Day 9: Lunch and Home!

Written on Sunday...

Our flight did not leave until 5:00 today, so we still had most of the day to spend in DC.  We slept later than planned so it got off to a slow start.  We packed and checked our bags at the hotel.  We took the metro to a little place called Ben’s Chili Bowl.  A few different people had recommended this place to us so we were anxious to try it out.

Ben’s is off the beaten path.  We ordered chili dogs, fries, and shakes.  The food was average/good; the marketing and atmosphere was genius.  There was nothing fancy about the place; it reminds me of Arthur Bryants.  It has been open for 50 years and pictures the celebrities who have eaten there- notably Bill Cosby, Bono, and Barack Obama- grace the walls. Mark is sure to grace the walls soon.

 After lunch we still had a few hours before we needed to head back to the hotel and get our bags.  We had a few things we wanted to do, but nothing really worked out.  We wanted to go to the top of the Washington Monument, but we didn’t plan far enough ahead and it was a cloudy day.  We (I) wanted to have a picnic on the National Mall, but it was cloudy and a little cool.  We wanted to rent bikes again, but did not really have enough time.  So, we decided to check out a pub in the area.  Drinking in the afternoon isn’t a problem on vacation and travel days, right?

We came across a place, called RFD (Regional Food and Drink) that had LOTS of types of beer.  They had about 30 on tap and we had only heard of a few of them, and they had hundreds of bottles.  There weren’t many people here so I asked them to turn one of the tvs to ESPN2, where cheerleading was on.  Mark just shook his head at that.  We passed a bit of time here, collected our bags from the hotel, and headed to the airport.  Now we are waiting on our flight back home; we have a 2.5 hour layover in Ohio and don’t get home until 10:00.

A few other observations about this trip that I have not yet written about:

DC has a great metro system, but it is not cheap.  We got here Thursday afternoon and left Sunday afternoon, and spent $35 each.  It’s definitely the way to go, but it was more expensive than I thought it would be.

Even with the metro system you do a lot of walking.  Comfortable shoes are a must.  Even on a Friday or Saturday night, you don’t see many girls out with heels on.  Flats are very popular.  My kind of place!

Planning ahead in DC is also a must.  Many trips are possible, even fun, if you wing it as you go.  But DC requires several months notice if you want to tour the Capitol or White House, and many of the monuments and some museums have time-stamped tickets you have to get the morning of or pay a small fee to reserve online.  Also, the Supreme Court is only available for tours M-F, the museums have limited hours, etc, so not having a general plan of what you’re going to do on what days could cause you to miss a lot of neat things.

Security guards are EVERYWHERE!  This is one protected city.

Overall we had a great trip.  It’s always nice to leave reality behind for a bit.  We did not get to relax on this trip, but we saw and learned a lot about our nation’s history.  I was never that into history until we went to Germany- I truly believe that history comes alive when you’re seeing and touching it.  You just can’t get those experiences from a textbook.  

Until next time…

Day 8: Cherry Blossom Parade, Spy Museum, Arlington, and Georgetown

We started the day off early with the Cherry Blossom Parade.  I was really excited about this.  Mark was not.  This is a big parade- an estimated 100,000 people show up for it.  I wanted to get there about 90 minutes early, but in typical Miller fashion we arrived about 30 minutes early.  This actually turned out great.  We found a good seat and watched as the hoards of people filed in:

 It was nuts.  The parade was pretty typical.  We got to see the bands from all the branches of the armed forces:

And some huge balloons:

/

At one point, the parade stalled.  For a really long time.  This was a little over an hour into the parade.  We waited and waited, wondering what the heck was taking the next group so long to catch up.  They stalled and stalled.  Finally we decided we had had enough of the parade and left to get brunch. 

