Bryce's Trip to D.C.

Hello everybody! This is actually Bryce writing on Jenn's blog. While Jenn was on her exciting trip to Moab, I was on a work trip to Washington D.C. I went out there with Alpine's operations manager, Bart Caley. The trip was originally supposed to be to Nashville, Tenn. Unfortunately, this summer there was major flooding that took place in Nashville, so the trip was moved. I've always wanted to go to our nation's capitol, so I was excited for the opportunity to go. We met with a company that supplies our jobs to us. They are nationwide, so there was people from about one thousand other companies there as well. It was a big group. As far as the meetings and trainings went, it was just okay. The highlight from the convention was the key note speaker. Her name is, Lisa Ford. She spoke on giving better customer service. She based her lecture on a study that came out of Texas A&M's marketing school. Yes I gave a WHOOP for all you Aggies out there when she mentioned A&M. She did an excellent job and is a very charismatic speaker. If any of you ever have the opportunity to hear her, it is well worth the time. Bart and I were able to do a little bit of sight seeing while we were there. The classes and meetings would end between six and seven, so then we'd head out to see the town. It was great to be able to head down to the "mall" and see the Washington monument, Lincoln Memorial, and to see the Korean War Memorial. That night we decided to look up restaurants from the show, "Diners, Dives, and Drive-ins." We ended up at a little hamburger joint in Georgetown. The history of the building was pretty cool, but the food was just okay. I noticed a few things as we made our little excursions around Alexandria, D.C. and Georgetown. The food there is expensive. Plan on paying a little bit more than you're used to if you plan on dining. The second thing is that finding a parking spot is a pain in the rear. We probably walked an average of a half mile to any of the restaurants we ate at. There just isn't a lot of places to park a car or the spots are full! The last thing is the real estate prices are crazy out there! If you want to buy a place, you'd better have a big wad of cash with you.

The last day we were there, we ended up doing some souvenir shopping between our last class and when we had to be to the airport. We were in the old part of Alexandria and decided to grab a bite at a little sea food place. We went in and the food was good, but the surprising part was that the prices were reasonable! While we were waiting for our food we found out that the building we were eating in was believed to have been built in the late 1700's or early 1800's. That kind of blew my mind. Utah wasn't even settled for another fifty years after that and about the only buildings that are still around that are old like that are the temples. It was just a little trippy to think about the age and history that is on the east side of our country, while the west is still fairly young in its history.
We finished up our lunch and stopped by Arlington Cemetery. It was a humbling opportunity to walk through the graves of all those men and women who have laid down there lives, or served in the defense of our country. As I walked through it, the saying on the wall of the Korean war memorial rang out so true to me "Freedom is not Free". We were lucky in our timing there and were able to see the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I am very grateful for the country we live in and the sacrifices that have been made to give us the opportunities and the freedoms that we have. We need to do all we can to protect those freedoms. If we let them slip away or allow others to take them from us, then the sacrifice of all will have been for nothing. We need to keep God in our lives and He in turn will keep freedom and the blessings of freedom in ours.