Day Two: The craziness begins...

Today I left Columbia and drove up to Kensington, MD to visit the Washington D.C. temple. Entering Virgina, it started to snow, and continued throughout the rest of the night. I entered D.C. right about rush hour time, due to the weather pushing back my arrival by a good hour. Enter stage left of the craziest drivers I've ever seen--and I used to live in Chicago. They'd honky, they'd swerve, they'd tailgate, they'd slam on their brakes, they'd wave fingers at you that didn't quite mean "peace." All in rush-hour, "you-aren't-going-anywhere-so-why-bother" traffic. Needless to say, I was pretty stressed by the time I got to the temple. Luckily, the sight alone was enough to make me forget about the near-death experiences I recently took part in.

The temple was gorgeous. And I mean gorgeous. Gorgeous in the huge, awe-inspiring, "ta-DAH!" way. There were Christmas lights all arou

nd the temple grounds and visitor's center, and the nativity display included an audio recording of Luke 2.

The astonishment didn't stop upon entering the temple. After getting past the recommend desk, I entered a walkway with floor-to-ceiling windows on either side, and was met with a huge mural at the end of the hall. And it just kept getting prettier from there. To say the least, it got incredibly prettier from there.

Now I'm in my hotel room (three hours after the temple--and yes, I know I'm crazy for driving that far) attempting to get some sleep before heading out in the morning for Boston.