When a plan comes together

I love it when a plan comes together.

Back in May we made plans with our friends Paul & Steve to take a day trip back to DC to eat good Thai food and see a show. There's no Thai restaurants near us, to say nothing about 'good' Thai restaurants, and since Spouse & I had been missing our fave in Arlington, it seemed like a great idea. We checked the Wolf Trap calendar and bought tickets to see Natalie Cole.

I was slightly apprehensive about Wolf Trap (ie: outdoor venue) in mid-late July. The last 2 years in a row Spouse & I have gone to Wolf Trap in July when it was very hot and extremely humid. We were so uncomfortable that it really took away from the enjoyment of the show. But since there weren't any acts I'd like to see as much as Natalie Cole, I decided to go with it.

We arrived at Paul & Steve's on time, which is amazing in and of itself, then headed west. The traffic was quite good all the way into DC on New York Ave. Spouse & I were pretty amazed. We did get stuck in a little traffic on 395 S, but when the lanes peeled away at a fork in the highway, so did the congested traffic. We slipped right down the road with ease.

The next obstacle I anticipated was parking at the restaurant. The Thai Square is in a little strip center on Columbia Pike and has no parking lot; just street parking. Many times in the past the parking has been very limited, forcing us to circle the block several times or look for street parking in the adjacent crowded residential area. But yesterday we pulled right into a metered parking space right in front of the restaurant! 'TV parking', as we call it. I looked in the coin drawer of the CRV and grabbed several quarters for the meter. We had a fantastic dinner and Paul & Steve really enjoyed their food a lot. I hadn't realized just how much I'd missed this gem of a restaurant.

We left the restaurant a few minutes later than planned, but I wasn't worried since we'd built in some extra time into our schedule. Since we were so close, we drove them by our 1st house and recounted some of the 'stories' of having purchased the foreclosed home, still full of other people's stuff. Then we drove them by the last house we lived in (which we still own) on the way to Wolf Trap. Rather than take a chance on Rt 66 and the Dulles Toll Road being congested (almost a certainty) we took the back roads through McLean, which is far more scenic anyway, and made it to Wolf Trap with lots of time to spare.

The temperature had cooled a bit and there was a charming breeze as we walked from the parking lot to the entrance. The humidity was still low and we were very comfortable. I was happy but amazed. The concert was really good and we all enjoyed it very much.

As we walked back to the car I was mentally preparing myself for a 15-20 minute wait just to exit the parking lot. This had been our experience the last 2 times we'd been to Wolf Trap. But miraculously, most of the traffic appeared to be waiting to exit to the right and we needed to exit to the left, so we slipped right out of the parking lot in under 5 minutes.

The drive back to DE was easy and uneventful, although we enjoyed good conversations the entire way. Everything just seemed to come together perfectly for us, and I'm still having trouble believing its all true.

I love it when a plan comes together!

Drag Queen name of the day: Carla I. Dee