A Special Day and a Special Birthday!

My first full day in Washington, D.C., actually started in Fairfax, VA, a neighboring town of Alexandria, VA. Kelly and I always make a grocery store run when one of us is visiting the other. We stock up on our favorite snacks and foods that we like to have. She's an organic gal and has different tastes from me, so when she comes to visit me, we stock up on things like pistachios, special energy drinks or exercise fluids, hummus and other healthy things. (Sparky ought to follow Kelly's example more often! suggests E.) Unh-hunh! You should see Eldy's HUMONGOUS popcorn bucket and how much butter he puts on when I'm not around, tee-hee-hee.....At any rate, when I go visit her, we stock up on----(Uh, let me guess, COKE? guesses E.) Yup, got to have my morning Coke for breakfast...No diet Coke for me, either! Maybe some bananas, and not much else comes to mind for my favorite things to eat while visiting. I know we are going to go to some great places to eat while I'm here, so we didn't buy much at the grocery store....

AHHHHHH, the grocery store! This is no ordinary grocery store, this is Wegman's, a specialty grocery store out on the east coast. It's like the Super Target of grocery shopping..An in house restaurant, a mile long food bar selection---just kidding about the mile long, but it was AMAZING! There were rows and rows of food bar selections. They had a complete skin care department with a salesperson available for consulting! A yoga clothing section near the health foods, and a craft beer aisle where you could pick and choose a six pack. Eldo wishes he had been there to check that out, lol!

So far, it doesn't sound all that different from any large grocery chain, but it really was different from anything I've experienced! There was even an entire case devoted to a bazillion kinds of blue cheese. Wegman's is a winner, in my book, just for the blue cheese alone! (Wait till we get to Wisconsin, Sparky is going to go nuts! says E. I'm gonna buy her a Wisconsin "cheesehead"!)  Oh, geez....I don't think so!

And how about this case of mushrooms shown below, all kinds of exotic ones! After Sparky oohing and ahhing over all the cases, we visited one of the food bars and had a delicious meal on the second floor balcony of the store, where we could look over the entire store and watch the shoppers and the "foodies". I always like exploring a new grocery store chain to see what cool and unusual brands they have, this one had lots! It was fun visiting Wegman's today!

On to the National Museum of Crime and Punishment! What a very interesting museum! They had a section in the museum devoted to the "CSI Experience". Sparky LOVES CSI, one of the few TV shows she will watch. They had a crime scene where you had to use your knowledge of what you saw in a potential crime video to solve clues as you walked through the exhibit from the start of the crime right down to the autopsy lab! Just like the TV show!

Want to see Bonnie and Clyde's bullet ridden car? It was there. How about John Wayne Gacy's VW and all the details about how he lured his victims into the car and smashed them with a crowbar and hid them under the rear floorboards? All the gory details were there. How about medieval torture devices like ornate brass knuckle screws? They were there along with  a crime lineup room where you could go into the room and be a part of the lineup, take a mini lie detector test, see all kinds of guns used in crime over the years, try out a shooting range, and check out rooms and rooms of interesting crime characters, absorb all kinds of interesting information about crime, and check out tattoo id's. A tattoo of a schooner on a prisoner meant he was game for an escape attempt. We saw Al Capone's decked out prison cell --which looked like somebody's fancy living room (he bribed his way through the first prison he stayed in), AND we saw the America's Most Wanted studio. Kelly and I had the most fun with that. Adam Walsh, the star of the show does a prerecorded video where America's latest crime perpetrator (that would be you being filmed in a studio) is shown woven into his video. The studio is set up so YOU can appear as "America's Most Wanted" on TV!

Here's Sparky's reaction at getting caught ......

And HE-E-E-E-R-R-E-ES Kelly's reaction to being identified as the latest "America's Most Wanted" perpetrator! We tried to do some serious "mug" shot faces, but cracked up laughing.....

And perhaps you were wondering about how to know if there's a serial killer on the loose in your neighborhood?  Here's how the police determine.....

I thought it was VERY interesting that 85% of serial killers are located in the U.S.! Geez, what does THAT say about our country????????

Here's a quote from a bank robber, definitely a different breed of person.....

On to more pleasant things...a wonderful dinner at Founding Farmers Restaurant in Washington, D.C. for Kelly's birthday this evening. Everything was organic, freshly prepared, made from scratch and ingredients obtained from local farms in the eastern seaboard area. Wow! What a dinner! This is not a place you go expecting to eat cheaply, but it's a very special place for a very special occasion, and well worth it. The food was elegantly and expertly prepared. We had a fabulous dinner and a wonderful time celebrating Kelly's birthday.....See you tomorrow at some of the local places in Alexandria, Virginia with a special guest along with Kelly and Sparky!