Our plan for this morning was to walk from Justin's apartment to the DC Metro stop... but not before some breakfast! Amy had grabbed 4 boxes of Raisin Bran from the hotel we stayed at outside Boston, so we packed our purses full of plastic bowls, spoons, & the cereal. Just missing milk! Right outside Justin's apartment was a super swank coffee shop, at which we became probably the first patrons to buy 2 cups of milk, rip open boxes of cereal, and eat our own breakfast out of our own bowls. Can't beat a $4 breakfast, though (total for ALL of us)! (Also gave David & I the perfect opportunity to grab coffee without having to slow everyone down).
 |
| Rotunda. |
 |
| More from the inside of the Rotunda. |
We walked the 0.7 miles to the Dunn Loring metro stop, & boarded for D.C. Much, much easier than the NYC system!! After 20-30 minutes, we exited the Metro at the Capitol South station and headed for the Capitol Building, where we got in line for a free public tour. Amy & I each had a bottle of water in our purse, & I had a full bottle of Gatorade as well. After we learned that we couldn't bring it inside, we all 4 teamed up to finish all the liquids... we didn't want to waste it! The tour started off with a 13 minute movie explaining how the different branches of government worked together, and what the purposes of the Senate and the House are. Along with guests from the States, there were quite large groups from London and Germany with us in the showing. We wondered what they were thinking as the movie proceeded to explain first how we warred with Britain, then Germany... and beat both. We continued on the tour through the rotunda, the crypt, and the old hall. We learned about the different artists & layers painted on the rotunda: fun fact - the artist that painted ONE HALF on the rotunda was paid $39,500 in the 1800's. Speaker John Boehner walked through as we were in the old Senate chambers.
 |
| The front of the Library of Congress. |
From the Capitol, we swung by the Library of Congress and the Supreme Court before heading over to the Mall. After a few photo-ops in front of the Capitol, we began our walk down the Mall. We hadn't gone very far, though, when we realized that we were all 4 starving. In the name of speed, we grabbed lunch at a food truck (Carnivore BBQ). The barbeque was topped with cole slaw, & it was surprisingly delicious, though we hadn't really ever heard of it before!
 |
| Washington Monument. |
Next up, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. We saw photos taken from the Hubble telescope, failures and successes in first flight, brushed up on Space Race facts, and (for me) learned from a children's exhibit "What Makes Things Fly." Lift, gravity, thrust, & drag are the 4 forces acting! As we were about ready to head off to walk the monuments, we noticed it was raining. We went through one more exhibit & then walked outside, as it looked like it had let up a little. A couple blocks down, we realized it was raining harder again so stopped off under an abandoned concession stand to come up with a new plan. The rain let up again, so we continued walking towards the Washington Monument, only having to stop one more time to get out of the rain. We all had umbrellas... back in Virginia in The Polk (the van). You might think this sounds irresponsible, but we checked & re-checked the weather before we left in the morning & it said nothing about rain!
 |
| Abe. |
We continued on our monument tour, seeing the World War II & Vietnam War memorials before getting to the Lincoln Monument. We walked around and took a couple pictures with Abe and of the view looking back towards the Mall. I shared a few fun facts I had learned on my last trip to D.C, but we looked them up later in the car & can't be sure whether they're true or not... does the fact that Abraham Lincoln has one hand open and one hand clenched mean anything? Does Lincoln's one foot in front of the other mean anything? Is it really Robert E. Lee's head on the back of Lincoln's head, looking out towards his home in Arlington?
 |
| In front of the White House. |
From the Lincoln Monument, we headed to the White House, checked out both sides, and saw the protesters that have been there for 30-ish years... protesting genocidal weapons, using phrases like "Chernobyl is everywhere." (Chris's personal favorite... haha). We walked by the Federal Reserve & Treasury Department before heading back to the Metro and back to Justin's. We had dinner with Justin at a DELICIOUS restaurant, Sweet Water. Everyone had a delicious dinner, & the prickly pear margarita and pumpkin ale we tried were delicious as well. THANK YOU, THANK YOU Justin, for your hospitality!!
 |
| Unfortunately, the camera operator we asked to photograph us with Justin (center) was technologically challenged |
After hitting some traffic (the radio cited it as being, "stuck in the weeds") just south of DC, we've been pretty smooth sailing since, on our way now to Key West. We'll stop sometime tonight between D.C. & Key West, and finish out the drive tomorrow.
PS - We are monitoring Hurricane Rina, and she doesn't seem to pose much of a threat right now. Latest updates: "...nearly all [computer models of Rina's potential path] are in agreement that Rina will miss the Sunshine State. “There
was only one of them which showed any chance of it coming up onto the
South Florida mainland,’’ Feltgen said of the computer models, “and
that’s been discounted. That’s the outlier.’’" That doesn't mean we've stopped watching it, though, so no worries!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment