Beauty and the Beard:
Bound to Wander

We were supposed to wake up in Lisbon. Instead, we woke up near Dulles Airport with no luggage, no clean clothes, and a new mission: squeeze as much DC as possible out of one accidental layover day without missing our second chance at Portugal. The plan was simple. Get clean clothes. Find food. Hit the National Mall. See as much of DC as we could in the few hours we had. Then, most importantly, get to our flight on time. We were about ten minutes from the closest Target, forty minutes from DC, and ten minutes from the airport. Our flight wasn’t until 10:30 p.m., so technically, we had time. Then we woke up late. It had taken us a while to get settled the night before. We had to call our first hotel in Lisbon and let them know that, despite the fact that our flight had arrived on time, we had not arrived with it. Instead, we would be showing up the next day. By 9 a.m., we realized we'd probably be skipping breakfast in favor of making a quick Target run and maybe grab some snacks th...

We were ready. Bags packed. House clean. Bedsheets changed. Floors vacuumed. The kind of pre-vacation preparedness that makes you feel like you might finally be becoming real adults. We were on time. But alas, the winds were not in our favor. Quite literally. Storms rolled in from the west right as we were heading to the airport. Somehow, we still made it there in mostly light sprinkles and even managed to get from the parking garage to the terminal without getting rained on. Check-in was easy. Security didn’t even pull Aaron aside for additional screening, which honestly felt suspiciously lucky. That was about where our luck ran out. To preface all of this: our flight to Lisbon had a 65-minute layover in DC. It was already going to be tight. Once we got to the airline lounge, we quickly realized we might be in trouble. The place was packed with stressed-out people staring at their phones, pacing around, and loudly explaining their travel disasters to anyone within earshot. Apparently ...