Summer adventure
Friday night gbcrush and I left the house after work to drive up to the DC area for the weekend. We had tickets to see Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance at the Wolf Trap Park for the Preforming Arts on Saturday night. As we drove north, we started to see a bit of lightning in the distance, just north of Richmond. It having been over a hundred degrees for much of the day, neither of us was surprised to see a thunderstorm finally make an appearance.
Then we found the storm front. At first, there were just HUGE gusts of wind that threatened to blow our car out of the lane. Then we started to see chain lightning (awesome!). There was still almost no thunder at this point, which we though odd. Next we found the rain. Lots and LOTS of rain! So, here we are driving north on I-95 in the dark. It's pouring rain and gusting wind. Then we start to come across the downed trees. That is, trees that have fallen down ACROSS I-95. We encountered at least four trees down across the highway between Ashland and Fredericksburg. Thankfully, they were all only blocking the left two lanes so the right lane could still get by. Additional thanks for the fact that the highway had signs up warning about lane "blockages" for most of the trees.
Of course, even after midnight during a powerful storm, there is traffic on I-95. And when you make that traffic go from three lanes to one, you get bottleneck backups. So, we didn't make it to our hotel in Tysons until 2:30AM. By then, the storm had passed. When we got to the hotel, we found out that they were running on a generator and that most of the area had no power.
In the morning we found out just how big and powerful that storm had been. Apparently, it was something called a derecho. It had covered West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, DC and parts of Pennsylvania. All at once. Millions were without power in the DC area alone.
We decided to leave the hotel in search of breakfast. Our first attempt was the Silver Diner. When we saw that the line was way out the door, we didn't even attempt to find out how long the wait was. So, we walked across the parking lot to Dunkin Donuts. They also had a line out the door, but at least it was moving! It looked like they were running on a generator, but 45 minutes later we had acquired our donuts, juice, and milk. We then took the only logical next step. We went to the mall.
Tysons was also running on a generator (or several), but many of the stores could not take credit cards. As soon as we found that out, we got cash from an ATM. For the rest of our time at the mall, we saw people at almost every outlet charging their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. It is very funny to see fully grown adults competing for a place to sit on the floor so they can charge their devices (GB took pictures).
As we were eating lunch at Gordon Biersch, we started to hear the wait staff say something about the water pressure, or even a water main break in the area. Never quite got the whole story on that, but the restaurant started to turn people away. During lunch rush on a Saturday! They also closed their bathrooms. That's when we decided to see if we could find one at an anchor store that still worked. We did, but decided not to stay at the mall much longer. We headed back to the room for a rest before the show.
However, at this point, I was starting to get worried that they might cancel the performance. We asked at the front desk of the hotel. They checked the website for us (no update) and tried to call, but couldn't get through. They told us that Friday night's performance had been cancelled after the first act. Now I was really worried. About an hour later, GB was able to find an update on their website, at about the same time they sent me an e-mail. The show got cancelled. Tickets refunded automatically.
I'm still very disappointed about this. I understand, but I've been looking for a performance of Pirates of Penzance to take GB to almost since we started dating. Over seven years ago. This would have been a particularly good one as this was the Gilbert and Sullivan Players.
We ended up having a late dinner at McCormick & Schmick's and then heading back to the hotel. We had breakfast at the hotel on Sunday (tasty, but VERY overpriced) and then got on the road home. We made it back around 4, after driving through another, much smaller, thunderstorm.
Then we found the storm front. At first, there were just HUGE gusts of wind that threatened to blow our car out of the lane. Then we started to see chain lightning (awesome!). There was still almost no thunder at this point, which we though odd. Next we found the rain. Lots and LOTS of rain! So, here we are driving north on I-95 in the dark. It's pouring rain and gusting wind. Then we start to come across the downed trees. That is, trees that have fallen down ACROSS I-95. We encountered at least four trees down across the highway between Ashland and Fredericksburg. Thankfully, they were all only blocking the left two lanes so the right lane could still get by. Additional thanks for the fact that the highway had signs up warning about lane "blockages" for most of the trees.
Of course, even after midnight during a powerful storm, there is traffic on I-95. And when you make that traffic go from three lanes to one, you get bottleneck backups. So, we didn't make it to our hotel in Tysons until 2:30AM. By then, the storm had passed. When we got to the hotel, we found out that they were running on a generator and that most of the area had no power.
In the morning we found out just how big and powerful that storm had been. Apparently, it was something called a derecho. It had covered West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, DC and parts of Pennsylvania. All at once. Millions were without power in the DC area alone.
We decided to leave the hotel in search of breakfast. Our first attempt was the Silver Diner. When we saw that the line was way out the door, we didn't even attempt to find out how long the wait was. So, we walked across the parking lot to Dunkin Donuts. They also had a line out the door, but at least it was moving! It looked like they were running on a generator, but 45 minutes later we had acquired our donuts, juice, and milk. We then took the only logical next step. We went to the mall.
Tysons was also running on a generator (or several), but many of the stores could not take credit cards. As soon as we found that out, we got cash from an ATM. For the rest of our time at the mall, we saw people at almost every outlet charging their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. It is very funny to see fully grown adults competing for a place to sit on the floor so they can charge their devices (GB took pictures).
As we were eating lunch at Gordon Biersch, we started to hear the wait staff say something about the water pressure, or even a water main break in the area. Never quite got the whole story on that, but the restaurant started to turn people away. During lunch rush on a Saturday! They also closed their bathrooms. That's when we decided to see if we could find one at an anchor store that still worked. We did, but decided not to stay at the mall much longer. We headed back to the room for a rest before the show.
However, at this point, I was starting to get worried that they might cancel the performance. We asked at the front desk of the hotel. They checked the website for us (no update) and tried to call, but couldn't get through. They told us that Friday night's performance had been cancelled after the first act. Now I was really worried. About an hour later, GB was able to find an update on their website, at about the same time they sent me an e-mail. The show got cancelled. Tickets refunded automatically.
I'm still very disappointed about this. I understand, but I've been looking for a performance of Pirates of Penzance to take GB to almost since we started dating. Over seven years ago. This would have been a particularly good one as this was the Gilbert and Sullivan Players.
We ended up having a late dinner at McCormick & Schmick's and then heading back to the hotel. We had breakfast at the hotel on Sunday (tasty, but VERY overpriced) and then got on the road home. We made it back around 4, after driving through another, much smaller, thunderstorm.