Back in DC

It's been a busy three weeks of travel. I'm back in DC after having just been here three weeks ago. If you recall I snuck in a trip to San Francisco in between the two DC trips. As with the last one this is for another of the federal grants that I'm involved in. This on is the 5 year 8.1M Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) grant. Essentially we are integrating behavioral health with primary care in community care and federally qualified health centers in King County. It's a great opportunity and an exciting project to be involved in - fortunately with this grant I was able to hire a full time program manager who will be responsible to work with the our state and local partners to actually implement the project.

I arrived on Sunday night since our first meeting was bright and early Monday morning. I'm staying in Old Town Alexandria at the Monaco Hotel.











I decided to stay out here since I've never been to Old Town and although it's a mile walk to the metro it's only two stops away on the blue or yellow line. The hotel itself is great and the area is very historical but to be honest it feels a long way from downtown.

I love the zebra and tiger print robes they provide! As my friend Kim pointed out however, they will really clash with my cheetah undies! My friend Cheryl came to my rescue pointing out that my feather boa will save the day! Lol!

It's always fun to visit the east coast during the fall and especially at Halloween. They really get into there fall holidays!



















On Sunday evening I went for a walk and happened upon a ghost walking tour of old town - that was a lot of fun especially at Halloween. I missed being at home with Kent and the dogs however - its one of our favorite nights of the year at home. We kept in close contact and between the cameras at home and text messaging it was the next best thing to being there myself.

I really have not had time to spend with the rest of the team. Tomorrow night we are all going to get together for dinner. One of the challenges of being on the east coast is that when we are done with the day here, there are still three more hours at home to do business so as is often the case since I'm out of the office I spend that time to have phone meetings and work on email.

I did have dinner last night at a local place in Old Town called the Majestic Cafe. I found it on Local Eats. It was really good and a lot of fun since all the staff were in costume for Halloween. I has the caesar salad which they made at the table and the Chesapeake Bay Stew which was delish! The bread alone made the meal with it!







As you can see I hated the stew!



Well since its 3:30 am I better see if I can try to fall back to sleep. I always have a hard time sleeping on these trips. I'm going to be getting up in two hours to go for a short run.

Have a good one -

Jim


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