I went to my mailbox one day and found an invitation to a great photography seminar. I waffled about going. I know you are all telling me I am stupid for not immediately signing up, but still, I waffled. It’s not that I don’t want to be pro, or somehow haven’t found myself well on the way to going pro, I just sometimes have a hard time seeing myself as a “real” photographer.

Saturday, I finally paid the entry fee. I know, procrastination… but I suppose I could have waited until Monday morning, right?

Now, all excited, I made plans. Monday was some federal holiday no one else on the planet gets off, but in DC it means half the workers are home and the VRE does not run and everything is a little crazy. So Megs decided he would work from home. With him home, I could feel no guilt abandoning the home and the kids for an entire day! Huzzah! (Why is it as parents, even when our kids are old enough to stay home, we feel like we are abandoning them, even if it is just a gas run?)

Normally the Mormon Temples remain closed on Mondays because we reserve Monday for “family night”, however the DC Temple opens on several of these weird government holidays knowing that it frees up people to attend on a weekday. (Saturday’s are very crowded and a bit manic actually.) They close early enough to allow most people time to race home for family night. It just so happens the Temple is about 11 minutes from the hotel for my photo seminar.

I know what you are thinking. Oh no. Last time she blogged about misadventures in regards to the Temple, she had all kinds of car trouble and didn’t make it home until like 3 AM or something. Well, no car trouble but…

I went to the chiropractor and headed for DC. I made it in time to worship in the Temple and that was glorious. I even went and found a nearby geocache and dumped three travel bugs. I then went in a quest for food. In a megacity and all, one would think this would be easy? Yeah, not so much. I finally found a Qdoba by the hotel, nabbed a jumbo burrito and zipped ot the hotel.

The seminar was AWESOME. I won’t blog about that now. Let’s just say… I’m itching to take photos and it was money well spent. Woot!

While at the seminar, on a break, I noticed on twitter my good homeschooling and fellow Mormon chum had emergency big time. As in her daughter got raced to a special hospital in DC due to chemical burns! OUCH! I kept up with her tweets and texted her. At 11:00 PM when the seminar finally got out, I texted to see if she needed anything. She did. A ride home.

Ok, no problemo. I’m a big fan of NEVER driving in DC, but figured this late at night it shouldn’t be a problem since there would be no traffic. Yeah, here’s a big reason why I never drive in DC:

I head over to the hospital. Mind you, I was a whole 10 miles away. Forty minutes later, I arrive at the hospital. No, I’m not kidding. At one point I ended up on some alley like street which I’m not even sure if I’m glad it was midnight or scared it was midnight. Yes, I have a GPS unit and I followed it as best I could! (Some of those intersections are super high on the confusing.)

My friend kisses her husband and hops in my van. She proceeds to give me the update and tell me about the nasty rat she just saw heading for the hospital. GROSS! Now I thought my slight rerouting due to confusing intersections and the one weird alley like road with a stop sign every 30 feet was bad enough. Boy, I had no idea what was to come.

I hand my friend the GPS and she plugs in her house. We start following the directions and end up on Dupont Circle. Why we ended up on Dupont Circle, we’re still unsure. In no wise do I ever find Dupont Circle on my way anywhere. Especially, say, Virginia. Well, here it is, after midnight, pitch black, and we can barely see anything. And we discover that Dupont Circle is not your typical traffic circle (which I think are inventions of some evil minion of you know where), oh no. There’s an inner loop and an outer loop. So there we are driving around and around like the Griswalds in European Vacation.

Huzzah for us. We finally escaped Dupont Circle but I don’t think we took the correct exit due to the whole MEDIAN between the inner loop and the outer loop. We also decided that Dupont Circle obviously a portal to Dante’s Inferno. We’re just saying. Sydney Allen Wade, from the American President, I will forever truly respect that line about Dupont Circle from now on.

We end going down Embassy Row and to American University. By this point we are completely befuddled as to what Lola, my GPS unit is doing. It appears to be taking us way west, practically to Rockville and the Temple again. Once more, we wanted to go to VIRGINIA not MARYLAND.

By this point, there’s no traffic so I flip a u turn and we determine the best course of action is to go drop in on the PoTUS. I mean, we really ARE the “Real Housewives of DC” so why not? Ok, seriously, we just figured if we went for something we knew an address for, we could find our way home. We start plodding towards the White House and we find out… lo and behold… DUPONT CIRCLE again.

No freaking way. Not going to have to deal with THAT again. I just completely stop in the middle of the deserted street and we start looking for a new place. Huzzah, Megs work, which happens to be between us and Dupont circle and just a couple of miles from where Obama was probably SLEEPING because he’s a moderately SANE person, unlike us. OK, so probably not, he’s the PoTUS and well… busy and I’m not so sure “sane” is the right word for any president.

Now we are merrily skipping our way down the confusing mess of streets, another traffic circle with an inner and an outer loop and finally we get within a block and I go, “Hey, I know where we are, this is how i come in to Megs work!”

I once more stop in the middle of a deserted street (OK, I was at a yield sign this time) and we punch in my friend’s address again. Took a quick spin through Georgetown. Where we see some questionable sorts, and another rat. By this point it’s nearly 1:00 AM and we’ve basically traveled a few miles from where i originally picked her up. Why, oh why, did the GPS not route us this way to begin with? I have no clue other than apparently even GPS units can’t function with the roads in DC.

We crossed the bridge into Rosslyn and saw the most beautiful sign ever: Welcome to Virginia. We both proclaimed, “THANK YOU, GOD!” Then it was just a crazy drive through killer construction (seriously one piece of equipment hung well into the only open lane! Thanks VDOT!) out to her house. And another 45 minutes on home to me.

Left the photo seminar at 11:00 PM and walked in my door at 2:30 AM.

Sadly, with the construction on 495, I probably made it home just as quick… HA!

Here’s a little map of basically where I went yesterday – though these routes were NOT what I took, you can see the locations:

I’m sure I left some things out. I’m sleep deprived. I don’t even want to think about what grammatical errors this entry holds. I really don’t even care. The first person that mentions a grammatical error to me (you know who you are) will get dropped in Dupont Circle. Good luck finding your way out. Walking is not allowed.

–Lady O

PS: Update on friend’s daughter – it looks like things are fine. An operation today to basically scrape all the burned stuff away (OUCH!) went well. Now the very long healing process will begin. Lesson learned: Gorilla Glue + microwave = disaster. I’m just glad the girl is going to be OK. Huzzah! Thanks to all those that prayed!