Emily and I currently live in Chicago, and we’re moving to Springfield, Missouri in about two weeks. Carnes lives in Kansas City.

All of us grew up in the great nation of Texas, however, and we were able to find our home country nestled in a monument close to Mr. Lincoln. In honor of our great nation of origin, here’s an official Lumpy Places Salute to Texas! Stay bold, you crazy Texans!

I was almost arrested for taking this picture by a lovely woman who I’ll write about shortly. Either way, a film was being shot on location in front of the Lincoln Memorial and a very reliable 13-year old assured me that it was Night at the Museum 2 and that the guy in the blue jakcet was Ben Stiller.

Since Emily wouldn’t let me pay $400 for a telephoto lens, this is the best I could do. And truthfully, it does look a little like Ben Stiller. Or George Clooney. Or Jessica Alba. Or my dad. One of the four. We really can’t tell. But if there is indeed a Night at the Museum 2 and Stiller wears a blue jacket in it, remember that you heard it here first, folks.

The first thing on our list in Washington was all the monuments, and there are a LOT. Lincoln (who has a great museum in Springfield, Illinois), Jefferson, Washington, Roosevelt, etc. Thankfully, they’re all located within walking distance of one another, a mere 18 mile trek between each monument. As long as you have an entire day to devote to it and the endurance of a marathon runner, you should be able to take it all in.

We started with the Roosevelt monument. Very cool and it involves lots of water and fountains. I had never seen this one because it wasn’t finished until 1997. Seeing as how I visited D.C. when I was in high school, the fact that this monument had been finished for 11 years and it still wasn’t here the last time I was in town made me feel old. Real old. In fact, I’m gonna take a short break from writing to go crush a Pepsi can on my forehead…

…okay, that went pretty well. I’ve still got it. A whole can and no adverse affects.

Once we lft te monment we wnt t te Jefsn Monmnt nd fi deedly dee a prats lfe fr me agg aaacch me blort dwn see ward asdfjkl;!!!

(Note from Carnes: Crain is going to lay down for a few minutes, but he’ll be back with another post soon. In the meantime, enjoy these monument pictures…)

Bill Cosby loves chili dogs, and he thinks that one place in particular has the best around: Ben’s Chili Bowl in Washington, D.C. 

Though the chili itself wasn’t as good as the wonderful stuff we had in Cincinnati, the chili dogs were some of the best we’ve ever had. The impatient cook, the loud 50s music, and the extremely diverse crowd made the experience all the better. We had an Asian couple to our left and what looked like the Russian mafia to our right. A spattering of caucasians and an African-American majority rounded out the diversified roster and we were all brought together under the banner of tasty chili dogs. It was a lot like I imagine heaven will be.

And if this wasn’t enough, the chili cheese fries were maybe the greatest on the face of the planet. Highly recommended, and Ben’s Chili Bowl worked hard to earn an Official Lumpy Places Salute!

My wonderful wife Emily is only getting to join us for a week of the trip because she couldn’t take off of work any more than that. The good news, though, is that she’s here! We’re going to try and get her to write a few posts, but we’ll see how it goes. The only things she enjoys on the internet are Facebook and Fake Carson.

Our first Official Lumpy Places Wag of the Finger goes to a church in Washington, D.C. We understand that it’s hard to come up with a name for a new church body. You want something relevant and something that will appeal to the type of people that you’re trying to reach.

This congregation, however, completely gave up. Wag of the Finger to you guys. Congrats on being the first of many.

Unfortunately we don’t have a wide angle lens, so it’s impossible to express just how beautiful our drive through West Virginia was. Suffice it to say, we thoroughly enjoyed the trip, even though it was pretty hard on our gas mileage. Here’s a shot of Josh Carnes sharing the scenery with you.

The first thing we noticed is that every single house, apartment, and condo had an American flag in front of it. Some of them had a large flag flying and then smaller flags in the middle. Some of the flags had little baby flags hanging from them. The flag poles were made of flags which were attached to porches, railings, and awnings that were also covered with flags.

If that wasn’t enough, we passed a town square on the way out that was surrounded by no fewer than 40 large American flags. 

Why?

So we’re driving on US Highway 50 tonight and we come across a sign that says the road is closed and a load of orange barrels are blocking our path. We did what anyone would do: we bypassed the barrels to see if we could make it through anyway (it was late and we didn’t know another way to get through; don’t judge us).

We have officially decided that the road closure was probably a good idea given the fact that it appears the monster from Cloverfield was using it as a trampoline. 

So we sprung for the cheapest room available. And here is a pic of our roommate: