Day Eleven: Bridesmaids, Lantern, National Archives and Home

For those of you that have seen the movie Bridesmaids, the next thing that happened on our trip was the scene where the girls went to pick out their dresses. If you haven't seen the movie, and want to know what I'm talking about, you can watch the scene here. Warning: Small amount of profanity. By-the-way I love, love, love that movie ... but I'm having second thoughts after living it!

The previous night was pretty mellow. I thought it was a little weird that I fell asleep at 8:00pm, but just six hours later I found out why ... I was sick. Sicker than a dog actually. Trust me, it was the scene from Bridesmaids all over again. I felt horrible.

Let me remind you, we were staying in a Hostel. We had a room to ourselves, but we shared a bathroom with four other people. What a nightmare. Our room had an electronic key entry, so every time I had to go to the bathroom I would leave the door ajar as it took too long to open the door and my brain wasn't functioning enough to remember the code. However, it turned out Scott was getting up throughout the night as well, would see the door ajar, and get up to lock it once again (along with closing the chain lock!).  He was thinking someone knew our code and was sneaking in our room. I was so sick I didn't have the energy to wake him up and ask him to stop touching the lock!!!! You couldn't make this stuff up people ...

Despite my lack of movement Sunday morning, Scott and the girls rallied. After finding me a bed to sleep in for the day they were off to check out the Washington sites one last day. They began at the 300 year-old Japanese stone lantern that was given to the City of Washington, to commemorate the Cherry Blossom Festival. After taking a couple pictures for me, Paradis said to Scott, "Look Dad, the darn thing isn't even lit!" Scott tells me the rain and hail was pelting down so hard it didn't have a chance!

Isn't he sweet?

Scott said the hail hurt his bald head so badly he had to put a Ziploc bag on it! No lie.

While telling me stories from the day, Scott says he got tears in his eyes when he told the girls, "I really want to see Lincoln's Monument. Do you mind if we stop there?" The girls were troopers, and agreed to walk through the rain and cold!

They hailed a taxi (for us frugal travelers only sleet and snow would allow such an expense), and went to the National Archives. Scott says the girls could have stayed another two hours, but they had to return to pick up the invalid.

All I had done for the day was sleep, run to the bathroom, and sleep. I attempted a shower, but laid in bed completely naked for an hour afterwards because it had wore me out so much I couldn't even get dressed. Whatever illness I had, took over my body, and I was having huge doubts I could get on the plane to fly home that evening. But my traveling partners carried all the bags, and I took a lot of short breaths to hold back the vomit, as we boarded the Metro one last time for the airport. Once there, we got a wheelchair, and I made it to the gate.

I slept most of the flight (thank goodness), except for several trips to the bathroom! My friend Lesley picked us up (I would have hugged her, but I'm sure she would have been scared to come near me), and I crawled into my favorite bed ... I made it!