Charles and Chandra: The Second Trip to the East Coast in May 2011

10 days after we got back from the cruise, we left again! This time, to Charles' homeland... good ole' Gambrills, Maryland. It was crazy how it worked out... his mom called and asked us if we could possibly surprise his little brother, Lewis, by showing up at his high school graduation. I just happened to have 3 days in a row off, one of which was the graduation date. Perfect.

Day 1: After working a night shift, we jumped right on a plane and got to Maryland around 11:30 PM. We spent the night in a hotel in Bowie, MD right across the street where from Charles worked as a technician at Saturn. He cried a little inside as he saw that it had changed to Honda. :-(   We didn't have a car, so we had to WALK through a Wendy's DRIVE-THRU for dinner. Pretty funny. They were going to deny us service for safety reasons, but then decided to help us since we looked nearly-dead from the long day. Apparently, we are more likely to shoot them if we are walking, instead of driving? Whatever.

Day 2: The next morning, Cora (his sis) picked us up and we went to the graduation. Arundel High School wanted to show off their new football field and so that's where the graduation was. Only problem? It was 95 degrees and extremely humid. The old people were dropping like flies. Good thing there were ambulances stocked with plenty of IV fluids standing by...

It was awesome to see Lewis walk, and his whole family was just so proud of him for going back and finishing high school (he is a couple years late!). After, we ate out at a sushi Chinese buffet. Not my favorite. I found a nice garden salad and desserts I liked though. haha.  For the rest of the day, we just hung out at their house and caught up on everyone's lives.  We finished the night by going to see "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides."  Movies definitely cost a lot more in Maryland; I will never complain here again!

Day 3: Charles, Lewis, their mom and I all rode the Metro into D.C. We spent a lot of time in the Smithsonian and saw some pretty cool things I had only heard about in history classes. Then we went to the Holocaust Museum and this was extremely humbling. I am so grateful I have never been persecuted because of my beliefs. What they went through was horrendous and totally unnecessary.  That's all we had time for, so we took the Metro back to where his dad picked us up. Glad we got to see more of D.C. 2 years ago.

2 things I hated about this day: The Metro makes you pay an EXIT fee. WTH?!  After you get off the train, you cannot get out of the station until you pay more money! Wow, I love Front Runner. Also, people are so incredibly rude there! We were waiting in a line of cars and someone wanted to get into the line in front of us. His dad, being the nice guy he is, stopped and waited for the car to pull into the line.  The car behind us started honking and the lady started screaming at us to "Move the f*** up, you d*** idiot!" Yep. We were not in Utah anymore.

We ended the night by being totally whooped by his mom in Scrabble.

Day 4: We slept in, and I think I finally got caught up on sleep. We hung out with his dad, picked his mom up at work, and got yelled at by the National Security Agency for not going to the correct pick-up point. They said what we were doing "looked awfully suspicious." We were sitting at the corner, waiting. Yes, suspicious indeed. Anyway, then we drove around for 2 hours, looking for the Ronald Reagan D.C. Airport. We usually use the Baltimore International Airport, but we saved $200 by using the D.C. airport. I understand why now... we used $200 in gas trying to find it!

All in all, a quick, but fun trip to visit the inlaws. Each time I go, I'm even more grateful to live in Utah!

Here are some pics!