What's in your wallet?

Worked half a day and got the hell out of there so I could drive down to Washington DC. H**** has some sort of business related training meeting going on and I decided to share the hotel room and bike some of the local trails. The DC Comfort Inn was an interesting contrast to the Millenicon Ramada experience of last week. Where that hotel had a large room that, while supposedly non-smoking, was not, this hotel was genuinely non-smoking but quite small. The room in Cincinnati cost $70-something a night and the DC room nearly half its size, cost nearly $200. The price you pay for being in the Nation's capital, I suppose.

Valet parking was a usurious $25 a night. I'm glad H****'s employer is footing the bill. To spend a few days down here on my own funds would bankrupt me. If I had to, I would park the car out near Potomac, MD, ride my bike down to the C&O at Great Falls and camp at the Swain's Lock hiker/biker campsite. It would involve riding the bike 20 miles each way into town but at least I'd still have some money for important things like food.

And speaking of food, it can be tough to find a place to eat in the evening. Many of the restaurants are open for breakfast and lunch but not for dinner. The streets don't roll up as badly as they do in Pittsburgh, though. We found a hole-in-the-wall Indian place.

On the walk back, we saw an interesting historical building and I was sure that there was a plaque on the front explaining it's history. I would have learned more than it was where the first transmission of Alexander Graham Bell's photophone occurred were it not for the huge rats loitering about the building. We didn't feel like staying that close to the local fauna and so retreated to the safety of our expensive hotel room.

Basic cable TV in DC sort of sucks.