As we crossed the street we saw the reason for the hold up: A car that was in the parade had caught fire!  When we saw it, the hood was open and the flames were pretty small.  However, over the next few minutes the flames grew pretty large and chaos was beginning to happen.  People were running all over to take pictures.  Mark said “all the fire trucks are in the parade so they can’t put out this fire”!  Mark and I watched for a few minutes but didn’t stick around for all the action or the rest of the parade- I don’t even know if they finished.  I think they were about 2/3 of the way through at this point.  It was an eventful parade, but I felt sorry for all the people who had put hours of hard work into organizing it. 

We got brunch at a place called Austin’s Grill, a place we had happy hour at earlier this week.  Then we went a couple blocks over to the Spy Museum.

Most of the things to do in DC are free, and the Spy Museum is $18 per person.  We had heard it was cool so decided to give it a shot.  As you enter, you are escorted through a hallway and futuristic elevator while spy-music is playing.  Then you are put into an enclosed room and told that you have four minutes to memorize an identity.  I chose Sandra Miller; I was a 62-year-old living in Australia.  I was born in Illinois and headed to Austria.  I owned a clothing store and was in town for 10 days for business.  After our four minutes were up, some doors opened and we went into the main museum.  We learned spying tips and techniques and learned about how spying was used throughout history, notably in the mid/late 1900s Cold War.  We were quizzed about our identity at certain points and given a mission: mine was to meet a clothing store owner (I forgot her name- guess I wouldn’t make it as a spy).   My cover story was I wanted to learn about German fashions but my mission was to obtain a catalog with a secret document coded in it.  The very last room was about how spying can be used in modern day to hack into computer systems and possibly shut down electric plants.  It talked about the implications of this- no communication, no refrigeration, no water treatment, etc.  Scary stuff.  We were not allowed to take pictures in the museum, but here’s a picture of the outside:

We strolled another couple blocks over to Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was shot.  It is still a working theatre, but is open for tours when a show is not running.  When we visited a show was on stage so we did not spend much time here.  Still, it was very cool to be in a place where such a historic event happened.

There was a big street festival going on a bit down from the theatre, but we figured it was one of those that you have to pay to enter and then pay to do anything inside so we passed. 

Our next stop was Arlington Cemetery.  It is HUGE, but you can take a bus tour that stops at the major sites.  To be buried in Arlington, you have to had served your country.  Most of the graves are from service men and women, but there are also nurses, Supreme Court justices, etc.  There are currently 320,000 people buried here, and the cemetery is still active, burying people every day.  As we drove around, it was breathtaking to see all the grave markers.  The very old ones look like they’re from any standard cemetery, but the vast majority of them are small standard markers.  To see them all laid out you can’t help but think of all the people who have died for our country and to be thankful for the freedoms we enjoy because of them.  It seems like there are so many, but 320,000 is a very small percentage of the people who have died.

The first stop was where John F Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis are buried with their two very young babies.  This is a nice site that is marked with an eternal flame.

The next stop is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers.  This was very cool.  There have been many people who have died with their identities unknown, and this memorial honors all of them.  It is marked with a big white stone that says “Here Rests in Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But to God”.  It is guarded 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The guard faces one direction for 21 seconds, turns another direction, does some stuff with his gun, faces this way for 21 seconds, takes 21 steps, and repeats it all.  (I think this would be the most boring job ever).  The 21 represents the 21 gun salute.  Every half hour the guard is changed and there is a very…ceremonial ceremony for that.  It was very neat to watch.  Due to the DNA testing we have these days, there will be no more unknown soldiers.

The final stop was the Arlington House.  This house is pure history.  George Washington’s step son inherited this house and wanted to build a memorial for Washington.  It served as his living residence for many years.  It was a typical plantation, but he and his wife paved the way to liberate their slaves.  In 1831 their only surviving child married Robert E. Lee, who was just starting his career with the Armed Forces.  They eventually got married in this house and raised their family here.  They left this house in 1861 to fight in the Civil War, and the house became a place where the Union troops protected the Capitol.  Shortly after this, it became government property and then the military cemetery that it is today. 

