Washington DC Vacation

I consider it the trip of my lifetime! Some would list Europe, Greece, or maybe even South America as their trip for a lifetime, but DC - our nation's capital - is a must see for all Americans. Now that I've been there done that, I can't imagine having lived my entire life without experiencing it.

The drive through Virginia was picture perfect "Americana". Just like the artwork seen on those calendars I used to get. Large stretches of hillside farmland with barns, silos, cattle and farmhouses. Just gorgeous! We drove into the Georgetown section of Washington (thanks to our new "Miss Lady" GPS we didn't get lost!) and bummed around, looking at shops, etc.

We went inside a Juicy Couture shop and felt like country bumpkins in our touristy traveling clothes, (but at least we weren't the only ones). The prices in that shop were so ridiculously high that we all fell out laughing went we got back outside!

After stumbling around enjoying some local flavor, we found Uno's Chicago Pizza Grille and had a scrumptious pizza pie! Miss Lady got us to our hotel without any hitches, and we crashed into heavenly slumber.

Monday morning - up bright and early ... well, kind of early anyway! Got a good continental breakfast (every morning - nice!) and headed for the Metro Station at Largo Towne Center. Largo, Md is where we stayed and is east of the city. The metro rails were absolutely a blessing on this trip. Once you figure out the system, it's really easy to navigate around the city.

We spent the morning at Capital Hill; everything there is just beyond words: jaw-dropping, unbelievable, massive, marble EVERYWHERE, carved, polished, engraved ... just breath-taking! Went inside the Library of Congress first, then we did the Capital tour (so glad I got [free] tickets ahead of time). Ate lunch at the Capital visitors Center and then went inside the Supreme Court Building. After that, we toured the first museum - the National Gallery of Art. My favorites were Van Gogh's self-portrait,

daVinci's "Ginevra de` Benci" (the only work of his in America),

Monet's "Jerusalem Artichoke Flowers"

and "La Coiffure" by Matisse.

We also saw some of Picasso's work and that of Georgia O'Keefe as well. I just loved it! We were all pretty impressed. That ended the itinerary for Monday. However ... it didn't stop the Evanses!! It was a nice cool day, and it was fairly early in the afternoon, so we decided to make the trek across the National Mall to the memorials! It was a hike, but we were glad that we did it, because as it turned out, the next two days were much hotter! We would've been miserable.

We saw Washington's monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR Memorial, the Korean War Memorial, the Vietnam Memorial (and found the name of a neighbor that Joe's family knew when he was killed), the WWII Memorial, and I think that is all. I think we walked no less and probably more that 6-7 miles, maybe 8! Each memorial was phenomenal. We were late getting back that night and ate at an Outback Steakhouse near our hotel. Dreamland never seemed sweeter that night!

Tuesday morning we got off the rail at the Smithsonian Metro Station and toured the Air & Space Museum first. I think it was our family favorite. We rode simulators and saw a program on black holes in the planetarium. Countless aircraft and space craft vehicles were hanging everywhere, and they were HUGE! Standing next to the actual Apollo and Gemini command modules and looking inside of them was downright eerie! Much, much to see in that museum. My favorite and Courtney's favorite exhibit was the space dust! It looked ghostly and "not real". Really cool. For lunch that day we sat outside the museum and ate Vienna beef, polish sausage hot dogs. I never knew a hot dog could taste that good!

The quick lunch did it's job rejuvenating our gears and off we go to the Natural History Museum. It was huge, laid out with confusing floor plans, and I don't think we saw everything. BUT we did find the one thing I was interested in ... the Hope Diamond! I guess I've never seen a picture of it; we were all surprised by its appearance. It was beautiful, but smaller than imagined. We also saw Marie Antoinette's earrings and a tiara and necklace that were gifts from Napoleon to his second wife. There was a big crowd in that room, so we didn't spend a lot of time looking at every exhibit, but glancing around I could see that there were lots of beautiful jewelry pieces displayed there. We walked through the room of crystals, which was also breathtaking and visited the gem gift shop. The prices for small pieces of various crystals was astronomical! $300 for a golf ball sized crystal! The dinosaur skeletons and fossils were amazing, and we found another exhibit that I wanted to see - the giant, great white, extinct megalodon jaws. I think this was our second favorite museum, at least mine and the girls.

The next stop was the American History Museum. It didn't seem to have as much to see, but we got a kick out of these things: TV show Edith and Archie Bunker's chairs/props, the ruby slippers from Wizard of Oz, Julia Child's kitchen, Lincoln's top hat, an outfit worn by Grace Coolidge, civil war artifacts were interesting too. Just a wide variety of random things that define Americana. We liked it; there's nothing to not like anywhere at the Smithsonian. There are many more museums that we did not have time to visit. I researched the Smithsonian prior to the trip, and we all decided which museums we really wanted to visit and thankfully, had just enough time to see them.

After the museums, we walked and walked and walked until we got to the White House! There was a small crowd by the fence. People taking pictures, and everyone was buzzing around wondering how long it would be ... on the other side of the fence, on the lawn, there was an NBC news crew waiting for the President to arrive! The guard on our side of the fence would only say that he would be arriving "soon", and we assumed by helicopter. It was exciting! There were people on the White House balcony walking around! I used my zoom lens and got pretty good pictures but have no clue as to who I got pictures of! Joe noticed a guard on top of the White House and asked the guard standing by us and he said it was a guy working on the AC unit. Then he winked, so I guess Joe was right. They have someone up there 24/7. We waited as long as we could, but it looked like rain, and we were hungry, so we left there and walked into the downtown area.

We got on a rail and headed to the Chevy Chase area of DC; I think it is also called Friendship Heights. Wow! The shopping!!!!!!! Didn't shop though; our mission was food! We found our destination, Maggiano's, and had the most wonderful lasagna (sorry Cindy) that you'll ever put in your mouth! One order fed all four of us!! Really, really good! Then we went next door to the Cheesecake Factory - YUM, YUM, YUM!!! Best cheesecake you'll ever have!! Somehow, we muddled our way back to the Metro station and made a long journey back to Largo. Getting to sleep that night was NO PROBLEM!

Third day, Wednesday, we rode the rail to the Pentagon and saw the memorial there. It is a very different sort of memorial. Very simple, modern concept that honors those who lost their lives when the plane crashed the Pentagon on 9/11. When we first got off the rail, we noticed "no photography" signs and realized that we were right there at the Pentagon. We already knew that special arrangements have to be made to go inside, and didn't make an effort to arrange that. But we didn't realize that we'd be right there straight off the metro! We followed signs that lead visitors to the memorial. It was very simple, modern, & unique. I was very moved by it.

We left the Pentagon and then headed for Arlington. Just as we arrived, I realized that my camera memory chip was full and replaced it with another one. Much to my disappointment, the replacement only held a few pictures. (I think it's the chip that came extra with the camera). So I didn't get as many pictures at the cemetery as I would have liked, but I think I got a good representation of what we saw. The cemetery was awesome, unbelievably huge and humbling. The tour buses are the best way to go here. They are not like a typical bus. Rather, they are open, airy with lots of visibility. We saw grave sites of many people that I did not realize were buried there. Seeing the Challenger astronauts' grave sites was pretty humbling. It did not occur to me that their remains are buried there. And of course, the Kennedy burial place, the eternal flame was pretty amazing. The tour guide provided very interesting information, and we were happy to be sitting on that bus listening!

The climax of the tour was the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns. The most incredible ceremony I've ever been witness to. The sentinels moved in smooth, uniform and precise robotic movements that seemed as natural to them as skipping rope is to little girls! The whole thing took about 30 minutes and demanded extreme reverance. I think the entire crowd stood there without moving as much as a little finger throughout. I actually teared up when "Taps" was played and the wreath was replaced with a fresh one. Awesome experience.

Our final site to see was Ford's Theater in downtown DC where Lincoln was shot, and the Peterson house where he was taken and died afterwards. The "walk through only" tour was at 4:00, and we got there at 3:15, too hot & tired to putz around waiting for 4:00 to roll around. So I took some pics outside, and we all felt satisfied enough just seeing the place where it happened. We really wanted to get back to the hotel early to give ourselves some down time the evening before heading back towards home. I think the other three nights we didn't get back to the hotel until nearly 10:00 or after. So it was nice to relax a bit, had Chinese at a local spot in Largo and got to bed at a decent hour already somewhat rested.

Incredibly, the next week after we'd settled back in to our routines at home and work, a gunman shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum. We did not visit that museum but walked past it a couple of times. Then, a week or so after that, a Metro rail carrying about 6 cars on the red line crashed into another. Nine people were killed and 76 injured. We rode that line (in a different area of the city) and heard a female voice announcing the stops. A female operator of the crashed rail died in that accident. I do not know if it was the same operator whose voice we heard, but it surely saddens me.

Our DC experience was a true blessing and one that will not be soon forgotten.