12:36 pm PST, 3:36 EST, June 29

It has been some time since my last post, so I will summarize the last week quickly. Abby and I went up to North Bay on the Ontario Northland Railway and stayed there for a few days with my aunt Audrey. It was not exciting, merely relaxing, the type of time off everyone needs to take.

Follow up:

We took the train back down to Toronto yesterday and wandered around the town after arriving. It was gay pride weekend, which was pretty awesome. Our hotel was only a few blocks from Toronto's gay village, so we walked through the dense crowd of butches, thong-wearing dudes and loud dance music (plus a naked Elvis). It was insane how many people were there. The news the following morning said one million people had been at that days festivities. If statistics from my high school psychology book are to be believed, that would mean 2 out of 3 gay Canadians were there (assuming no strait people went, but obviously we were there so you can consider that number dubious).

After that, we went and saw the Ontario capitol building and I went off in the rain to see Maple Leaf Gardens myself. It isn't as run down as I thought it would be, but I am still disappointed that it is still unused.

We are now on the train down to NYC, where we will connect with another train to Boston. We coincidentally reconnected with Erika on the train down and chatted about her time in Toronto. It was good to see her again.

7:16 am PST, 10:16 EST July 2

It's been two amazing days in Boston.

We arrived in the early morning of the 30th, and due to a long, late night at New York's Penn Station, we decided to head strait to our hotel for a quick breather and drop off our luggage. We took the subway down there, which was an inspiring experience for me. I can't wait until Seattle has such efficient and speedy mass transit (which will probably be about 2030 if the politicians stay just behind schedule like they are supposed to). It was foggy and cold out, so we removed our summer clothes for jeans and hoodies.

We then took it back up to see the northernmost sight on our Boston tour, the Bunker Hill monument. This tower marks the spot of the first major battle of the American Revolution, where the British attacked an American fort here. The tower itself includes a 300-step staircase up to a small observation point at the top. I didn't really know what I was getting into when I got in there. By the 100th step, my legs were burning like they never had and I was gasping for air.

From there we discovered a red line painted on the road and of red bricks in the sidewalk. This was the “Freedom Trail”, a path that would take us to most of the major historical landmarks in Boston. We followed it to the USS Constitution, one of the US Navy's first ships, and took in some great pro-navy propaganda while on “old ironsides”.

From there we followed the path down through old Boston, navigating the confusing street layout to see the church where Paul Revere put the lanterns that warned of the British soldiers approach, his house, Boston Common, the graves of John Hancock, Revere, and Sam Adams and numerous other sites. We were surrounded by patriotic imagery and gift shops at every location.

After a long day of exploring, we ate a disappointing and overpriced lobster dinner. I stole a roll from them, which wasn't worth it because it was stale anyway.

Abby wanted to see the Atlantic Ocean, so the next morning (Canada Day) we took the subway out to it's northern terminus, next to a beach the looked out at nothing but ocean until you got to Spain. We took it back into Boston and out to Cambridge where we wandered around the campus of Harvard.

I could tell the designers of Western's north lawn were inspired by the Harvard Yard, the old part of the school with a wide lawn with rows of trees and buildings around it.

It was about then that it started raining (along with some thunder and lightning) and it hasn't stopped since. I wanted to see the Boston Public Library, the largest public library in the US, so we took the subway there and explored it. The rain was getting worse and worse as we left. A piece of me wanted to head back to the hotel, but Abby called me a wuss and peer pressured me to keep going. We bought an umbrella and followed a red line back up into Boston through the Common up to the Old State House (where the government of Massachusetts was housed in revolutionary days; it's smaller than my parent's house) where we caught the subway back to the hotel.

Today we are taking the train down to Washington DC to get out of the rain and back into some decent summer weather and to experience the 4th of July in our nation's capital.

1:32 pm PST, 4:32 EST July 5

The moment Abby and I got into Washington DC, the sky started falling. It was a lucky thing we bought that umbrella in Boston.

At first we thought we would tough out the rain and walk to our hotel, but this wasn't a good idea. The rain was intense and by the time we found a nook in the doorway of a locked government building to hide from it our luggage was soaked through.

Before that, just as we were boarding on the train to DC I discovered that I didn't have my video camera. After calling every train station in the northeast and checking the Craigslists in each area too, I've pretty much resigned it to being lost. I am sure I left it on the train in New York, and someone cleaning the train discovered it and decided not to turn it in. That or the next passenger to sit there the next morning did the same.

To whoever you are, I hope you like your new camera with no power cord and a half-charged battery.

So needless to say, that wasn't the best day I've ever had. But things were looking up the next day.