The house is currently going through some preservation so all of the furniture had been removed and some areas were closed off.  Even given this, it was still very cool to walk through this place and take in the beautiful views of Washington:

After Arlington we freshened up at the hotel and then set out to meet our friend Andrew Rhodes and his girlfriend Carly.  Mark and I met while joining a business fraternity, and Andrew was in the same pledge class that we were.  We used to hang out with him pretty regularly but have not seen him for years, so we were really excited when we found out he was living in DC and wanted to meet up. 

There’s a neighborhood in DC called Georgetown; the college of the same name is located here.  Andrew is in law school here and suggested a bar called The Tombs.  The Tombs is in the basement of an old 19^th century house and once counted Bill Clinton as one of its regulars.  We had a great time meeting his girlfriend, catching up about everything that’s happened over the past several years, and talking about our past and future travels.  It was really good to see Andrew again and to talk to someone other than each other!

On our walk back we passed a street that had a quiet zone:

After dinner, Andrew and Carly went home and we strolled through Georgetown.  The metro is not really convenient to Georgetown; we had to walk about a mile from the metro to the restaurant.  As we walked back, we came across a pizza bar called Pizza Paradiso.  We stopped here and had a few drinks.  It was a really neat place with a lot of unusual brews on tap. 

We left the pizza place and were walking back to the subway.  Georgetown is a happening place; it’s about what you would expect walking through a college place after midnight on a weekend.  We saw these guys in an alley and it looked like they were getting ready to fight.  Mark yelled “HEY!  What's going on back there”?  They came out of the alley and said “Nothing, mind your own business”!  Then later they yelled “Thank you”!  Dumb college boys.

Tonight was a really fun night.  Tomorrow is supposed to be very nice, about 70 degrees, and we don’t really have plans.  It will be fun to see where the day takes us!

Day 7: Smithsonian Museums

Today the weather was colder and rainy, so we planned to go to some of the Smithsonian museums.  The Smithsonian consists of 19 museums and galleries along with the National Zoo.  We wanted to go to three of them:  The Museum of Natural History, The Museum of American History, and The Air and Space Museum.  These are some of the most popular museums and they line the National Mall.  And all of the Smithsonians are free! 

We started off with Natural History.  Walking into the doors, I felt like I was stepping onto the set of the movie “Night At the Museum”.  It had a similar feel, a big open room lined with big fossils, the exhibits in clearly marked wings.  We knew we didn’t have nearly enough time to see everything; we had agreed to focus on the things we really wanted to experience.  We started off with dinosaurs and fossils:

That progressed to mammals from around the world.  Here’s a fox from the Sahara desert.  Doesn’t he look like our dog Hooch?

This part of the museum had a lot of information about evolution and presented it as fact.

We ended this museum with a look at the Hope Diamond.  This diamond is over 45 carats and it’s really old (I think a BILLION years.  But I am not sure and unable to verify with a quick Google search).  It is blue and very sparkly and beautiful.  I'm not a fan of the necklace it is set in- while it is very pretty, I think it distracts from the actual diamond.  This exhibit had a lot of guards!

Next we went to the American History museum.  It rained a little on us on our way there.  We grabbed a quick lunch in the cafeteria ($11.50 per pound of salad) and then set off to explore.  Mark and I were interested in different things so we decided to split up. 

First I saw Julia Child’s kitchen:

Then I headed to the First Ladies Exhibit.  It took an in-depth look at each of the first ladies and included many of their gowns.  I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the flash on my phone, so please excuse those spots.

Abraham Lincoln’s wife’s gown- she had a tiny waist:

The gowns Lady Byrd Johnson and Pat Nixon wore to the inauguration ball (Lady Byrd's is pretty hot, huh?!):

The gowns Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush wore to the inauguration ball- Nancy was a lot smaller than Barbara and I’m not sure these gowns should have been placed next to each other:

Hillary Clinton’s and Laura Bush’s inauguration gowns:

And Michelle Obama’s gown.  Her designer did not know she had chosen his dress until he saw it on TV:

Next I went to an exhibit about entertainment throughout American history.  Here are some objects of interest.

