Art Class Deja Vu

I am nearly to the northern end of the Parkway, so I take my time getting there because the road is so good. It is still early and I am riding in all of my layers, basically what I woke up in. The sun is shining but there are so many trees that I am mostly in the shade, and there is a very noticeable difference in temperature than in the sunlight. There are still deer out everywhere, and often I come around a turn and see one just chilling out on the side of the road staring at me, and all I can do is hope that when it jumps, it jumps towards the forest instead of the road. Fortunately, that is what always happens, because if deer aren't dangerous enough in a car, they would surely be thoroughly devastating on a bike. Near the end of the Parkway, I am stuck behind a group of three bikers. Up until now, I have only been stuck behind cars on this road, which I have had no problems passing, but now that I am behind bikes I feel like I would be insulting strangers that share a common bond with me if I passed them. So I stick behind them for awhile until I get sick of it and realize I'm being a dork and I pass them all on a straightaway. I give them all the biker wave at least. Not long after, I pass a pulloff that looks stunning, so I turn around and check it out. It looks down over the Shenandoah Valley from a rocky outcrop, and the bikers I had just passed pulled up and began all yelling at me for passing them. Not really, though. They were all from Canada and nice guys, and were on a long road trip sort of like me. After I take a few pictures of the valley and chat with some other people at the pulloff, I get back on my bike and finish up the Parkway. Instead of continuing north through Shenandoah National Park and paying twenty dollars, I hop on 250 to US 29 which brings me north to I-66. 29 is not the most exciting road, and in fact, it's crap compared to the Parkway, but still it is not bad. It brings me through some strip-mall towns on a divided road, and I stop at a gas station with a deli for a sandwich, a drink, and some gas. While I am eating my lunch out in the sun by my bike and reading the front pages of all the papers on display, a guy comes up to me and starts chatting about motorcycles and how he used to ride and how I should do this while I am young. This is something I have heard many many times since I left, and I don't get tired of it. I am always glad that I can make this trip happen, even though I feel bad that pretty much everyone else I know has to go to an office every day, or report here or there for work. So when a stranger tells me I should do what I am doing while I can do what I am doing, it reinforces my sense of fulfillment of what I am doing, and it feels nice.
I-66 brings me to I-495 which brings me into Alexandria, Virginia where I have a cousin. I eventually find her place in a massive constructed neighborhood of townhouses, and soon I get to meet my newest relative, her son Thomas. Now I have never been able to get straight family titles outside of cousins and brothers and parents, so I don't know what Thomas is to me. A second cousin? A cousin once removed? Who knows. He is a cute little guy, but cries a lot because his teeth are coming in. Sarah's husband Chris has an absolutely stunning Harley in the garage that I stare at for awhile, but apparently it hasn't been out since Thomas was born. Oh well. Sarah and I take a walk around the neighborhood with Thomas in the stroller dropping everything he can hold, and it's dinner time afterwards.
In the morning, Sarah drops me off at the subway, and I take the train into DC to walk around the Mall and get some American culture in me. My first stop is the National Gallery East. I want to see some art, and the West Gallery looks too traditional and classical and boring. When I am in the East Gallery, I go first through the Edward Hopper exhibit, and see pretty much all of his famous paintings. Next is an exhibit of Jasper Johns' print-making processes. Then onto the permanent collections where I see about half of the art works that we studied in a Visual Arts class I took at Utah, because my professor took a trip to DC and obviously came here to get photos for his lectures. It is nice though, being familiar with a lot of the collection already. After a couple hours I am beat and needing food. I walk along the Mall some more and don't see much food besides street vendors so I head into the Air and Space Museum before I realize I am by far too hungry to walk around another museum, but not hungry enough to eat at the overpriced McDonald's in the food court. A quick look at a map Sarah had given me shows that Chinatown is maybe a fifteen minute walk north, and I feel like Chinese, so off I go. It is a pretty busy street I am walking up, with plenty of places to eat at, but I am determined to find some good Chinese. I finally make it to Chinatown because I see an ornate, massive gate which means Chinatown in any major city. This Chinatown is pretty lame though, it looks like any standard downtown DC block, but with a few signs in Chinese. It is not like Boston's Chinatown, where there are Chinese-language newspapers blowing across the streets, and chickens hanging in the windows of shops in the maze that gray streets make up, or even like San Francisco's Chinatown, the DC Chinatown is just not very Chinese feeling. Nonetheless, I get some unremarkable food and continue wandering around. I head down to the White House to see where our fearless Terrorist, I mean President, lives. It's not a hugely exciting place, but the building next to it, the Old Executive Office Building is really sweet. It is absolutely massive, constructed solidly of dark stone, and covered with gorgeous decks and columns and Classic-world styling. I wander down to the Lincoln Memorial, visiting the Vietnam Memorial on the way. At this point, I am tired and my feet are sore, but since I am here I feel like I should hit all the sights. I am not that into it, and all the foreign tourists seem more into everything than me. I walk past the Washington Monument toward the subway to meet with a friend of mine from high school in Arlington. We get some food and drinks conveniently right between Casey's apartment and the subway, and shoot the shit for awhile before I realize I should be getting back to Alexandria. Once back, I take care not to wake up little Thomas and I get my things ready to go in the morning.