The 2014 Tour of Dead People in American History

Last fall I was talking to my mom about taking an adventure and since it was our first ever solo expedition together, I told her to pick wherever she wanted to go in the entire world.

She picked Washington, D.C.

I have a running list of dream places on Pinterest. Washington, D.C., was never ever considered for that list. But the point of this trip was to do something fun with my mom, to visit one of her dream places, so in June, we made the journey to the nation's capital/went on a quest to steal Barack from Michelle and have him for ourselves.

Here we're trying to figure out who makes the cutest couple.

I had been to D.C. two times before, once with Mack a few years ago and once with my 5th grade class when we took a whirlwind 1-day tour of the city and its sites. I still remember that trip and everything we saw and did, and I figured if it stuck with me this long, it must be worth seeing again. I emailed my Congressman and submitted our info to get us cleared for a tour of the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Kennedy Center. Also on my radar was the Ford Theater, the Washington Mall (which includes, of course, the Lincoln Memorial, my favorite place in D.C.), and the Arlington Cemetery.

The first day we got there, the airline conveniently lost my mom's luggage, which meant that our afternoon was a little sabotaged waiting for a delivery. We managed to find a place to eat, the Woodward Table, where we ate the most delicious French Fries ever made and had sauteed greens made with walnuts and raisins that were out of this world. My mom and I like to cook together, but more than that we like to eat together. The Woodward Table got our vacation started off right. With a full belly I climbed into bed next to my momma and slept for the first time in like 40 hours.

Our first touristy spot, and the one that put the taste of dead in our mouths, was the White House. We, along with 75 of our closest strangers, lined up and got screened five times to get access to five rooms of the White House. There was the yellow room with the big tall ceilings, which is where the dead bodies of Lincoln and JFK were showcased after their assassinations, then the green room, which is where they place all the gold eagle-adorned knick knacks they've bought over the years, then the blue room, which is roundish, then the red room, which is, you'll never guess, red, and then the giant dining room. We saw portraits of all the first ladies and presidents and got kind of excited that maybe Hillary Clinton will be the first woman to have one of each.

Dammit, Barack, we came to your house to see you and YOU WEREN'T EVEN THERE. How will we ever get our marriage proposal to you now??

It was perfect weather, so we decided to spend the rest of the day walking the National Mall. We saw the Lincoln Memorial of my favorite dead president, the World War II Memorial, the Reflecting Pool/Forrest Gump Memorial, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Then our feet died because we'd worn cute shoes for Barack which were bad shoes for walking thousands of miles on concrete so we went home.

As we walked around the city, it seemed like we encountered a dead person or genocided culture every where we went. The National Museum of the American Indian - we gave you smallpox blankets for your babies and herded you along a trail so we could steal your home, but here's a place for your canoes and bedazzled Chuck Taylors. Never forget.

It was kind of hard to be jolly around all this dead and memorializing, so we ate good food and shopped to break it up.

Salmon Eggs Benedict and Crabcake Eggs Benedict. Dead chicken fetuses to help us forget the dead humans. Also, a Bloody Mary to drown out all the bloodshed. (Thanks, Cedar.)

We also had a break from the dead to explore the house of the might-as-well-be-dead: the Capitol. We got in a line with 75 of our closest strangers, donned headsets, and were herded like Native Americans on a death march through rooms with domed ceilings. Luckily, our guide was uber sassy and smart ass, so Mom and I got a good laugh on this otherwise mundane tour of the place where our elected officials do nothing but waste money and time. 

Debra Hensley for Congress. That woman will whip them into shape with a stick ;)

To recover from the display of American waste, we took a taxi to Georgetown to explore. First stop was frozen goodness at Thomas Sweet, where I downed some cinnamon ice cream and mom restrained herself and ate frozen yogurt. Then we got some way overpriced shorts that show my butt fold if I bend over but that are really cute otherwise. (With these legs, when I find something cute on them, I buy it.) We had a fashion show in some consignment shops, and even though we didn't score any treasures, we scored huge laughs revealing terrible outfits to one another and doing bad dressing room dances that really make the clothes look awful. Mom's tea addiction kicked in, so we stopped for iced tea and a beer before making our way back to our neighborhood to find a place for dinner.

And then, I got my mom to eat octopus. When Shannon came to visit last summer, we ate octopus for the first time together and it was delicious, almost like pork. Our version was cut up and served with beans, so it was a little easier to get over the fact that it was octopus, but the version Mom and I had was full-on octopus in all its tentacles-with-suction-cups glory.

A little offering from the ocean at Mourayo.

Going for it!

The last couple days of our trip the weather decided to give me a full summer 100% humidity, temps in the 90s experience. We got up early one morning to go to Arlington Cemetery, but by the time we made it to JFK's grave site and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, I was so hot I took my shoes off and cooled my feet on the marble steps. I didn't care about these fields of dead people, anonymous or not, because I was about to become one of them. Oh, did I mention it was only like 10:30 am? It's kinda hard to be reflective at a grave site with an eternal flame when you're being burned alive by the sun.

Look how excited Mom is to look at dead people in 1000-degree temperatures!

Hey Congress. Read this, assholes.

This sign almost read Place Where Amber Died of Heatstroke, with an arrow pointing downward.

The heat made us go inside, which meant museums and shopping malls. We toured the Ford Theater, which is so different than when I visited there 25 years ago. Like there's technology now. And the street is lined with giant tour buses. And the 75 of my closest strangers that I waited in line with are gaa-gaa for taking selfies in front of the theater box where Lincoln got his brains blown out. And the Peterson House across the street, where I remember seeing a bloody pillow on a tiny bed after going through an entrance to a basement below a Burger King, is now a full fledged museum, with four floors and a gift shop and an amazing tower of books all written about my favorite president.

We also went to the Holocaust Museum, which, although it was the most epic death downer of the entire Tour of Dead People in American History, was fascinating. The tour starts with you getting a pamphlet of an actual Jew's story, and as you go through the museum, you refer back to your story for updates on that person's experience. At the end, you find out if your person died or not. There is no hope. Your person is dead.

Along the way you get to step into train cars that took people to concentration camps and see miniature replicas of gas chambers, complete with people clamoring for their lives. One particularly unsettling thing was a paved road that was cast from a road in Europe built during the war. It was built using headstones from Jewish cemeteries, and you can read parts of the names on some of the "cobblestones." It made me sick. It's not enough that you capture people and enslave them and starve them and slowly kill them, but then to demolish their sacred places and turn a person's last remaining presence in the living world into a building block for a road? What kind of monster does that? There was also an installation of shoes taken from dead Jews that kind of blew my mind. Of all the dead people memorial tours in D.C., this one was definitely the best... and worst.

At our last supper, I asked Mom where she wanted to go for our next trip, and she said I could pick. I warned her that most of my dream destinations are a pain in the ass to get to, pretty uncomfortable to be in, and change the way you see the world. With that, I lost the picking privilege, but that's okay. Wherever we go, as long as I can cuddle up next to my momma with a full belly, I'll be in a dream destination.