DC 2.0

My apologies to the 3 of you that still read my blog!  It has been a crazy few weeks, and I simply was too busy to write.

Today an old friend and a total stranger told me how much they enjoyed my blog so I figured I better jump back in.

So when I last left you I had just arrived in DC, had a great night with old and new friends, and was heading to Georgetown to get a new store open.

I have been traveling the country for the last decade getting stores open for various retailers.  Those of us in the biz know that every store has its own story, as does every store opening.

The overall experience is typically the same, arrive to job site, realize some major element is not done to your satisfaction, push the construction team, push the visual merchandising team, push the marketing team, panic that all the work will never get done on time, go to breakfast, lunch, dinner, hotel, sleep 6 hours, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, cry from happiness that all the work got done, open, fly home.

What is typically missing from store opening trips is any time to do anything fun.  The entire time I was in DC all I wanted to do was visit the Monuments at night.  And I told anyone who would listen.

The problem was our nights were long and by the time we were finished for the day I could not muster the energy to do much of anything.

But hope was not lost.

As our final night in DC was drawing to a close, we stumbled upon a limo, jumped in, and found ourselves in front of the Lincoln Monument, at 2am.

What followed was one of those nights that only happens when you are trying for something totally different to happen.

We went from monument to monument, in the moonlight, in the unusual October warmth.

And as much as I wanted to take photos of everything I was seeing, I knew that it was not necessary.

It was a night I would never forget.

I felt lucky to be alive.

I felt lucky to be me.