Inaugural Diary: A quiet arrival
By Van Mobley
The column below reflects the views of the author, and these opinions are neither endorsed nor supported by WisOpinion.com.
Our flight left Milwaukee at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday and, after a connector in Charlotte, arrived at Dulles around 11 a.m. Eastern. We got to the DuPont Circle Hotel around noon and they wouldn’t let us in the room until 3 p.m. so we left our luggage with the concierge and went out walking to see what we could find.
There wasn’t much stirring and frankly most of the people we saw out on the streets looked like hungover college students — and since there are a number of colleges in D.C. that is probably what they were.
All the streets run at odd angles in this town and they have numerous roundabouts so we got lost a couple of times. Still, as I said, not much stirring and not much traffic. We did make it over to the White House, where we inspected the parade grandstand from a distance. The secret service guys outnumbered everybody else by probably 2-to-1.
When we got back to the hotel, we saw state Sen. Alberta Darling and compared notes. It turns out that a bunch of people from the Illinois GOP are staying at this hotel along with the Wisconsin people. I love Illinois people and all, but after I thought about this awhile I sent Alberta a text asking her if we had done something to irritate Donald. I mean couldn’t we get Iowa, or Indiana, or Michigan, or Pennsylvania or some other blue state that cracked amid the storm instead of Obama’s home state? Shouldn’t the Illinois people be paired with the Californians or something?
Still no reply. I will keep asking around and relay anything I learn on this vexing hotel assignment issue.
For dinner Susan and I walked through Foggy Bottom over to Georgetown and had dinner at Filomenas Restaurant. My brother told me I had to go there because it was the favorite D.C. restaurant of former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. That may be true, but on the menu they didn’t mention either one of those worthies. Instead they had some quotes from Clint Eastwood praising the joint.
Truth is the food and the service were great and frankly that means a lot more to me than whether or not Kohl, or Kissinger, or Eastwood said nice things about it. If you go to Filomenas (and I encourage it) ask the waiter about a seafood dish in a spicy red sauce. You will not be disappointed.
Our waiter told us he thought a bunch of Trump people had made reservations, and I think he was right. The place had a great vibe and I can’t say enough about it. By the end of the meal I was so ebullient I left an extra big tip — and paid in cash so the banks would get cut out of the transaction and the Russians couldn’t hack us. You hear that, Vlad? Unlike Hillary Clinton, a garden variety, half tipsy, populist deplorable can outwit you with minimal precautions!
Thursday should be a great day.
— Mobley is the Thiensville Village president and was an early Trump supporter in the presidential race. He is attending inaugural festivities this week and is writing about the experience for WisOpinion.com.
