Klo and I have many adventures in our travels for Pazzles. Usually they revolve around the event. It doesn’t matter whether it is a retail show or a Pazzles Retreat, we hold our breath every single time! Are the boxes we shipped going to get there on time? Is the internet going to work? Why do they want to charge us for delivering one little box to the booth? What do you mean the menu we chose is now obsolete! Why is there water dripping from the ceiling? … Just little things. 🙂
Most of the time we fly in the afternoon before the show or retreat and head home right after it ends. We see the airport, the meeting room and our hotel room and that is all. Often we don’t even go outside during the three days we are there. This time Klo and I decided to stay an extra day in Washington D.C. and create our own adventure!
Since we are both small town girls, we both wanted to try the Metro. Underground train systems just don’t exist on the farms of Nebraska or Idaho! My nephew loaned me his Metro pass and Klo bought a day ticket at the kiosk. As we went through the turnstyles, Klo fed her ticket into the slot, it popped up the other side and the barrier opened. “Easy-peasy,” I thought. “This is just like Disneyland.” I tried to feed the plastic Metro card into the slot. It wouldn’t take it. Oh well, I put it in the wrong way—so I kept flipping it different ways. Nothing worked!!! Klo pointed at the picture of the Metro card on top, so I passed the card over the top thinking it would scan it. Nope! Finally, Klo saw someone just tap the Metro card on the picture. Hooray! It worked. But really? Tap it?? It just didn’t make sense to this country girl at all.
We went to Arlington Cemetary and stumbled upon the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. (No major planning for us, we just winged it and managed to do quite well.) We took a trolley around D.C. and visited the Smithsonian. Our trolley driver was excellent, I think we stayed on a few stops past where we had intended to get off, just to hear his comedy routine! When it was time to head home we took the Metro again and I felt positively ‘metro’ myself when I looked like a local and tapped my card on the picture. (Somehow, I think I ruined the perception by having a red camera swinging from my neck.)
At the hotel we spent some time talking about what we want to teach on the Cruise. With refreshed minds it was very productive! We finished the day by crawling into our jammies early and watching Downton Abbey all night. It was such a great way to spend a day with a very dear friend.
Klo, I hope we do more of this!
~Chris
P.S.—If you have photos of the Chantilly Retreat (or any other retreat) that you want to share, we now have Albums for that! I look forward to seeing all your fun photos.
What a wonderful time I had at the retreat!! Wow! And learned soooooo much.
I’m glad you and Klo were able to get out and enjoy DC. Thanks for all the goodies and info.
LOL! You two look like you are doing a demonstration of “WELD.”
Really enjoyed the Retreat and the physical demos, especially.