I left Utah and had a blast on the drive.
The drive was nice, but there was way too much wind. It really made the drive semi-frustrating. I passed a terrible wreck and even saw them life flight the person out. I actually got blown into a construction cone, which thank goodness only hit my mirror.
Now, I had an interesting experience the week before I left. They say the pen is mightier than the sword, and I really believe they are right! I washed my clothes (as is a good thing to do...at least once a semester) and promptly put them into the dryer. When I started folding after, things just seemed really sticky...with something that was getting on my hands. What was it? Pen ink! I had missed one pen and thus ruined 90% of my clothes! :-) I bought some hairspray and spent a few hours trying to clean out the mess, but it was to no avail. My clothing was surrendered to the angry pen god.
So, after getting back to CA, I spent some time getting new clothes so I didn't have to walk around DC naked. My parents and I got to go to Wicked in San Francisco (which was AMAZING!!!), and then after some final prep I was on my way to the east coast!
I flew from SFO to Richmond, Virginia (after a brief layover in Chicago), and then stayed with my sister and her family for the night. Then, Saturday evening I took an Amtrak train (which was an hour late)
to Washington, DC. THEN, I took my two bags (one buckled on top of the other one like so) 
and found the DC Metro system, nearly got swindled by a guy who was trying to sell me a train ticket (I only would have lost $5 or $10...not bad..but I didn't fall for it!), got on the metro, transferred to a different train (remember this is all with baggage), found the right stop, and then started walking to my new home. I did make a wrong turn...The metro lets you off right at a roundabout and the signs aren't the easiest to read--so I started heading the wrong direction! But I caught on really fast so I was only 5 or so minutes behind. I found my apartment, but for some reason they thought I wasn't coming until Sunday night. Weird! But I got my key and got all checked in. It was glorious :-)Over the next few days we went around to see a lot of the museums and sights. To start everything off was of course, the White House!
We even saw Obama....land in Marine One.
From a a distance, but nonetheless. There were actually three idential choppers that came in. The first two came in a swopped off as in fake landings. Interesting all the protective measures. We saw his chopper descend into the trees :-)More coming because I've only gotten through Sunday the 30th! , but thats all for now!
