An interesting perk of Jeff's new job is that there is a bit of travel involved. The bad news: he was gone for almost the entire first half of November.
Jeff's first work trip took him to Boston and New Hampshire for training. That was fine, and he was gone for a few days and back by Saturday. The only problem was he had ANOTHER training the following week, and was gone in less than 48 hours, this time to Maryland. After he returned from both trips, he found out that there was yet ANOTHER trip the first week of December and he wouldn't be done until December 4th. The problem: That was when we planned on leaving for our anniversary trip to Chicago. So, why not make a long trip?
We both traveled to Washington DC on December 1st and settled into our hotel in Maryland. While Jeff was working, Jen was able to sight-see without him. She went to the Capitol Building and the Library of Congress, then went with Jeff at night to see a few of the monuments at night. Day two took Jen to Virginia to see Mount Vernon and some of the most beautiful scenery in the world, and again at night we hit the city to see more monuments and walked around the city while they televised the Christmas tree lighting at the Capitol. Friday was our first day off, so after checking out of the hotel, we went to look around the Smithsonian and then the Holocaust Museum, one of the most moving experiences we had. We had to cut our day short and took a late flight to Chicago that evening.
Chicago was a lot of fun as well. We went to the Art Institute of Chicago and looked at all of the paintings, which Jen enjoyed being a huge fan of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. We also enjoyed trying authentic Chicago-style pizza and driving around the city and outskirts. We even found a small burger chain that Jen loved because their mascot was a penguin! We packed as much as we could in two days, and then spent a lot of time in the airport on Monday. We were fogged in, and our original 9 AM flight was supposed to take us to Denver for a layover and then take us home to California. The fog changed that for us, though, and we ended up leaving to Las Vegas around noon. Originally we were in a puddle jumper, which is a Southwest flight where you'll land in a city, but instead of getting off and switching planes, you stay seated for a few minutes, more people get on, and you continue on your flight. However, just before we landed, Southwest decided to change us to another plane, so we had to sprint through the Las Vegas airport to get to the plane. When we got home, because of all the switched flights, our luggage came much later and, while we got back to Newark at 6, our luggage arrived sometime around 1:30 in the morning! It was a great trip overall, despite the extra confusion at the end, and we are hoping to go back to both cities soon!
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| Washington Monument |
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| Mount Vernon |
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| The LDS Temple. It was COVERED in Christmas lights and so pretty! |
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| Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington, VA |
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| A photo wall at the Holocaust Museum. This is actually from the top floor and we are standing on a walkway; it was 3+ stories of pictures. |
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| The famous bean in Chicago |
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| Willis Tower. Yeah, it's pretty big |
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| Outside of the Art Institute of Chicago |
