Day Six - Saturday, August 1

Itinerary:

• Explore DC again :-) including:
• Air & Space Museum
• Capital
• Supreme Court
• Jefferson Memorial
• and more...

This day started like yesterday, we slept in and then had breakfast at the hotel restaurant. As usual at breakfast we discussed our game plan for that day. While in Atlantic City we had registered for a tour of the capital and had scheduled it for this afternoon so we needed to plan around that. So, we decided to start with the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, have lunch, and then head over to the capital.

As I mentioned before there are 19 Smithsonian museums in DC and we were probably a block from the Smithsonian Castle – the informational center. We headed there first. As we read the informational brochure we saw that the Castle had the American Idol judge desk so we figured we needed to see that very important part of our national heritage. I tried to think of something good to do in the picture – but I didn’t know how to pose like a judge…I wasn’t wearing a gray shirt for Simon, I wasn’t on prescription drugs for Paula, and there wasn’t sound in the picture so I could say “Yo, dog, you were pitchy” for Randy. So, instead I tried to look serious – it didn’t work too well.

Next we walked over to the Air & Space Museum. This was one that Brandon had especially wanted to visit while in DC. It was well worth it. It was really fun to see all the planes and rockets. While we were walking around I kept thinking about our friends J & Deb’s son Atticus. He loves planes, in fact he was having his birthday party at the Salem Airport while we were gone. Anyway, I just kept thinking how much he would love looking at the giant rockets and the planes.

It was a Saturday and the museum was VERY crowded, but that didn’t bother us much. Luckily we are pretty similar in how much time we spend in museums and we didn’t have to try to read everything. We were also watching the clock because we had to eat and walk to the capital (probably about a 20 min. walk) before our tour. So after checking out the Wright brothers’ plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, the Apollo 11 lunar rover, and much more we headed toward the museum café.

Yesterday we had a difficult time finding food around the mall so we had planned ahead of time to eat at the museum’s café. We had assumed it would have sandwiches, chips, and such. Well, it turns out the café is one giant McDonald’s. Since we had to be at the capital soon we decided to eat there anyway. It was fine and we enjoyed a lovely McCafe iced coffee at the end of our meal.

We ate quickly and headed out to the capital. Our ticket information said to arrive half an hour early to go through security and seeing how busy the museum was made us want to make sure we were early. We were really excited to tour the capital. It was a sweaty walk and we had a bit of difficulty finding the visitors entrance. They had most of the door roped off and security guards placed everywhere. After asking one of these guards we were directed to the line outside the visitors center. As with the Reagan building we had to put our bags on an x-ray machine and walk through a metal detector. We were happy that we didn’t have to wait too long in the outside line – did I mention it was HOT.

After we passed through security we had to check in with our emailed tickets to get a special group tour sticker and ticket. Then we got into another line to wait for our tour to begin. We really didn’t mind waiting because we were waiting in a lovely air conditioned building.

The tour began with a video about the founding of the government, especially focusing on the legislative branch. It also talked about the history of the capital building. One of my favorite historical tidbits was how Lincoln really wanted to keep the workers building during the civil war, he wanted people to see that as a symbol of the Union’s strength and stability. Funding for construction wasn’t popular during war time but Lincoln felt it was very important saying, “If people see the Capital going on, it is a sign we intend the Union shall go on.”

After the video we were led upstairs to several different rooms including the statue room and the rotunda. Each state has sent two statues to the capitol. We saw several on our tour and many in the statue room; this room was the old meeting room for the House of Representatives. There were also quite a few statues in the rotunda. The rotunda was probably our favorite part of the tour. The art work and architecture is amazing.

Our only disappointment with the tour was that we didn’t get to see the House and Senate floors. These are only open on weekdays and are not open to the public on the weekends. We wished we would have known that when we booked the tour because we were looking forward to seeing that part of the capital.

At the conclusion of our tour we walked through the tunnel (air conditioning!) to the Library of Congress. This was another impressive building. It is actually 3 buildings but we just went in the main one, the Thomas Jefferson building. The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world with more that 138 million items. The public can’t check things out, but apparently (according to some reading I did on line) they are working on putting a lot of their materials on the web so others can access them. It is actually the congress’s library (get it Library of Congress) so they can use it for research.

