My trip to Washington, D.C., for the RWA National Conference began July 10 when I spent the day driving to Charlottesville, Virginia, where I was to catch the train into D.C. the next morning. Long day of driving, but my trusty iPod loaded with music and PotterCast podcasts kept me company. I also got a call from my pal Mary (aka MJ Fredrick), and since, shall we say, she’s not a phone person, I knew the reason she was calling was because she’d contracted another book! Woohoo!
I really like driving through Virginia. It’s very pretty and so full of history — the perfect combination, in my opinion. I didn’t have time to stop to see anything, but someday I want to take a vacation to Virginia and just spend a week or two traveling around the state seeing all the sights I’ve not had the opportunity to visit yet. Plus, Charlottesville is in the mountains and significantly cooler. Good thing in the height of summer.
Saturday morning, I was up early to catch the train a bit after 7 a.m. (6 a.m. at home). I, my nearly over-the-limit luggage, and my pumpkin muffin from Panera headed toward D.C. I spent the time reading L.J. Smith’s The Awakening, the first in the Vampire Diaries series. I’m planning to review it in my August YA News & Reviews column on RomanceNovel.tv. I arrived at Union Station, hauled said luggage out to the taxi stand, and was off to the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. After unpacking, I called my good friend Michelle Butler, who is from the area. Michelle is one of my two oldest writing buddies, the other being Beth Pattillo. That’s oldest in that I’ve known them the longest, not that they’re old. 
Michelle and I had plans to go to dinner to celebrate her finishing her first manuscript
This is Michelle and me, a bit later in the week during the conference:
Michelle arrived bearing a gift. She knows I love Deadliest Catch, so she brought me this awesome T-shirt. Here’s the front…
and here’s the back.
After an afternoon of just catching up, we were off to Filomena’s, a lovely Italian restaurant in Georgetown. We had time to kill before our reservation, so we perused the offerings at Banana Republic. Michelle got a cute top, and I determined to lose weight so I could buy more cute tops. We had a very nice dinner, then walked through Georgetown to the nearest Metro station to catch separate trains back to our final destinations of the evening.
July 24th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Trish, as always, it was wonderful seeing you in person! I’m glad to hear you don’t think I’m old.