We weren't able to get into the White House or the House and Senate Chambers due to too many people and the holiday weekend respectively, but we were able to do everything else. I got my picture taken in front of the White House, the typical tourist shot. On our way to a tour of the Capitol, traffic was stopped all around so that Obama's motorcade could drive past. I guess they don't want to ever have to stop for traffic. I think I saw Obama through the glass of one of the two identical limousines. Either that or it was some other black guy with a baseball cap, but I am going to say it was him.

The first full day we were there we took a tour around the Capitol, walked around the Library of Congress, walked around and ate lunch at the National Museum of the American Indian, and saw the Air and Space Museum and the Museum of American History.

American Indian was an eye-opening experience. Most Native American museums or cultural experiences I have been exposed to tried to teach me about their past. This one focused on the present. How do natives live today? The thing that stuck out the most was the exhibition of Native American skate board art, complete with a ramp in the lobby with a dozen or so young native kids showing off their board skills.

At first I was thinking “What does this have anything to do with Native Americans?” I realized it has everything to do with what they are today: a people creating a new identity that mixes the old one they once had and their new identity as one of many distinct cultures within the United States of America.

We rushed through Air and Space. I just wanted to see artifacts of the space race and the Wright Flyer, and Abby was simply indulging me and I think she was bored out of her mind the entire time. In any case, I got my picture taken with the Apollo 11 capsule, touched a piece of Moon rock and explored the living quarters of Skylab. I had my nerdgasm and was satisfied.

American History was full of old artifacts. Most memorable were Lincoln's top hat and death mask. The man was huge. As we were exploring WWII propaganda posters, a guard came through and ordered our asses out of the museum, as it was closing time. Ben Stiller would arrive any minute and the exhibits would come alive, and the Smithsonian didn't want to be liable for any resulting injuries.

From there we walked down the mall to the Washington Memorial. We saw a few war memorials and got our picture taken with Abe Lincoln.

All this walking (combined with all the walking we did in Boston) has taken its toll on my feet and knees. By the end of July 3rd I was hobbling a bit. By the end of the next day walking for any long stretch of time of time was painful. At least I will be sitting down on a train for the next two days or so, giving my body some time to repair itself.

July 4th in DC was a madhouse. We should have known this at breakfast. Our hotel's breakfast room was packed like sardines. There wasn't a single place to sit and it took ten minutes just to take the elevator back upstairs.

We went to the Archives to see the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence and had to wait in line for more than an hour. Still it was worth it to stand next to history like that (“Oh, just like the movie National Treasure, donchaknow!” - Sarah Palin).

Of the three, only the text of the Constitution is still legible. I actually read a bit of article two out loud from the pages of the thing itself. The headings of the other two still are, but the actual text is faded such that they almost look like blank pieces of paper. Perhaps this is some kind of Dick Cheney black magic: without the magical legibility of the Bill of Rights, what will protect our freedoms?

Then again, someone threw red paint on the Canadian Constitution. That's way bigger bad juju than natural aging and they are doing fine.

I bought some copies of the documents in the gift shop. I'll hang them up on my wall soon, but after buying them we sat in the mall and I read them to myself. That and a book I am reading about the founding of a new government on Mars inspired me to do a bit of constitutional design myself. Maybe I will post it here if I ever finish it.

We saw a bit of the 4th of July parade and went to the Museum of African Art. We moved on the the Museum of Natural History, which was a complete mad house. Every step we took was like navigating a mine field of children screaming “I want to see a dinosaur!”

It was great finally getting to see real dinosaur bones up close, but they were disappointingly small. Either the skeletons on display there are juveniles or Jurassic Park seriously overplayed the size of dinosaurs. Their T-rex isn't all that much bigger than their elephant, totally unable to eat lawyers in a single bite. The stegosaurus is more the size of a rhino than a house. Their largest skeleton, a sauropod labeled as the longest dinosaur ever, didn't really feel half as big as anything I had seen in TV or movies.

Just goes to show you: TV and movies do not a science education make.

We went and rested at the hotel for a bit before venturing back to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to save a spot to watch the fireworks over the Washington Monument. Besides the crowd and the screaming children, it left me speechless. The finale was so intense that the sound waves generated a wind that blew past us. If you ever want to explain sound to a deaf person, take them to see Fourth of July fireworks at the National Mall. You don't need ears to hear it; you can feel the sound in your bones, in your hair, and in your butt on the hard stone of the Lincoln Memorial.

I'm now on a train in West Virginia headed to Chicago and then Denver to go camping with Kim. Perhaps I will actually post something online before I get back to Seattle!