We spent 4 nights in DC, our longest stop of the trip so far. We stayed a bit north along a metro line (not as far as Maryland) in an AirBNB.
We expected a few days of rain so we spent the first day wandering from the Whitehouse down the Mall to the Washington monument and through the memorials dedicated to various famous people/presidents.
If you’ve been to DC you’ll know the Whitehouse is a bit of a let down, regardless of who occupies it. It’s not a very big building and it’s multiple fences to keep people away. I guess it’s Canada’s/Britain’s fault for burning the first one down. We went to the Washington monument but missed the day’s tickets to get to the top. It didn’t stop Moose from dancing in front of it!
The rest of the monuments were fantastic. We saw the Lincoln, MLK, FDR and Jefferson monuments. My favourite was probably the Vietnam Memorial with its haunting sculptures.
On the way home we stopped off at the local grocery store called “Save a lot”. It really highlighted the lack of access to fresh and nutritious food even in a large metropolitan area.
The next day we had a lazy morning before setting off to museums. Hanika went to the Newseum with Ollie and I took Moose to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Neither of the kids were that impressed so we both dashed through without being able to take much in. We met up with an old friend of mine for a BBQ dinner.
Our last day was equally lazy. I took the kids to a park so Hanika could relax and she returned the favour by letting me go to the Air and Space museum by myself. There are two sites, one in DC and one in Virginia.
The downtown centre is much smaller and under a lot of construction. Still, they had a version of the Apollo lunar lander used to prepare the astronauts, a life size Hubble and a full size Apollo/Soyuz docking.
We headed out via Arlington National Cemetery. Unfortunately Moose spat the dummy so I took him back to the car and saw nothing. Our last stop was the Air and Space museum in Virginia. It’s connected to Dulles Airport so is both massive and able to take planes directly from the tarmac. Not only planes but also Discovery, the space shuttle! It was an overwhelming sight. So far, a highlight of the trip for me. It also had an SR-71, the Enola Gay and a Concorde.
The next destination is Nashville with two stops in Virginia and Tennessee to break up the drive.
I love all the museums that you are seeing. I am a museum geek as well. All of your pictures are so great.
Hope you get to Seattle and can visit the Boeing Museum of Flight too! I loved the Air and Space museum in DC when I was there 25 years ago.. hoping to get back there next month..