12 June 2005

Whirlwind Tour of I-95 Corridor

Saturday began with a trip north up I-95 to New York City, onetime capital of the United States. If it were still so, we wouldn't even have a D.C. I'm still trying to think if that's a good or bad thing -- not a referendum on DC as it is today, but what if this goofy place that has no representation in U.S. Congress and questionable status anyway as a city/state had never existed. I imagine Peter Angelos would be happier.

We were running up to New York City to meet a friend and eat some lunch. Oh yeah, and buy a bag. Going to Manhattan is always incredible and it energizes me to be in that city. Unlike DC, which I love by the way, New York will never be accused of shutting down after five p.m. (yeah, I'm aware there are pockets of clubs that are open late, but don't even try to compare DC and NYC street scenes after midnight). Hung out a bit in Tompkins Square Park.

However, the real reason we headed up north was to go to a birthday party out in New Jersey Saturday evening. So like a glutton who can only afford an appetizer, we headed out of the big big city for the suburban green of Scotch Plains, New Jersey. The birthday girl, who is pregnant (lotsa fun carrying a kid around through the summer by the way), and her husband may be my most interesting friends, largely because they took so long to settle down despite being among the first in my crowd to get married. For about ten years after college they moved around following their dreams. Their dreams didn't exactly come true, but they also didn't disappear into bitterness and remorse. Now one writes mortgages and one teaches school. And they're going to have a kid.

It was a great time and there were other children there for our son to run around with. Our infant daughter on the other hand had to content herself with being ogled by various party-goers and sleeping. She held up well.

Unfortunately, we had to get up early the next day to get home for the Washington Nationals' game. When I first agreed to go to the game with a friend, I had no idea when it started. I thought foolishly it would be an evening game, but the game started at 1 p.m. We got into DC at 12:00 p.m. and were at our friends' house by 12:45 p.m. and only missed the top half of the first inning.

I was exhausted by the time my son and I headed home on the 96. What a weekend.

1 comment:

cs said...

That's good to know. I remember when it was like the rest of downtown - dead after dark. The pockets of activity are definitely expanding.

I'm not trying to compare the two cities to make DC look bad -- I've lived in DC for 12 years and I really enjoy it. Besides, it's hard to compare straight up a city of 500K with a city of several million.