors. One woman around her mid to late 40's stumbled over her own two feet while trying to unlock her door on the first floor, carrying two small brown paper bags under her arm ... and fell face first into her room. A funny smell permeated the air to give evidence that they weren't the only ones obviously who were assisting in turning the motel into Party Central ... which helped explain to us how the motel stayed in business. Though we weren't overly thrilled about our accomadations even for a one night stay, we couldn't help but laugh about them either. *grin*

At Kimba's party, she mainly had folks from work or where she had taken her college courses in attendance -- though she always extends an open invite to folks from IRC to it. I joked around that maybe, just maybe, she could squeeze 15 more people into her living room ... and there had to be over 40 folks in attendance!! Almost everyone was in costume ... and what costumes folks dreamt up!!! We had Death (at an awesome 6 foot 4 inches in height) flirting with a 20's flapper, we had a couple of women dressed as lamps, a highlander was walking around in just his "kilt" and sandals, a woman dressed as a twister play area offered people to take a turn as she handed them a spinner, a guy attired in cigarettes strung together (no, he didn't smoke), and a swami who watched the gypsy give Tarot readings. A skeleton walked up and shook our hands, saying "nice to meet you" before retrieving their drink by the kitchen door and chatting with Kimba (who was dressed as Personal Ads)about her "tired bones". I asked FP- who the skeleton was and he said he had no idea ... we found out a few minutes that it was Lizzie from #30plus!! Kimba took Robby out onto the dance floor for a couple of tunes as Peppr and Vobiscom, also of #30plus, showed up. Those of who knew each other from IRC congregated outside (the weather had cleared up considerably by 8 PM) to chat and joke around.

While we were outside, Vobiscom and Lizzie were stopping folks on the sidewalk in front of Kimba's and inviting them into the party. One guy out walking his dog, Della, declined but one woman named Pam who was returning from a concert at the John F. Kennedy Center did in fact join the party for a few minutes before leaving, apologizing to Kimba for such a short stay but that she had to work the next day. Her and Kimba talked for a few like they knew each other, but Kimba later 'fessed up she had never ever seen the woman before and was cracking up laughing as Lizzie and Peppr invited more folks walking by to join the party!! *laughing*

We posed for a couple of group pics (that will hopefully turn out, but they were taken outdoors at night) before Robby deemed it was time for him to retire to his porta-crib for the night. When we arrived back to the Royal Pines Motel, I got to make my annual phone call to Writer's Annual Suck (spaghetti dinner) in San Diego -- this year I got to talk to Writer, Lady Chat, JoAnn, WowzieWoo, Curious, Buckaroo, Gelf, and Calico out of the 25 folks in attendance this year!!! *hugs sent to them all* *slightly bummed I didn't get to talk to Bird or Rossma this year as they were unable to attend*

The next morning was damp and cloudy ... but the rain ceased at noontime and as we were loading the car back up FP- decided we would go to the Jefferson Memorial so I could retake pictures of it to make up for the roll I had lost on our prior trip. He and Robby waited for me in the car as I hurried up to the monument and snapped away.

Then we went to Arlington Cemetery, I took three rolls of film with me as we went to see the Women's War Memorial that had just been dedicated in October of '97, JFK's gravesite, the Lee Mansion, The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Amphitheater behind it, and the Astronaut's Memorial. I took all three rolls of film ... but only returned to the car with two of them. FP- and I both unable to figure out where I had may have dropped it or set it down at (my slacks didn't have pockets). And since we didn't know *which* roll of film of missing, I had no idea what possible pictures I may have had to try to retake. FP- just shook his head as he started up the car and said, "I will try to bring you back again ..." to which I responded, "yeah, but will the trees be showing off the gorgeous colorings as they were today though". Needless to say, I am very bummed about misplacing that roll of film somewhere. *pouty lips*

Before we headed out, FP- decided to go see the Capital building and the Supreme Court. We posed with Robby in front of these buildings to go along with the White House one -- thus having Robby in front of all three branches of the government!! Once more the sun started to set, and we had to head back to the car to go back to our temporary home in New Jersey. FP- more than once commenting on the drive home that he thought the Capital Building detour would only delay us 15 to 20 minutes from leaving DC, but then again he forgot I had my camera in hand thus turning it into an hour and half venture! *chuckle*

We finally arrived "home" at 1 AM, unpacking before calling it a night. I sent my rolls of film off to be developed the next day, still kicking myself in the tush for losing the one roll taken during our tour of the Arlington Cemetery ... but happy to have gained some more pictures for my photo album of Washington DC.*grin* *showing of the pages and pages of photos*

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