Monumental decisions

Hello, fellow Monday dwellers. I'm back after a nice long holiday weekend, and I already know that this week is going to feel twice as long as it actually is. That's ok, and I'll gladly accept that negative byproduct of the holiday-shortened workweek. I know a good deal when I see one. So, this is my last full week of UOPTA posts (if that's news to you, check out Thursday's post), and I have a couple of items still on my Sheet O' Potential Topics. Here's one that I hope you enjoy:

My lovely wife and I are fond of traveling, and we've gone on some wonderful trips throughout our years together. We know each other very well, so we've gotten into some patterns as time has passed. For example, whenever we're going anywhere out of our normal vicinity, it's understood that I'm driving and she's navigating. I'm horrible - absolutely horrible - with directions, so that makes a hell of a lot more sense than the other way around. It's not even discussed anymore but rather just rightfully assumed. When it comes to plotting our way to a destination in a foreign city, I just follow her instructions. At the end of the day, she may point to a map and say, "This is where we went today." Aside from that though, I'm just literally a lost cause.

When it comes to planning what activities we'd like to do, we're both very active in that decision-making process. Not to get too mushy, but it's really wonderful to see how well we work together in that regard. We'll state our preferences and then each instinctively try to find a way to incorporate the other's desires into the plans. "Well, is that museum anywhere near that monument? If so, we can do both of those that day," I might say. "No, those are four hours away from each other," she might reply. In any case, the point of today's post isn't about how perfectly suited my wife and I are, but rather about a blunder we made. Oh sure, now you're interested.

A year and a half ago, we visited our friends who lived in Washington D.C. for a few days before attending a wedding in Virginia. Before the trip, we did our usual chat about the places we wanted to see while we were there. We agreed on pretty much everything, except I was particularly vocal about wanting to visit the FDR memorial that hadn't existed when I was last in the District.

When we got there, we made our way down to the heart of the city. We went to some great museums, some mediocre museums, and saw a lot of the monuments we wanted to. When we were almost done with everything, I reminded Amber about my desire to see Roosevelt's memorial as well. I had the map in my hand (even though that's never a good idea), and I pointed to the Roosevelt memorial. "That's weird," she said, "I thought it was somewhere else for some reason. That's ok, if we go to the Vietnam memorial and then the Lincoln one, those will be on the way to the Roosevelt. Then we'll head back, ok?" Sounded great to me.

And so we walked to the two stopping points before continuing on to our only four-termer's monument. We consulted the map again and embarked on what seemed like just a little walk. Our first problem came up right away when our path abruptly ended. We crossed some grass and found another path that looked like it would lead to the main road we were supposed to take. At this point, we're both already sweating and openly wondering if this would be a better idea for our final visit the next day. "Nah, we're probably almost there," I said.

Amber got us to the road, but it turned out to be less of a road and more of a highway/bridge. We re-consulted the map, and it looked to be not only the right way, but the only way to get from where we were to where we wanted to be. We pushed on, and it was probably thirty seconds later that we saw the "No Pedestrians" sign. "Should we keep going?" "I guess...it's not very far." So we did. (If this happened today instead of back then, I would've made a comment about how you can't spell "pedestrian" without Peter. I just thought you'd like to know that.) Sweating like pigs, we walked along the shoulder some more waiting for our exit to arrive.

After trudging on several hundred more feet, depleting our water supply, and fully acknowledging that we were idiots, we saw another sign: "Welcome to Virginia." "Um, we just crossed state lines. I hope that's legal," I said. Then, finally, we saw where we wanted to go. We hurried (as best we could) down the ramp and to a main street. Our first order of business was to get cold drinks the first place we could (and hopefully dry some of the nastiness we accrued on our journey). We found a Baja Fresh and got their largest iced tea. We took turns chugging it and talking about how good it was for about five minutes before Amber brought the map out again.

And then I saw it. "Oh fuck!" "What?" I pointed at the small words on the map near our destination: "Theodore Roosevelt Memorial." Yeah folks, that's the wrong Roosevelt. We braved the perils of interstate foot travel for the wrong memorial. We spent the next several minutes berating ourselves for our idiocy and talking about how we could've been cuddled up on a couch instead of sweating profusely in Virginia.

We surveyed our options, and unanimously concluded that even though we were right there, we didn't want to see Teddy's memorial. We had never wanted to see it in the first place, so proximity didn't play a large factor. Instead, we found the nearest metro station and took it to the closest one to our friends' apartment. Every minute or so, we'd look at each other and shake our heads, unable to believe what we had just erroneously done. Amber showed me where FDR's memorial was on the map and how much easier it would've been for us to get there, and that just made us more upset with ourselves.

The good news is that we made it back, rested, and eventually started laughing at our thousands of missteps. We went to FDR's memorial the next day and it was very impressive. Of course, we came from the wrong direction and saw his presidency from term 4 to 1 instead of the correct way, but it was still very deserving of a trip.

So there you go - our perfected science of sightseeing on vacation was compromised. Ah, when smart people go dumb. It's ok, we just double- and triple-check the names of our destinations now. If that saves us from anything remotely like that error, it's well worth the extra seconds.

That's it for now. I'd love to hear any of your stories of vacation errors if you're feeling bold, so email ptklein@gmail.com and we can laugh at ourselves together. Have a great beginning to this long-ass week, and I'll see you back here tomorrow.