Slippers from Wizard of Oz- covered in sequins:

The Muppets:

Nastia Liukin’s leotard with the Olympic torch:

Michael Jackson’s hat:

In other exhibits, Mark took pictures of a fallout bomb shelter:

The lunch counter from Greensboro:

And a steel beam from 9/11:

He also saw Lincoln’s top hat but did not get a picture of it.

This museum also had the original flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner.  Did you know that this has only been our National Anthem since the 1930s?  This flag had 15 stars and 15 stripes, but it is damaged and has some small parts missing.  The original owners of the flag (military generals) would cut off small parts to give as gifts.  The flag was beautiful and took our breath away.  We could not take pictures, but here is the outside of the exhibit:

By this time it was about 3:30, and the museums close at 5:30.  That is not really enough time to do a whole museum, but we decided to see what we could get done at the Air and Space Museum.

This museum has exhibits focusing on things like the use of aviation in WWI and WWII, the Space Race, Space and Art, How do Things Fly, Landing on the Moon, and so on.  There were people EVERYWHERE and we were sort of getting museumed out, so we did not fully examine everything like we might have if we had come earlier in the day.  Plus, I am not a science type of girl.  That stuff is all really boring to me, but Mark loved it.  Just a few pictures from here:

Lots of planes (and lots of people) everywhere:

The Spirit of St. Louis, Charles Lindbergh’s plane that was the first to successfully cross the Atlantic.  I went to Lindbergh Elementary School so remember learning all about this!

A drone, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is being used in the war today:

The coolest thing about the museums is that everything is REAL.  You're not seeing replicas or pictures.  You're seeing real things that shaped America into the country she is today.

After the museums we stopped for happy hour at a place called the Chop House, where we had half price microbrews and a giant piece of chocolate cake.  We freshened up at the hotel and then headed to dinner at an Irish Pub.  It was located in DuPont Circle, a trendy part of town.  The food was decent and the place was popular.  The bars here show CNN on the tvs!  After dinner, we found a place called The Big Hunt.  It was a neat bar; it had lots of beers on tap from very small microbrews across the country- neither Mark or I had ever heard of a single one.  We grabbed a couple of drinks and called it a night.  Only a couple days left!

Day 6: Arriving in DC!

This morning we woke up in Virginia, got around, and left for Washington, DC.  As we drove into town, the word that came to mind was "grand."  Everything in this town is grand.  Unlike most cities with skyscrapers, nothing here is that tall.  The buildings are wide (like a whole city block) and sturdy and, well, grand.

Our hotel is very nice.  The only problem is I booked it using name your own price on Priceline, and I accidentally checked the wrong neighborhood.  And it is sort of in the ghetto.  But, the actual hotel is modern and spacious, it has high security, and the subway stop is right outside, so no complaints.

Now, we have heard that traffic in DC is some of the worst in the entire country.  Not only that, but it is hard to drive because the streets start and stop, signs are confusing or nonexistent, drivers are rude, and so on.  Our plan was to return our rental right after checking into the hotel.  Traffic wasn't bad during the late morning, but we definitely got to experience how confusing it is to get around.

We then grabbed lunch at Union Station.  My book said they had a large food court, and that was the truth.  Biggest food court I have ever seen.  Not only that, but it was packed with people.  And it's not just the food court, the entire station is happening.  It has a lot of stores and things to do; it is like a gigantic, people-filled mall.  This isn't a great picture; I was just trying to show how crowded it is.

After lunch, we headed to the Capitol.  A guy I went to high school, Brett Spitzer, is interning there and volunteered to give us a tour.  Since we had just gotten into town I hadn't really had a chance to orient myself yet and I was not even sure that the building we were standing outside was the Capitol (seriously, there are a lot of big, important looking buildings).  I asked a bystander if the huge building in front of us was indeed the Capitol building.  Mark was embarrassed.

