Heather Podesta and Tucker Carlson are getting ready for August. | AP photo composite by POLITICO Where D.C.'s A-listers go for vacation

The Memorial Day recess is over — which must mean it’s time to start thinking about August.

Not the “maybe we’ll have a new Supreme Court justice and a climate change bill and health care reform” August, but the “wind-in-your-hair, beach-underfoot” August.


Here’s what some of Washington’s A-listers are planning as Congress returns for the eight long weeks until then:

Lynne Cheney: “I’ll be spending my summer at home in Jackson, Wyo., working on my biography of James Madison.”

John Podesta, Center for American Progress: “I am going to my condo in Truckee [Calif.], like I do every year — will sit on my porch and do conference calls 50 feet from where the Donner Party ate each other.”

Sally Quinn, journalist: “We’re doing what we do every year, which is to go to Grey Gardens, our house in the Hamptons. We go from the beginning of August to Labor Day, and we spend a lot of time in the garden, looking at the water and walking on the beach for two hours every day and having a lot of family and friends coming to stay with us. We don’t do a lot of socializing. We really try to stay home and have family dinner and dinner with our pals and not go to a lot of parties. We did that for a while and then realized it’s not like a vacation. I like to go for a walk on the beach late in the afternoon, come back around 6:30 p.m., take a shower, have cocktails and an early supper, and go to bed. We will work, too.”

Margaret Carlson, journalist: “We do the same thing every summer, which is why I gain 5 pounds every summer. All five of us go to East Hampton for the month of August, from which I can take the 7:14 a.m. into New York on Fridays to tape ‘Political Capital’ and be back in time for margaritas on the porch. If North Korea bombs South Korea or Judge Sotomayor’s nomination implodes, I’ll be on the case. Otherwise, I am baking bread and making ice cream and eating both, which is where the 5 pounds comes in. While many people see a month at the beach as an opportunity to bike, swim and work out, I see it as an opportunity to sit. I read The New York Times mainly for the crossword, and though I take all my friends’ books on nuclear proliferation and the Iraq war to the beach, I usually end up consuming trashy novels.”

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Betsy Fischer, executive producer, “Meet the Press”: “Fourth of July week — celebrating is being pre-empted by Wimbledon and by swimming and playing tennis in my favorite place: Seaside, Fla.”

General Motors’ Debbie Dingell, the wife of Rep. John Dingell: “Pure Michigan. Head for home. Michigan lakes, blue skies and friends.”

Lobbyist Linda Daschle, the wife of Tom Daschle: “My summer plans are work, work, work and backyard playtime with four grandchildren. No real vacation planned just yet. Might go to Colombia in August — a country that we have never traveled to.”

Bob Schieffer, CBS News: “We’ll be making our usual trek out to Aspen for the Ideas Festival.”

Tucker Carlson, TV personality and journalist: “We’re going to Maine, as always; though for the first time in a long time, I’ll be marinating in Washington for most of the summer. Too much work.”

Jeffrey Goldberg, journalist, The Atlantic: “The Atlantic co-sponsors the Aspen Ideas Festival, so we’ll be out there for a week of high-altitude yakking. The second week will be the Goldberg family no-ideas festival, in which we will point a very large SUV in the direction of either Mount Rushmore or Salt Lake City.”

Hilary Rosen, Democratic PR consultant: “The Hamptons in August.”

Nancy Jacobson Penn, pollster: “Glamping” — aka glamorous camping — “in Montana with family, [friends] and kids.”

Motion Picture Association of America Chairman Dan Glickman: “We’re expecting a busy congressional session as well as significant legislative activity affecting our industry internationally, which means I’ll be staying close to home like a lot of Americans who are opting for a ‘staycation’ instead of a vacation. In that case, I’ll be sure to spend some quality time at my local movie theater enjoying the summer blockbusters.”

Author Sally Bedell Smith, working on her next book about the queen of England: “Am doing the usual trek to Little Compton, R.I., for three weeks in August, with what [my husband] calls my ‘rolling office’ — boxes of notes to organize while I look longingly at the barrier beach in the distance.”

Heather Podesta, Democratic lobbyist: “Knowing what the next two months will be like — crazy busy — I plan to reintroduce myself to my husband in August.”

Allison Abner, TV writer: “I’m going to plan a trip by myself to Europe for a few days. And [husband Gene Sperling] and I will take a trip to Costa Rica for a week to just relax ... and up to Lake Champlain in Vermont with our kids for a long weekend. And we’re putting our son Miles to work on a trip to El Salvador with Habitat for Humanity.”

Laura and George W. Bush: The former first couple plan to make frequent trips to Crawford, Texas. Laura Bush will continue her tradition of visiting a national park with friends, although it’s not clear yet which park they’ll choose. And, of course, they’ll both head to Kennebunkport, Maine, for President George H.W. Bush’s 85th birthday.