Wednesday, September 30, 2015

DC Day 1

After NYC I thought I would never live in the city but DC changed my mind.  We couldn't believe the leisurely pace of everyone and how you could walk down the street without bumping into people.

It was so nice!

We also enjoyed the buildings- no huge skyscrapers blotting out the sun and the older architecture was fascinating. There was one area down by the National Zoo that was just lovely. It had a small town feel to it.  Hubby even said as we drove through,"I could totally live here."  Don't worry family, we're not, but just saying that DC changed our mind about city life. I also loved how many things were free!!

We decided to break DC up into 3 days and we could really have used a 4th. We wanted to do DC Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then leave Friday.  But the Pope was in town Tuesday-Thursday(meaning that DC was a madhouse) so we had to extend our stay at the Adventure Bound Campground in Lothian Maryland(great place btw!!) and go to DC on Monday, Friday and Saturday( we actually ended up going Sunday instead).

I checked the forecast and they called for rain on Monday and Saturday so I scheduled museums for those days.  Then I checked a DC map and my list of what we wanted to do/see to see what things were close together.

I also investigated the parking situation.  I learned quite a bit after our Hoboken NJ incident. There is some street parking in DC but if you can find an open space it's only 2 hour parking anyhow.  So I searched for parking garages with a 7ft clearances to save us any issues. We ended up using the Verizon Center's garage.  The only thing was they had an event going that day so we had to be out by 5:30.  Otherwise we would have had to 7pm.

So the 1st day we went to Ford's Theater and Peterson's House,  National Archives, then to the Air and Space Museum and past the U.S. Capitol.


This was our view as we sat down to eat a packed lunch. We had the privilege of sharing some of our food with a homeless man.
Do not fear.  Princess is not choking.  She is just eating with her mouth open.

Air and Space Museum

We let Snuggle Bug, Sissy and Bubba(and Hubby) ride flight simulators.  
They had a blast.  It was pretty affordable too.







Bubba is over 6 foot tall

Missiles-I can't fathom them coming at me.


Charles Lindbergh's plane
Spirit of St Louis






Everywhere we go they are working on iconic sites it seems.
Remember our Niagara Falls experience?
Turns out the Capitol is getting it's 1300 cracks fixed and part of the National Mall is all torn up and blocked off. They are doing something with the lawn.
Personally I think the fact that the Capitol is falling apart is rather symbolic of the state of this country.  But I digress...







The top of the Capitol looks fake doesn't it?


They are also doing work on the Grant Memorial at the foot of the Capitol. 
 It is all wrapped up in the background.




National Archives
The guard there gave us a good tip:
There are no lines to see the documents(Constitution, Declaration, Bill of Rights).
People think they have to form a line and file in but you don't.
You can mill about as you want.
So that is exactly what we did.
I am sure we got a lot of dirty looks but oh well!


Peterson House across from Ford's Theater where President Lincoln passed away.



Bed that Lincoln died on.

Beautiful, no?

You can get advanced timed tickets online to the Ford's Theatre ( there is a surcharge though) but that is mainly for the busy season so we just got ours at the door for free and got in immediately.


Ford's Theater

Handsome Fellas

The Museum that was attached to the Peterson house was amazing too but we couldn't take pictures inside. However, the Museum part at Ford's Theater is not so good.  It was laid out terribly for the amount of people that go through there.  We couldn't even get into the room where they had Booths gun, his knife, and tons of other stuff.  What a shame.

I hope the rethink the layout  and flow in there.


And here are some pics of us having a campfire last week. Temps were in the 80's at the beginning and then 70's for most of the rest. 









Many Blessings,
The Mama

























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