While we were waiting for the tour, we did some people watching.  It was swarming with suits and people advocating for their causes to get funding in the budget; specifically there were a ton of people wearing Planned Parenthood shirts.  Here is one large group on the Capitol steps:

Brett did a fantastic job at giving us the standard tour.  We weren't able to see the  Chambers where Congress is currently trying to figure out a budget to prevent a government shutdown because there was an incredibly long wait, but we did get to see a lot of neat things.  Here's the inside of the dome:

We went into the room where the Senate met for years.  Here is the VP chair:

We also got to see the old Supreme Court chambers, which they used for years before they got their own building, the room for the Ways and Means Committee, a chandelier that Congress bought from a Baltimore church for $1,500 in the 1950s that is currently worth $6M, and stand in the spot where a representative strategically  placed his desk so that he could hear the whispered secrets of the opposite political party due to the acoustics of the room.  It was hard to grasp that we were standing in the building where so many important decisions had been made.

The weather forecast is 71 and sunny today, then 50 and cloudy/rainy for Friday and Saturday.  Our plan was to take advantage of this beautiful weather and do everything we could outdoors today.  But our feet were already tired from walking, so we rented bikes!  It took us forever to find the rental place, and by the time we found it we were really ready for those bikes.  Here's an awesome picture of Mark:

The first thing we came across was the Washington Monument.  This is the tall pointy statue.  It is surrounded by American flags at the bottom and further out are beautiful parks.  I hope we get to have a picnic here sometime this trip.

We then stumbled across the WWII Memorial.  This was quite beautiful.  Those pillars around the water reflect the 50 states.

Next up was the Vietnam Wall.  This is the long black wall that has the inscription of each soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice in this war.  It is understated and I imagine it would be quite touching if you had lost a loved one in that War, but we didn't have any names we were looking for and it was packed with people, so we moved on fairly quickly.

The Lincoln Memorial was next.  This is at the West end of the National Mall.  It is HUGE.  It was very cool to stand in the same spot where MLK Jr gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.

It was a bummer to find out that they are doing some rehabilitation work on the Reflecting Pool that you typically see when looking out from the Lincoln Memorial.  This was our view instead (note the Washington Monument in the background):

Next we headed around the Tidal Basin.  We were really glad for the bikes at this point.

The Tidal Basin is surrounded by cherry blossom trees that were a gift from Japan in 1912.  There is a big spring festival this time of year called the Cherry Blossom Festival.  It is supposed to be one of the best times to visit because it is so beautiful.  The beauty cannot be doubted, especially around the Tidal Basin where the trees are planted:

However, I'm not sure I agree that it is the best time to visit.  Maybe if you're into photography or flowers.  But if your main goal is to see the sites, it is so crowded that it can become frustrating.  Brett told us they usually process about 2,000 visitors a week and for the last few weeks it has been 10-12,000.

The opposite side of the Tidal Basin has the FDR Memorial.  This Memorial is really spread out and really pretty.

The unemployment lines that were common during FDR's presidency:

Next up was the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.  We were pretty pressed for time at this point, so we basically rode up, snapped some pictures, and left.

Then we rode our bikes back so fast that I was a little worried about falling into the Tidal Basin (there's no barriers)!

After we returned our bikes, there was more walking.  We found that little house at 16th and Pennsylvania:

This was about the only view you could get.  We tried walking around to see other angles, but they were completely blocked.  We are standing in a really beautiful park, President's Park, across the street.

From here we navigated the subway station to get back to our hotel.  The subway station is really safe, clean, and easy to navigate if you spend a few minutes understanding how it works.  We freshened up at our hotel and then had dinner at a "Cheers" type bar called Black Rooster Pub.  We met a girl from St. Louis who really liked to talk a lot.

And that was our first day in DC!