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Gaylord Hotel

The Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Prince George's County, a new addition to the Gaylord Hotels chain in D.C., boasts an 18-story glass atrium, multi-level indoor gardens, and a rooftop lounge.

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Well, no, not yet. First we just get there.

It is an easy drive to National Harbor from Washington, but a psychological journey of unfathomable distance for most Northwest Washingtonians, and certain Virginians, and almost anyone who just doesn't get out enough. Gen. Colin Powell came to the Gaylord National on its second day of business, to give a paid speech to a convention of Saturn employees, and he got lost twice. He was driving himself in his sports car, and Amie Gorrell came to his rescue, got on the phone and talked Powell through every exit and turn he'd missed, right up to the door.

Otherwise, he might never have found it.

Because the Gaylord National is . . . where? (It is at National Harbor, a 10-minute drive down Interstate 295 from Capitol Hill.) And National Harbor is . . . where? (We told you: on the Potomac, in Prince George's County, next to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.)

National Harbor is . . . now, what is National Harbor, exactly? (Dude, you really should read the Business section once in a while. National Harbor is this gazillion-trillion-dollar clusterfarg of five hotels -- the Gaylord, a Hampton Inn, a Westin, a Marriott and a Wyndham time share -- and a million or so square feet of shopping and restaurants, with the requisite condos and parking garages. All of this is brought to you by Milton Peterson and the same visionaries who tricked out downtown Silver Spring. They've been building it since 2004, after two decades of different development schemes. At one point there were 20 construction cranes. Celeb investors Ashton Kutcher and Wilmer Valderrama are going to open a restaurant on the harbor called Ketchup. The developers took the "Awakening" sculpture from Hains Point and put it there.)

Oh, that place. And the Gaylord National is . . . where?

The Gaylord National sits next to tens of millions of dollars of untapped market. While the rest of America's suburbs and exurbs were repeatedly Old Navy'd and Barnes & Noble'd and P.F. Chang'd, Prince George's always got the shaft. You could say that National Harbor is Prince George's big dance.

Are we there yet?

No. Unfortunately we were too busy yammering on and did what we always do -- missed the exit for National Harbor on a tight spaghettini of new freeway ramps, and then made another wrong decision about Indian Head Highway, and cannot quite track back the way we wish to, and it becomes the same Prince George's story it always was for visitors: Now it's trees and trees and trees and houses and trees and little homemade crosses by the side of the road, and teddy bears, shiny balloons and plastic flowers next to those crosses, and you think death, death, death, death.

Back again, loop, exit and now this -- hooray -- this is National Harbor.

* * *

We pull into the the Gaylord driveway, where we are met by a group of smiling doormen in handsome blue overcoats and bowler hats. Prepare yourself for a degree of kindness hitherto unknown. On this particular afternoon, Day Four of operations, the Gaylord is filling up with Army guys in their desert camos and honey-hued boots, here for a 6,000-person annual convention of the aviator's branch. They've landed helicopters out back to show off at the trade fair. They are loving the hotel. "What's our view from the room? Is it a great view?" one guy asks his buddy in the elevator as it climbs high into the atrium.