What's Crackin! Happy 4th of July! Feels only right that my time in the country's captial is recapped on our national independence day!
This past week was our first real taste of the next year. 100 degree temps, giant food festivals, NUTmobile tours, museums, & archeticture! Let's recap.
On our way we stopped at this beautiful rest area right before Maryland's state lines:
We arrived to DC on Wednesday, June 19th and spent June 20th exploring the captial and other monuments within walking distance. We went inside the capital building for a moment, but most of the day, we melted. It was 98 degrees almost the entire time, so DC was not getting a good review from me. All the museums were at capacity and so we couldn't get inside ANYWHERE.
Stay tuned to see if my impression changes haha.
Friday was office day and load in for the Giant BBQ Battle on the National Mall. Tree Nut Tania from last year's Peanutter class also flew in to help us out!
We got a giant shipment of peanuts to the hotel, and then spent all day developing our schedule for the next month. You can see where we are headed next here.
After filming some content for the TikTok, we retreated to our rooms for a needed break. At 10pm, we loaded in the NUTmobile to it's new home for the weekend - 10 paces away from the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile! We got to meet 2 of this years' Hotdoggers - Riley and Bridgette.
There are 12 Hotdoggers across the country so we are really hopeful we will get to meet them all. After load in, we tried to get some rest for the crazy event coming up the next 2 days!
DC GIANT BBQ BATTLE
AH! We did it! 2 very long, VERY HOT days but they were such a success. We had 6 boxes of peanuts and ran out of them in the first 2 hours on the first day! Thankfully, Planters also had a booth where they were sampling cashews and pisatchios, so we spent the rest of the weekend sharing their stock with them. We were throwing cashews out the windows - Katie even got up into the parade hatch and was throwing them from the top of the NUTmobile - people were loving it! We were having so much fun depsite melting in the heat.
This was the first festival event I've worked where we actually RAN OUT of product (both us and Planters) before the event was even finished. Imagine standing in front of a 26-foot long peanut and not having nuts to pass out. 😓 Planters gave us permission to pack up - but we still had to wait until the festival was completely finished so we could drive Marshell out of the gates. We had no other choice than to enjoy the BBQ Battle.
We got our charicatures drawn, collected tons of free samples, and then finally drove the NUTmobile out around 7:30pm. That evening, we met up with the Hotdoggers for dinner in DC!
With the BBQ battle complete, we got 2 off days in DC to explore and enjoy!
Monday:
The National Museum of American History
We went to this Smithsonian museum because we heard we might be able to find Mr. Peanut there - and find him we did :)
My favorite part of the whole place was the pop culture, "Entertainment Nation", section - they had Judy Garland's ruby slippers, Kermit and Miss Piggy, and orginal C-P30 and R2-D2 robots! Seeing those three things so close to each other made me need to call my dad... and then shortly after another phone call was made to Allie Disanto. <3 I miss my family and friends so much!
The National Air and Space Museum
Very cool! Though I will say - I think I was spoiled by the Kalamazoo Air Zoo when I was a kid - dare I say the Air Zoo was even better than the Smithsonian's!
Tuesday:
National Aboretum
We were actually staying in a hotel right behind the Aboretum, so I decided to head there on my own in the morning, and I think it was my favorite place I went to in DC! It was still very hot, but something about the abundance of plants kept me cool. Beautiful bonsai trees and plants! As I turned the corner, I looked to my right and up on a hill where these columns completely by themselves. I had to go investigate, and it felt like I was in a video game, like Zelda or something. (Turns out they are just the National Columns from the original capitol building form 1828, but still!)
International Spy Museum:
WILD experience. My very first solo museum trip, and a crazy one to do by yourself. You're given an undercover spy identity upon arrival as well as an undercover mission and code word that you would be working on throughout the exhibits. I have no clue how they did it, considering we only had little plastic cards to identify outselves, but throughout the museum screens kept appearing with my undercover name on them before I even got close to approching where I should scan my card. Definitely messed with my head! I climbed through air ducts, did a remote raid simualtion (???), and almost attempted to fit myself in the hood of a car like they did to escape the Berlin Wall - and then decided against it for fear of getting stuck. Overall a wild museum to experience - especially when you're completely by yourself.
That night we all saw Inside Out 2 together and I absolutely cried through almost the entire thing! 10/10 would reccomend!
Here are some more random photos from our time in DC (captions on photos for more info!)
After our second day off, it was finally time to say goodbye to DC, and we had one shell of a time trying to get out of the twisty, windy roads of eastern DC. It seemed like every path we took we were met with signs that said "no trucks" or "low bridge clearance".
Re-routing and re-routing again, we finally made it to Gettysburg, PA and called it a night!
My impression of DC definitely improved over the week - but I will say I was SO glad to get out of that heat.
Cashew soon!
PB&Jessie
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