4th of July Recap

In our old neighborhood in Florida, our neighbors were...well...."enthusiastic" to say the least when it came to celebrating holidays. They deemed it appropriate to set off firecrackers for every holiday...not just the Fourth of July. Memorial Day...Labor Day...Flag Day...these holidays all warranted the firing off of firecrackers. And not just on the day of the holiday, but pretty much every night for the 4 or 5 nights leading up to the holiday, we could expect to be startled from the couch by the loud snap, crackle and pop of fireworks going off right outside our window and lighting up the windshields of the cars parked in the street below and reflecting and echoing off the sides of the adjacent buildings.

So imagine our sense of impending dread as our first Fourth approached as new parents with a 6-month old who was still learning the fine arts of falling and staying asleep. What could we possibly expect on the Fourth, if Secretary's Day had made us feel like Francis Scott Key watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British? What did we do?

We got out of Dodge.

Recall, this would have been the summer of 2008...the season of the 'staycation', so getting out of Dodge was actually a pretty big deal. We decided we were going to go to the Gaylord hotel in Orlando, the giant hotel/convention center where my annual shopping center conference was held every August. The place is mammoth, with 3 pools, bars and restaurants, many under this enormous glass atrium that housed a life-sized pirate ship bar, crocodile habitats and the best steakhouse Elise and I had ever been to (except for Wolf Lodge, of course!) made to look like it had been plopped right down in the middle of the Everglades.

When we arrived we went down to the kid's pool only to find it ridiculously crowded. We had an early dinner, retired to our room with a margarita and a bottle of beer a piece and put Sam to bed. We stayed up and could see the fireworks from Epcot or Universal Studios. We weren't sure which. The next morning, we got up early and went back to the pool. We were the only one's there.

Now, living in the heart of the city, we decided to take a similar tact. Someday, we hope to brave the crowded Metro and tackle the mobs jostling for position under the Washington Monument, just to say we did, but it wasn't going to be with a two year-old and an infant that can't stay awake past 6:45. So, we decided to revisit the Gaylord. Only, this time, we went to the one at National Harbor.

As we pulled up to the hotel, we were greeted by a mob scene. The hotel was literally being stormed by families of all shapes and sizes (though most of the shapes were round and the sizes had a few 'X's in them). Why is it that everytime I think I come up with this great original idea I fool myself into thinking that no one else came up with the exact same great orginal idea? Sam and I waited in a line to check in that queued around wax statues of Lincoln and Washington. The United States has had approximately the same number of presidents in its history as parties waiting in line in front of us, and given Sam's recent aversion to statues of any kind, I was careful to keep his gaze from drifting from the impressive model schooners behind the front desk.

After we checked in and waited 40 minutes for the elevator and found that the first room we were assigned had yet to be remade and waited another 40 minutes for the elevator to our second room, we slipped on our swimmies and made for the pool. Unfortunately, we were met by the same crowd as we had encountered on our first Gaylord visit 2 years prior, so Sam played in the spray fountain instead.

An older boy was shadow boxing with the jets of water, and Sam took no fewer than 3 right hooks to the jaw like a prize fighter. Sugar Ray would have been proud. But his love of "mlex" overpowered and sting on his cheek, and every time he reentered the fray unfazed.

We found a sports bar for an early dinner. We retired to the room, planning to rest and recuperate for an evening stroll before the fireworks, but the boys started to unravel and I was sent for milk, cookies and beers. Sam fought sleep long enough for us to sneak from our room, Sam and Pete in their footie pjs. We camped out at the end of the hall, in front of a window that overlooked the atrium and the glass windows that looked out over the Potomac where the fireworks were to be launched. Many argued we had the best seat in the house as they summoned the elevator to take them down into the depths of the sea of people below.