Our favorite area was Jefferson’s collection. During the war of 1812 the British burned the congressional library (among other many other things in DC) and the entire collection was lost. So, Jefferson decided to use his collection to start a new library. Jefferson had worked hard to build his personal library and had amassed quite a collection, some 6,700 volumes. His collection is displayed for the public and it was impressive to see them in one place and look through the titles.

A random note about our sightseeing styles. As I mentioned before we are pretty similar in how long we want to stay at a certain location, however we do differ in one area: gift shops. Each and every memorial or historical site has a gift shop. And as I am sure you have already guessed I like to peruse them and Brandon most definitely does not. He thinks they all have the same stuff. Of course, I think they do not. So, we have had a few “discussions” about whether or not to stop and take a look, usually these discussions end with me telling Brandon to find a nice bench to sit on while I look around. Of course I don’t really buy anything in the shops (other than postcards), but I enjoy looking. I suppose it is a typical girl thing to enjoy shopping without a real purpose, a goal of something specific to buy. Anyway, Brandon is gracious and usually sits down with a big sigh to wait for me.

After visiting the Library of Congress we were interested in finding a snack. Brandon had picked up a paper that listed several places to eat near the capital so we headed in the direction of a couple of coffee shops. Now, as I have mentioned before we have had difficulty finding places to eat right around the national mall, so we were excited to have this flyer with information. We walked a couple of blocks and the first shop we came to was closed, but as we headed further down the block we found the Firehook Café, a coffee shop with sandwiches and baked goods. Brandon ordered a blended coffee and a lemon bar and I enjoyed an iced coffee and a yummy scone. It was a relaxing place with great food and good coffee. As we were sitting there we were wishing it was closer to our hotel because it would be a great breakfast or mid morning snack location. The café was about 2 miles from our hotel.

Feeling recharged we headed back towards the mall, we wanted to stop by the Supreme Court. We had seen it from a distance on our walk to and around the capital, but had not walked over to it. So, we did and we took some pictures. We could not go in, but we enjoyed standing on the steps and thinking of all the history made there. There was construction going on, the street behind the building was blocked off and there was a large crane.

We then headed down toward the capital and took some more pictures. We also took advantage of the huge grassy lawn in front of the capital. It was a great place to rest and the view was pretty impressive as well, the capital building behind us and in front we looked toward the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial off in the distance.

Then we continued our walk back to the hotel. We wanted to cool off in the air conditioning, rest a bit, shower and then head back out for dinner. As anyone that has traveled to the east coast in August knows several showers a day are required. We have been taking on average 3 per day. We take one in the morning, then head back to the hotel in the afternoon to shower before dinner, and then take one before bed. I suppose when one lives here they are more used to it – or they simply know you don’t go sightseeing in August! Still, we know when we see someone in pants or a long sleeve shirt they must be locals. We are getting more used to sweating, we just kind of have to give into it, just realize we are going to be dripping in sweat and then get over it.

As we head back to the Gallery area for dinner (the area of the city with many restaurants) we are planning on eating at Rosa Mexicano, a restaurant we saw last night as we were searching for somewhere to eat. We had been enticed by the giant bowls of guacamole we saw on the diners tables as we walked by the previous evening. So, we took the metro over there and walked to Rosa’s. Our dinner was delicious! We of course ordered the guac and they made it fresh right at our table. It was fun atmosphere and we really enjoyed it.

After dinner I convinced Brandon we needed to walk back over to the mall area to see the Jefferson Memorial at night. This is our last evening in DC and we had not seen this memorial in the evening. Last time I came to DC with my family I remember the Jefferson as being one of the coolest to see at night all lit up. So with our tired feet we too the metro back to the mall area and walked to the memorial. By this time it was about 10:30 PM and we were a bit unsure of how safe it would be to be walking around. On our walk over to the memorial we didn’t see very many people, but when we got there, the place was pretty full. Several tour companies run “moonlight” tours of the memorials so we think that is why we saw a large group there. The Jefferson Memorial didn’t disappoint, it was just a beautiful as I remembered and I am pretty sure Brandon was glad we walked over there. We took some pictures, but our camera really isn’t fancy enough to take great pictures in the dark, but we succeeded in getting a few. We also took some more pictures on our walk back to the hotel.

We fell into bed pretty exhausted, our feet were complaining after two full days of walking. We are planning to go to Arlington National Cemetery tomorrow and maybe another museum before heading to the airport to fly to Boston. Yeah for another fantastic day!!