Travels in America 2012 – Part One: Our Nation’s Capital

It’s already July, but it’s been a pretty cool year so far. As I was returning home from my last trip outside the borders of the Sunshine State, I was reflecting on how I’ve already had three major trips outside Florida this year. And this is in addition to some of the many great places and faces I’ve seen right here in the state of dreams.

In April, I traveled up the Eastern border. In the course of a week, I had been in seven states (if you count Florida) and the District of Columbia. Over Memorial Day weekend in May, I traveled to Southern California for a weekend with my brothers. And, in the first week of July, I visited two states I had never been to: Wisconsin and Minnesota. I’ve now been to 42 states in my lifetime. The more I travel, the more I think: Wow, America is a big country. But also, America is a great country.

In this post, I’ll recount some thoughts about that first trip in April. I had been on business down in South Florida for a few days – in the Naples, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Palm Beach areas.  From there, I flew into Washington, D.C. on April 11. I only had two days to spend in DC and I wanted to meet up with friends.  But of course, my first meeting was with a JMI donor who had given us some funding the previous year.  So, within two hours of getting off the plane at Reagan National, I was sitting in the University Club having a splendid lunch with him.

During my time in the area, I stayed with my friend Dan Lesniak, who generously provided a room for me to stay in at his condo in the Clarendon area of Arlington.  I was also able to visit the national headquarters of the Young Americans for Liberty, founded by my good friend Jeff Frazee. After visiting with Jeff for an hour or so, he had duties to attend to (after all it was a Wednesday). I really wish we had more time to catch up – definitely one of my favorite people. I always tell him, “If more libertarians were like you, I might just be a libertarian.”

On this particular Wednesday, I felt like I spent a lot of time hopping on and off the DC metro. At this point in the late afternoon, I was hopping on it again to head up to College Park, where I was to meet with a group of students who were now leading the conservative newspaper I founded at the University of Maryland, The Terrapin Times. I got to dinner just in time – at Applebee’s. I kind of scolded them for selecting Appelebee’s (a chain restaurant of all places!) I always prefer eating locally when I travel, but I suppose this was the easiest and most affordable for all of us – plus several of the students were freshmen and they didn’t know if they could get into other establishments, being under 21.

I had a very enjoyable experience with them. I had met one of the editors, Emily Dennison, previously at a conference just six months earlier. But it was also great to see so many younger people on the staff. This paper was just completing its ninth volume. It’s hard to believe that nine years had gone by since we had founded it back in 2003. I credit starting that paper with everything I’m currently doing in my career right now. I never looked at it as a career (and for the most part, still don’t). But I suppose putting in voluntary hard work pays off – and it makes one better at what we do in this “public policy arena.” I always like to meet whoever is currently on staff to help them through some of the same challenges we faced and provide some ideas and other support. And through time, I’ve even made friends with some of them, including Steve Glickman, who showed up, even though he’s now finishing grad school and not formally associated with the paper.

After dinner with The Terrapin Times staff, I walked over to campus and took a stroll around the ol’ grounds. The sun was just setting and the lights were starting to come alive on this very peaceful, serene evening. I walked by Francis Scott Key Hall, where I took almost all of my classes as a graduate student in history. Now this all seemed like history – my own history. I also remembered that this very place was where I was on a tragically historic day, September 11, 2001, when I heard the news about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That was a life changing and world altering day and it seems my life and my world all seemed to change right here.

After a bit of reflecting, it was time to walk back down to Route 1 and meet up with my friend Michael Bayer for a couple of drinks at the legendary College Park establishment, the Cornerstone. Mike now lives in the area, but he never went to school here and had never been to the Cornerstone until this night. I had met him some years back while working for ISI – he was a local in the West Chester, PA area. He’s a real strong intellectual with some very interesting opinions – not to mention a former college swimmer for Georgetown and a youth minister at the University of Michigan. He is now involved in youth ministry in Silver Spring, MD – right where I used to live. I think if someone gave Mike and I enough funding to have our own think tank, we’d eventually solve the world’s problems. I think we tried to over a couple of beers.

After a day of catching up with old friends and new, it was time to get back on the metro and head towards Arlington, where my friend Dan would probably appreciate me not coming back too late.

Dan is in the real estate industry. I first met him at College Park – when he was finishing up at the U.S. Naval Academy and was taking some graduate courses in history. It turned out he was also from South Florida and a big Miami Hurricane fan – not to mention, we had discovered we a few good mutual friends. So, we bonded pretty quickly. Now he’s married but when I visited this time his wife Connie was visiting some family in Japan. So we were able to hang out more (hope Connie doesn’t read this). For the past few years, Dan had been working as a defense contractor. But he started doing real estate on the side. Real estate is still booming here in the DC area – perhaps the only area in the country. I was pretty stunned to hear that it’s doing so well that Dan quit his comfortable defense contracting position to be a risk-taking entrepreneur and do real estate full time. Good for him!

Well, on Thursday morning we woke up, went out for some breakfast, and then headed to the Washington Nationals home opener! I don’t think I had ever been to a home opener of any team before. And, while I’ve certainly been to a Nats game before, this was my first time at their new stadium, which is just a few years old. Luckily, Dan and some of his buddies have a season ticket plan where they share a certain number of games. Today, it was Dan’s turn to go and I just had to pay his friend for a very nice seat that was within 20 or so rows from third base. Great view!

It was a nice stadium but mostly a boring game…until the end! The game went into extra innings and the Nats ended up winning in some dramatic fashion. I was even able to catch up with one of my old TTT co-founders, Nathan Kennedy, who was also attending the game.

After the game, it was time to have a thrilling night in DC. I have a lot of friends and acquaintances in DC because of all the time I spent there between grad school and my previous job at ISI, which had me travel into DC a lot and organize things for young conservatives. So, I told everyone I was just going to camp out at one of my favorite spots in downtown DC, Fado Irish Pub from roughly 5-10pm. And it was a good idea. Throughout those five hours, I was able to see about 30 different people and catch up over a drink, an appetizer, dinner, and some more drinks. As some left, others came. It was a neat evening and I’m glad I got to see so many good friends. I wish I could give them all shout outs here, but this blog post has gone on long enough now.

I had only been in DC for about 48 hours, but after reflecting on it all, it seems like I packed in a lot and got to see as many people as may be feasibly possible. And I felt like it was all high quality time. On Friday morning, I headed back on the metro across the District over to Union Station, to get on the train heading north to Wilmington, Delaware. There will be more on the rest of the trip to Delaware, Philadelphia, and through NJ and into New York City.