Sunday, June 3, 2018: Christine texted me and woke me up at 8:30. I am still getting used to the time change, I guess. She was heading out to meet me at the hotel in a while and wanted to make sure which hotel so she didn’t make my same mistake. I got my coffee and some fruit and yogurt and waited for her to arrive.

We had decided to go into Old Alexandria. It is about 40 miles from the hotel. Christine drove thru the traffic and pouring down rain. It was an awful drive and took at least an hour. We parked in a garage and went out into the rain. Luckily, her mother had two umbrellas and sent one for me.

We walked about a block and a free trolley pulled up next to us so we hopped on and drove the length of King Street. It is where most of the shops, restaurants, and other things are located in Old Town.

In the distance we could see the George Washington Masonic Memorial. Christine is a big GW fan so we decided to get off the trolley and go there. After climbing a bazillion steps up to it we were just in time to go to the bathroom and get in on a tour.

George Washington Masonic Memorial – you can see how wet it was on the sidewalk. There were rivers running down it.

George wearing his Masonic apronGW laying the cornerstone of the United States CapitolThe view from the top but it was raining so hard that part of the observation deck was flooded and they had us leave our umbrellas at the door, so I took a picture of the monitor, lol.

We learned more about Freemasons than George, but it was interesting and we were taken all the way to the top.

We hopped back on the trolley and went back down King St looking for someplace to eat. The Mediterranean restaurant that looked good was winding down their Sunday brunch so we didn’t want to pay $21 for old, cold eggs and left.

We checked out a couple other places and ended up in Murphy’s Irish Bar. After a artichoke and spinach dip and a Rueben (me) and vegetarian burger (Christine), we went on down the street.

Murhpy’s Irish Bar – I didn’t notice until we were done, but they had $1 champagnes for Sunday Brunch. It was after 3:00 but we still saw people drinking it.

The rain had slowed down to what we would call showers in the Great Pacific Northwest so it wasn’t too bad. We went into a couple of shops then to the Stabler-Leadbetter Apothecary Museum. Having spent so many years working in pharmacy, it was interesting to see. I guess the family owned it from the late 1700’s until around 1933 when they just left. And I mean they left everything. There were still old herbs in the ‘compounding’ room drawers, books, a pill roller, and all kinds of interesting things.

Ye Old Apothecary Shoppe

We were right back at the parking garage so we hopped in the car and headed back to the hotel. The rain and traffic didn’t seem as bad.

We sat around for a couple of hours watching Property Brothers, which I had never seen before, then decided to head out for drinks, food, and the Cavalier/Golden State Game. We went to Uncle Julio’s Mexican from Scratch. We sat at the bar and had a good bartender. He fixed us a couple of margaritas and we ordered carnitas tacos (me) and grilled vegetable fajitas (Christine.) They were both very good. The Cavaliers, however, were not. Luckily, we were taking Lyft back and forth so didn’t have to worry about drinking and driving or navigating the unfamiliar terrain.

The bar at Uncle Julio’s

We got back to the hotel and finished watching the Golden State Warriors stomp all over the Cavaliers, then went to bed.

It was a good day even with getting our tired feet soaked.