ROAD TRIP DAY 1 - DC

Jet-setting on the Virgin America flight didn’t yield much sleep on the red-eye, so upon arrival Jay-R whipped up a quick breakfast of tocino and eggs and I promply KO’d for about 4 hours. After the forgettable nap on the bare rug of Jay-R’s empty apartment, I woke to the sound of a torrential downpour outside. I chuckled at the thought of the extreme weather conditions I had just witnessed. I had merely escaped the hellish September heat of Dante’s inferno in the Bay only to be welcomed by the flooding waters of DC reminiscent to that of Noah’s Ark. Nonetheless, we didn’t have much to do before dinner with Rosa, one of Jay-R’s oldest friends from grade school, so we headed over to Gold’s Gym for an afternoon workout.

Normally, on vacation I DO NOT workout. I eat, sleep, and eat again. But, considering that we would be going through 10 days of gluttony and hours of simply sitting in the car, I am going to do everything in my power to get a workout in everyday, be it at the hotel gym or at least a morning run before we hit the road. Therefore, hitting the gym was a welcome activity in my book.

After hitting the weights and some cardio, Jay-R and I rushed to meet with Rosa to dine at one of her local hotspots, Founding Farmers. Apparently, the restaurant mainly uses local fare to compose the majority of their dishes and I must admit, the food was good. Add on a celebratory scotch on the rocks for the Giants win and SD loss, it was a very good dinner indeed. Amazingly enough, even with the rain hitting the ground so hard that it seemed as if it were falling up, the place was packed! It had the rustic feel of a farm kitchen that was renovated into a hip bar scene. Interesting. The whole drive, Rosa had been raving about their red velvet cake, so we decided to do something unorthodox and have dessert for our appetizer. The server looked at us like we were crazy, but diners around us exclaimed that they wished they had done the same since they never had room for dessert. I had the shrimp and grits, Jay-R the skirt steak enchiladas, and Rosa the chicken and waffles. All good dishes, although I could have used a nice bowl of rice to go with my shrimp! But, I guess that’s just my Filipino side screaming to be satisfied…

Full from dinner, we headed back to Rosa’s for a nightcap with some of her med school classmates. By the way, Rosa is a first year med student at George Washington University. Good stuff bud! Anyhow, she and her classmates had just finished their first set of exams, so they were in dire need of some old fashioned partying. Since it was raining and heading out to a bar would have proven difficult, they decided to party it up in one of their flats. What do three friends from the Bay bring to a house party? What else? Hennessy! We didn’t stay long because we still needed to finish packing up, but Jay-R and I met some cool cats from all over the country. Needless to say, we still represented with that west coast flavor and more importantly, that Cali swag. Tomorrow, the drive begins!