Mr. Gillice Goes to Washington

I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I usually try to keep things short and interesting. Oh well...

It has been a busy week. I have been back from DC since Monday but I haven't had time to post about my trip until now. I was there for 3 complete days, although I feel like I was sleep walking through the first day (Friday) since I got maybe an hour of sleep on the plane the night before.

DAY 1

I met Travis and Brian at Dulles International Airport at about 8:30 in the morning. Their flight (from Oakland) had arrived a couple hours earlier and they were sleeping in the rental car when I called from baggage claim. We were all pretty dead tired all of Friday.


We started the day off by meeting up with Jeremy (our old friend/roommate) and Aaron (the Groom/friend/roommate) and a few other friends of Aaron's that we did not know. We met them at the Air and Space Museum which is right next to the airport, conveniently enough. After that Aaron ditched us to go do "wedding stuff." So Travis, Brian, Jeremy and I, headed to DC to see what we could see. Jeremy had lived there after he graduated for a few months and Brian had been there before so they took us on a whirlwind tour to see what we could see before everything closed.


We went to museums, monuments, historical sights, and much more. As we headed back to our car, we were a little concerned to see that the side of the road that we had parked on no longer had any cars parked in it and was now being used as a lane. This worried us. A few hundred feet down the road we could see a car had been moved off the road and up onto the sidewalk. Could it be? Oh yes it could. Apparently in DC they don't tow your car, they just move it out of the way. We were a bit thankful for this since we didn't have to track down an impounded car. We were not however, happy to see the phat ticket on the windshield for $100.

After that crushing blow of a parking ticket, our next item on our itinerary was a "bachelor party" to be held at a place called "Top Golf" in Alexandria, VA. (It's a good thing we had a GPS navigation system in our car or we would have spent the weekend lost.) We were not quite sure what to expect of this place, but it turned out to be one of the funnest things I have ever done. It's like a driving range only it keeps score so you are competing with your friends. Seriously Fun! We got the royal treatment while we were there as well. There were two tees reserved for our group. Each member of our party had a bucket of balls with our name on it. We got to choose what we wanted for dinner from a menu and they kept the drinks coming (soda and lemonade of course). For about three hours we had an absolute blast. We even forgot how tired we were.

So after the party, we headed back to Aaron's house to crash for the night. The activities of the day finally caught up with me. I laid down on one of the couches to rest for a little while. I opened my eyes again and it was somehow morning. Apparently everyone had stayed up late and talked for hours as I slept in complete oblivion right there next to them.

DAY 2

This day was much different than the one before it. We had to be at the Temple by 9:30 for Aaron and Amy's sealing at 10:00. I had heard that the Washington DC Temple was beautiful but it by far surpassed my expectations. We got there early so we had a chance to look around the Temple a little bit. It is an amazing place. That thing is HUGE. It is now my favorite Temple I think.

Everything went as planned and it was a beautiful ceremony. Afterwards we did the traditional picture taking thing in front of the Temple. The weather was absolutely perfect.

We had lunch with the rest of the wedding party at an Indian restaurant. Now, I have had a curry dish or two in my time and I do enjoy it thoroughly, but I must admit that I have never been to an Indian restaurant.

It was awesome.


I have never seen so much food. It was all buffet style and we had the whole restaurant just for our party. Good times were ours for the having as we enjoyed good food and the company of good friends.


Our next agenda item was the reception. It was at beautiful Seneca State Park. (I can't remember which state it was actually in. We went through 3 or 4 of them during our travels.) Lots of trees, more food, and an outdoor fireplace. What more could you want?

After the reception, we helped clean up and I drove Amy's car back to their new apartment. I was following Brian and Travis since they had the GPS and I had no idea where I was. (Which state was this again?) I followed them for quite a while until we came to a stop light. As I sat there I realized that the car I was following was not the rental car. Oops. Fortunately, I was not too far away and Aaron was able to direct me to the apartment over the phone.

So, at the apartment we said our goodbyes to Aaron and Amy and headed back to the house for a relaxing evening. We watched the latest episode of The Office and Flight of the Conchords on YouTube.

DAY 3

Sunday. A day of rest. And so we did. Maybe a little too much.

We planned on getting up early to go to church. Then we would have plenty of time afterwards to go and see whatever was free and open on Sunday in DC. We didn't get up as early as we had hoped and so we didn't get out of Church until 1:00pm.

We got to DC at about 2:00 or so. We made the most of the short time we had before things closed. We first went to the Arlington Cemetery where we saw the grave of JFK and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Very cool, if sad, place. We were also able to see the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. That was an amazing experience for me to actually look at some of the, if not THE, most important documents in the history of the world.

We tried to visit the Holocaust Museum but we were too late to see the main exhibit. Brian and Jeremy said that it was one of their favorite places. So now that everything was closing, we decided to look at all of the outdoor monuments and memorials. We started at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and from there we hit the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, the World War I Memorial, The Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and finished up at the Washington Monument (which is absolutely huge by the way).

It was getting late so we walked our aching feet back to the car. We bid farewell to Washington DC as we drove "home" to get some rest.

We slept for maybe 3 hours on Sunday night before we had to head back to Dulles International in the wee hours of the morning. I bid farewell to Brian and Travis as they boarded their flight back to Oakland. I then tried to get some sleep in those uncomfortable airport chairs, that are designed to keep you from doing exactly that, while I waited 2 hours for my flight.

This was my first time to the East Coast and I have to say that it was very pretty. Maybe more so than I had expected. There are trees everywhere which is something I love. (Why do I live in Utah?)

The people on the East Coast are a bit different too. Everyone is very "professional" for lack of a better word. Everyone we met was either a lawyer, doctor, diplomat, or some other noble thing. (Can lawyers be noble?) People dress differently as well. Women all wear scarves and men wear leather shoes. And everyone wears black. It's kind of like America, but with a bit of a European twist.

Washington DC was an eye opening experience that increased my love and respect for this country of ours. Even with all of the problems we have, this is still the greatest country on earth.

There are a lot of things that we didn't get to see in our whirlwind trip. I look forward to returning one day with my family and seeing everything I missed.