Miracles on West 74th Street: I find friendship to be like wine: raw when new, rippened with age

Good ol' Aviators

One thing that I love about living on the east coast - transportation via train. I can just hop on the train and in 3 hours, I can be in DC, Boston or someplace else that the train goes.

Last weekend, I decided to hop down to DC for the weekend to visit my high school buddy, David. I first met David at Willow Pool the summer between 8th and 9th grade. I will never forget, he had turquoise swim trunks. We were pretty close in high school: ran cross country and track together and he was my junior year prom date. I wore an awful light pink dress - I looked like an Easter egg. The summer after graduation was the last time we lived in the same city together. He went off to DC to GW for both undergrad and grad school. Yes, he is wicked smart. He stayed in DC after grad school and worked for Booz Allen. Now, he works for the Department of Justice, doing IT stuff :) I kid. We see each other from time to time, mostly around Christmas at this coffee shop in Vandalia. The last time we saw each other was last Christmas at this spot. We talk about once every other month (maybe longer) but when we do, I have to block off at least 2 hours for our catch up chats. My visit down DC was LONG over due. My last visit was in 2004. I am a bad friend.

First picture all weekend long
45 minutes before I left

I finally arrived at David's after fighting for a cab the last 30 minutes. He came down to greet me because he is a gentleman like that and to be honest, I was a little surprised. David was all grown up - he looked different. My favorite kind of friend is the one where you could go months without talking or seeing them but when you do, it's like no time has passed at all. That's our kind of friendship and I love it. We talked and laughed for a long time. I love the ease of our conversation after all these years. Friday night, we went out for sushi and then headed out to the clubs. David loves clubs. He is a big fist pumper.

Saturday was the best day all weekend. We drove out to a winery in the Rocky Mountains in Virginia. It was about a hour and a half outside the city. It was in the middle of God's country. We were on a dirt/gravel road for 6.2 miles in the middle of Deliverance. It was a little sketchy. The best part, Marilyn (I named David's GPS) told us "arriving at destination" and all we saw was fields and cows. Marilyn was wrong, but after driving a little longer, we made it.

I love wine. LOVE it. It's like mothers milk. We did a wine tasting. This is where David pointed out that I am very opinionated. I know I am blunt but I guess I didn't realize just how much so. And turns out, I have an opinion on everything and I share it. Who knew :) We tasted 8 different wines: some yummy, some not so yummy. We then got a glass of white wine and relaxed on the deck. It was the best afternoon I have had in a long time. It was very peaceful. Good company, good conversation and a good glass of wine - 3 of my favorite things. Well, there was this "bug" situation. I could have done without that. I hate anything that flies. I especially hate bees. Actually, I just hate all bugs.

Makes me think of Forest Gump every time..

We left my little tranquil heaven to head back into the city. We debated on stopping at Cracker Barrel for dinner. If I wasn't going to Ohio in a few weeks, we would have stopped. I love some down home cooking! We had another great dinner in the city and went to a hotel party, straight up high school style. Afterwards, we went to another club to celebrate one of his buddy's birthday, fist pumping and all. It was a good time - lots of free alcohol. Can't complain about that!

Sunday was another great day. After a little lunch, we walked around all the monuments and went to the "reflection" pool. It was a really nice day to walk around and soak in all the awesome sites that DC has to offer. It is such a pretty city. And it was nice to spend quality time with David. I hopped on the train bound for New York a little bummed. I wanted to spend more time in DC with David. Good thing it's only a quick train ride away - I hope that we don't let as much time come between our visits from now on.