You remember a while back I posted pictures of Ferarris and other expensive cars parking out front of hotels? It doesn’t have quite the same draw to upscale customers that, say, parking the Crocs truck out front does. I mean come on, this just says “people with money stay here,” doesn’t it?

That said, having the desk clerk tell us we could park the trucks in the hotel driveway for our stay was pretty great.

In other news, we have been in DC 24 hours and have already eaten at Chop’t twice more – last night for dinner and today for lunch. I want to figure out who owns that company and tell them to franchise it like there’s no tomorrow. It wouldn’t work in every market, but it would certainly be a popular place in a lot more areas than just New York City and DC.

Last night I went for a walk from our hotel over towards Arlington cemerety, which is less than a mile away. The cemetery is truly overwhelming during the day, but at night in the dark and quiet it’s kind of a surreal place to be.

On my walk I also stumbed upon the what I now know is the Carillion. Last night I simply saw this odd-looking tower with dim lighting.

The Carillion was a gift from the Netherlands in the 1950s to pretty much symbolize that they think we’re great and want to be buddies. It hold 50 large bells in the top that are tuned to four octaves of the chromatic scale plus two extra notes, and it can be played. Apparently it plays pre-recorded tunes at noon and six each day, but there are also live concerts from time to time in the summer.

I also saw the Marine Corps War Memorial. I had always thought it was simply called the Iwo Jima Memorial, but it has the name because it represents all the different wars Marines have fought in. It’s fitting that the finish line for Sunday’s marathon will be right next to the memorial.

This time around we’re staying in Rosslyn right near where we stayed at the Palomar hotel last time we were through. It’s a good area to be. walking distance from the Metro that takes you right into DC, as well as walking distance to Georgetown and Chop’t. It also seems to have the tallest buildings in the DC area (remember the building height regulation within DC itself.

Today we set up for the expo in the morning. This went rather seamlessly and we were done by noon. Nate and I went for a 5 mile run (and then ate Chop’t) and now I’m sitting in the room updating the blog after just having had a conference call.