One of my favorite DJs is Martin Garrix. We discovered him a few years ago watching Tomorrowland on YouTube. Ever since that first exposure, I have wanted to see him live. Unfortunately, he rarely plays near me. Our son, Joe, told us that he had a show scheduled at Echostage in Washington, D.C. After my initial excitement, I realized that the show was on a Saturday night. Having just started a new job a few weeks earlier, I did not feel that it would be right to ask for a weekend night off, especially since I would be off the following weekend for the upcoming wedding.
In March my favorite uncle died. He donated his body to science (I can remember him telling me that was his plan when I was a girl) so the funeral would be after the family received his remains. As it turned out his funeral was the same day as the concert. The funeral was in Maryland, not far from Echostage. We were able to get the time off from work. The plan was to go to the funeral in the morning and then go to the concert that night. It was a sold-out show, but I was able to find secondhand tickets, albeit pricier than face value. A few weeks before the show, Martin injured himself and had to cancel all of his shows for the next month.
Fast forward to August. Joe told me that Martin Garrix had scheduled two shows at Echostage in October. The two nights were Wednesday and Thursday. I got the ok for the day off from work and bought our tickets. Wanting to surprise Chris, I did not tell him about the plans. It was such a difficult secret to keep for six weeks, especially when we went to the festival. At one point Garrix’s new song, Summer Days, was playing on the iPod. Chris was making grilled cheese sandwiches, dancing his heart out to the music.
The night before our trip, we were talking to the bartender at work. Chris said, “We’ll see you tomorrow.” It was time to reveal my secret. I responded with, “We aren’t working tomorrow. We are having a date day.” He still didn’t know what we were doing, just that we were doing something.
In the morning we headed out. I planned to have breakfast in Richmond at Village Cafe, a spot I found on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. When I told Chris where we were going, he suggested Kuba Kuba instead. It was a great suggestion. After a wonderful breakfast and excellent coffee, we headed north. After driving for a couple of hours we pulled off of the highway on to a smaller country road. The road seems very out-of-place in the hustle-bustle of Northern Virginia. The juxtaposition of the very large extravagant homes with very small, very old homes was interesting. It is nice to see that newer and bigger hasn’t overrun the entire area. I can only imagine that those small homes have been in the same families for generations.
We arrived at, in my opinion, the most beautiful part of the area, Great Falls. As we walked to the visitor center, we say a very large praying mantis. Nature was calling me, so I did not have time to take a picture. He was gone by the time we got back to where he was. We followed the path along the water looking for the ruins of Matildaville, a failed small town and canal system conceived by George Washington. As we walked, Chris spotted a Pheasantback mushroom.
After exploring the ruins we stopped at the three areas overlooking the falls and river. The water level was lower than I have seen before, but it was still a gorgeous view. There were plenty of birds in the area. We saw a pair of beautiful woodpeckers, but they didn’t sit still long enough for me to get a shot. The park ranger said that they were Downey woodpeckers. I was able to get a picture of a cardinal and saw a bluebird as well.
We next headed into D.C. to grab lunch at Bub & Pop’s. I am not a particular fan of driving in D.C. There are so many crazy intersections, traffic circles, and just so many cars…none of which care that I have no idea where I am going or even how to get there. Once, years ago, we made a wrong turn there and somehow ended up in Maryland before we were able to figure out how to get back! With GoogleMaps, I managed to get where we needed to go on this trip with no tears.
We found the restaurant and then had the daunting task of finding a place to park. At the end of the block, we saw a woman get into her car. We turned on our signal and waited, for what seemed an eternity, for her to move. I was nervous about blocking traffic, but the police officer that was behind us stopped and turned his lights on, preventing cars from running up on us, or so I thought. After we parked and figured out the parking meter, we walked halfway down the block to the restaurant. The police car did not move. As we walked there were several more officers and a man in handcuffs sitting on the stairs. After we got our food, we sat out front to eat and enjoy the beat of the city. We watched as the paddywagon pulled up to take the handcuffed man away. It seemed that he was well known to the police and the neighbors. One of the cooks had come out of the restaurant and yelled down the block to find out what “Smoov” had done.
While we ate, Chris saw what looked like Taye Diggs getting into a very nice white BMW. Unfortunately, by the time I was able to look, the man was already in the car. With the glare on the windshield, I couldn’t see him well enough to verify if it was actually him or not. After lunch, we continued to the hotel, where we took a nap before getting ready for the show.
The parking situation at Echostage is not great, so we took an Uber to the show. Our driver, Foray, was friendly. We enjoyed learning a bit about his background on our way. It was a nice relief to not have the stress of driving. Echostage is a large open venue with a balcony upstairs for VIP. It was not crowded when we arrived. We established a spot not too far from the stage to watch the opening acts. We enjoyed the music as the crowd continued to fill in. I started feeling a bit claustrophobic as the young people pressed in around us, some even getting in between us. Determined to hold our spot until I could get a picture of Garrix, we boxed out our elbows to maintain our space.
When they posted the work schedule, I was happy to see that we would have a party on Thursday. This meant that we didn’t have to go to work until 5:30, giving us an extra hour for travel time getting back. While we were watching the show, I received a text message letting us know that the party had canceled and they would not need us to work. That made the night that much better. Instead of having to get up early in the morning to rush back for work, we would be able to sleep in and enjoy the day.
It was finally time for Martin Garrix to take the stage. I was giddy with excitement. The transitions between the opening acts were simply the second DJ taking the stage and taking over the music that was playing from the first DJ. It was a seamless transition that you wouldn’t have noticed if they had not introduced the new DJ. The transition to Martin Garrix was much more spectacular. It gave you the feeling that something big was about to happen. With the lighting and the crowd, I was not able to get a good picture but did get one silhouette that I thought was cool.
After I took my pictures, we headed to the back to get out of the mob and have room for dancing. I thoroughly enjoyed the show and danced for almost two hours. He played a lot of favorites as well as some of his new music. I loved every minute of the show, but oh, that transition from easy-going Summer Days to thumping Animals…nothing short of spectacular.
Getting the Uber back to the hotel after the show was a bit trickier than getting there. We ordered the car, which was only a minute out. Before we could get to the pickup area, we lost the Uber. Apparently, it was an Uber free-for-all. The drivers were just picking up whoever jumped in the car. We lost two cars. The next car assigned to us was 17 minutes out. I texted the driver to give them a description to hopefully not lose another car. He called to say that he was on his way to Baltimore, and had accepted the ride by mistake. He wanted us to cancel the ride. When I went to cancel, I found out that there is a charge to do that. He was very upset when I called him back to let him know he would have to cancel it himself.
We finally managed to get an Uber, and had an uneventful trip back to the hotel. Chris crashed, but I was still too keyed up to sleep. I used the time to figure out something fun to do since we no longer had to rush back.
After a restful sleep, we went to Metro 29 Diner for breakfast and then drove to Leesylvania State Park. We enjoyed a lovely walk on a trail along the water. We stopped to take a picture of a train trestle crossing the water. As I started taking pictures, a train crossed…what perfect timing. We saw snakes in the water as we walked. I thought it was interesting to see the difference between the raging Potomac we had seen at Great Falls, and the wide, peaceful Potomac that we were now looking at.
As usual, pretty much anytime we drive in Northern Virginia we ran into a lot of traffic heading home. Once we worked our way past Fredericksburg though, the rest of the trip was smooth sailing.
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