Bernadette Benda

.    I’m not going to lie here. While walking all over D.C, touring, and eating Chipolte, I did not get any earth-shattering writing ideas. I didn’t even write that much.

That being said, here are my traveling highlights, and what things as a writer I appreciated.

•  an albino squirrel.
  Don’t laugh. My sister and I were crossing the Mall to get to the Art Gallery, and there, happily poking his nose in the grass, was a very rare albino squirrel. The rarity of it, and its cute, perfectly white little fuzziness, was not why I am telling you this. In my fantasy trilogy (Green Crows) albino animals play a very large role, such as crows and deer. So maybe now a white squirrel will show up and drop nuts on someones head (Probably Fyland’s.)
• My sister and I also went to the Air and Space Museum, where the security guard called me Captain America to grab my attention.

  

  Loved it there. We got to see the Apollo 11 Lem, Gene Kranz’s vest (If you don’t understand, look it up), and, most importantly, touched the moon. A piece of the moon really, worn smooth from all the hands that have touched it. I looked up at my sister and said, “We just touched the moon.”
  To explain what all this meant is a whole different post.

• Last one. We went to the Zoo, because that is what my sister and I like to do.

  

  The highlight were the elephants. And this part I am glad for because one day I might need to write about elephants trainers.
  The elephants had been brought inside, and the trainers were demonstrating tricks with the elephants. It was amazing how quickly the elephants responded, and how well. They bowed, turned in circles, and knelt. The trainers gave one word commands, and motioned with their hand, index and middle finer together. The elephants were always promptly given treats.
  And their trunks are so cute and soft looking.

   

  That’s not everything that happened. We also visited St. John Paul II’s Shrine, ate at Union Station, sweated and walked, sweated and walked some more, and my sister almost exploded in a traffic jam.
  All that jazz.
  Bernadette out.