Washington, DC

Matt and I spent the past week in Washington, DC. I knew that one of the teachers I currently work with was there with her family and one of teachers I used to work with drove up Thursday, but we kept to ourselves. Trust me, by the end of the day neither of us felt very social anyway! Here is a run down of our week:

Sunday - We went to church Saturday night so that we could sleep in a little bit and then drive up to Richmond. We made it to the hotel by 7:30 pm, a lot earlier than I thought we would!!

Monday - We went to the Sunken Road battle site of the Civil War. Part of the wall of the road is still up, but most of it has been redone. Then we drove over to Chatham, the only house that both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln visited (at least, that has been recorded). It's a beautiful house with gardens that I'm sure look great when they are in bloom. I hate to say it, but it's no wonder they had to have so many slaves to maintain the grounds. The plantation is much smaller now as sections have been sold off and willed to family members. Later we drove to Arlington National Cemetery. It took us much longer to get there than planned because we got lost even with the Tomtom we borrowed from my parents! We saw all of the famous tombstones including the Kennedys, Taft, the Challenger memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I'll post the video of the changing of the guard. It's much more intense than you'd think. They do a lot of inspecting before they change guards. After that we found our hotel and stayed in for the rest of the night.

Tuesday - We got in line to go to the Holocaust Museum. Matt headed over to get in line for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but we were too late to get tickets that day. The Holocaust Museum was great. It's hard to imagine the atrocities that occurred during that time period and even more unimaginable that people don't believe that it happened!! We also hit up the Smithsonian museums. Not all of them, but we started at the Smithsonian Castle, then went to the Air and Space Museum, Museum of Natural History, and Museum of American History. We walked by the Capital building, the Supreme Court and went in the Library of Congress.

Wednesday - Even though this was supposed to be the hottest day, we spent it walking around to all of the memorials. It really wasn't bad if you found a shady spot to walk in, which were everywhere. We started at the Washington Monument. We didn't get up early to get tickets to go up to the top, so I told Matt we just had to go up and touch it. Then we went to the new World War II memorial. It's beautiful. I did laugh at the men that were in the fountain cleaning it out, but I think they were happiest in the water. I'm sure they were cool anyway! We saw the DC World War I memorial dedicated to those from DC that fought in the war. I just don't think they expected there to be another world war when they built it. We went to the FDR memorial, which I thought was really neat because it's a bunch of waterfalls. I think that's how I would like to be memorialized if you were wondering! :) From there we walked to the Jefferson Memorial. After that we did the Korean War Memorial which is right across the street from the Lincoln Memorial. I didn't remember Lincoln's Memorial or how big it is!! It was very impressive. We then went to the Vietnam Memorial. That is one of the few things I remember from my other trip to DC when I was in elementary on a family vacation. So many names... From there we walked in front of the White House. You really don't get very close at all, but we were close enough to see the snipers on the roof!! We headed over to the National Aquarium. Even though the aquarium isn't very big, they had a bunch of tanks and animals to see. Unfortunately it was shark feeding day, not piranha feeding day. But we still got to see the piranha. Then we jumped on the Metro to the National Zoo. We were in the 3rd group to go inside to see the pandas. We could really only see Tian Tian because Mei Xiang may be pregnant, so they don't want to stress her out. We also saw the small mammals, the apes and orangutans, and invertebrates before heading home. The big cats were already in for the night and we have seen plenty of birds, so we didn't go to that side of the zoo.

Thursday - I really wanted to go to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (the mint), but we had to get in line really early to get tickets. We probably didn't have to be there by 6 like we were, but we got the ticket time we wanted. We jumped on the Metro to take us to Ford's Theater and the house where Lincoln died, but they were already out of tickets to the theater and museum, so we just checked out the gift shop and left. We had time to kill before going to the Spy Museum, which was really neat. It was cool to see all of the gadgets they use, but I was really interested in the spy stories and how some of them were caught. We were there for a couple of hours, had lunch and then headed back to the BEP for our tour. It was neat to see how money is made, but the machine that does the final print and cuts the bills was down, so I didn't feel like we saw the money being made. We did see the big sheets going on to the printer and we saw them doing the quality checks. Then we went to the Archives where we got to see the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Emancipation Proclamation. I love that the originals are on display for us to see. And I really love what great handwriting they used to have. Our last stop was the Postal Museum, which was good to see. Neither Matt nor I are stamp collectors, so I'm sure some if it was lost on us, but it did have a lot of history including a bit about the Pony Express. They also had a section of unique and unusual mailboxes. We were going to drive back into town after dinner to see the monuments lit up at night, but the weather didn't cooperate with us.

Friday - Our last stop was the National Cathedral. We had to drive to get there and let's just say both of us are glad we don't have to drive in DC traffic every day!! The Cathedral is beautiful. They just don't make churches like that any more. The sculptors worked in view of each other and people that wanted to visit, so they had to be on their game every day and it really paid off. The stained glass windows were beautiful and it was neat to see the colors of light on the walls. There is a special seat in the choir area for the US Senate Chaplain, which I thought was interesting. There was a mom and 2 kids in the children's chapel and the mom was ready to leave, but the daughter said, "but I'm not done praying!" So sweet! We walked along the outside, which is just as impressive as the inside and went up to the observation area. The nice thing about being up there is that they had pictures pointing out landmarks so you could find what to look for. Very smart people! We had to drive back into town so I could buy t-shirts that I wanted. I didn't know that the Cathedral isn't in downtown DC, so I figured that I could pick them up Friday, but really I should have gotten them before we left Thursday. It wouldn't have been as big of a deal if we weren't so low on gas!! I got my shirts, we got gas and then left town. We drove to Raleigh where we met my friend, Christina, and her 2 boys for dinner at Pizza Hut. We split a pizza and she got some pasta for her oldest son (Caleb will be 3 this summer) and sat and talked until the youngest son (Isaiah is 14 months) got fussy. Matt and I decided to just drive all the way home, so we got in about 2:30 Saturday morning. It was a great trip, but neither of us have been on our feet much since we got home!!

Things I liked about Washington, DC:
-Fast, clean Metro
-Friendly and helpful security guards
-Lots of shaded parks to sit and rest
-Very clean
-The women wear tennis shoes with their suits
-The weather was great
-Tie-dyed "I (heart) DC" shirts (Yes, that's one of the ones I had to go back and get)

Things I didn't like about Washington, DC:
-Lines everywhere!!
-You couldn't take pictures in a lot of places