Washington D.C. Trip

Warning this is a long post of one of the BEST trips we have ever been on!

Thursday 5-21-09

Union Station

Arrival our first stop was Union Station. Honorable mention to Union Station for many great dinners there.


Friday 5-22-09

National Air and Space Museum

In this picture I am standing next to Friendship 7. During our tour the guide asked what this shuttle was called and I answered first so he gave me a 7 cent stamp with friendship 7 on the front.

Amelia Earhart's plane

Wright Brother's plane

National American History Museum

Ooppsee no pictures taken here :(

National Museum of Natural History

My silly husband made me do several cave woman poses before we could move onto the next exhibit. I think I am ready for a geico comercial:)

Wooley Mamoth

Saturday 5-23-09

White House

I wanted to give full proof to my little brother that the white house has not been painted Brown ;)
While we couldn't take pics inside it was beautiful. Even though the rooms are very antique they are still used daily.

Jeff holding the White House in his hand

You have to go through your state rep to get tour tickets and they recommend getting them up to 6 months in advance but last min. there were 2 openings so we luckily were able to get a tour.

Ford’s Theater

Where Pres Lincoln was shot

Petersen House

Home where he died several hours later

National Archives

One of our personal top ten sites to visit is the archives

The actual Declaration of Independence

Sunday 5-24-09

Holocaust Museum

Today we first stopped off at the holocaust museum it was a very powerful place! You get this name badge at the beginning and in the end you find out if they lived or died.

Tidal Basin Stroll

Jefferson Memorial in the distance

Washington Memorial

Lincoln Memorial in the distance

Washington Memorial in the distance

We then had lunch on tidal basin. There was a motor cycle rally going on that day so the streets were roaring. It was crazy to see how many motor cycles were participating! We walked to the middle of the national mall to see the Washington Monument and Lincoln's memorial.

National Cathedral

We then took off to see Washington’s National Cathedral. After a mile walk through a beautiful neighborhood we arrived at the massive Cathedral it was so beautiful. We went inside and saw the beautiful architecture and watched a small graduation ceremony take place.

National Zoo

Jeff made a chipmunk friend

After the cathedral we went to the Smithsonian zoo. Since there was only about 1 hour before everything closed most of the animals were put away. :(


At the end of the zoo we found ourselves lost with the street signs telling us one way and a parking guard another. Jeff decided to try out the GPS system on his blackberry and found the way back after a wide detour through unknown streets. It was a real adventure.

Monday 5-25-09

Arlington National Cemetery

We saw the 21 gun salute occur after President Obama spoke at the wreath laying ceremony at the tomb of the unknown soldiers. After the 21 gun salute we were allowed to go to the tomb of the unknown soldiers.

Tomb of the Unknowns Amphitheater

Security

John & Jacqueline Kennedy are buried here

On our way to the Tomb of the Unknowns we saw Bob Dole who ran for president of the US several elections ago.

This is where they usually do the changing of the guard but because there was another wreath laying ceremony we were not able to watch the changing of the guard.

Mount Vernon

We started off Mount Vernon with a quick video of the life of George Washington. What an awesome man. He was offered to be the king and then president for life and he declined. He did however serve 2 terms as president after retiring from the military. The land that he owned is amazing and beautiful! I loved touring the grounds! Of course one of my favorite parts was seeing his teeth which are made out of lead and hippopotamus teeth.

In front of the house

The beautiful view from the back of the house

The area the he grew crop with the intuitive 16 sided roof barn in the background.

Taking a quick dip in the Potomac River at the property's warf

Tomb where George Washington is buried

Tomb where he was first buried

Tuesday 5-26-09

Supreme Court

We walked through the rain to our first stop the Supreme Court where we saw the judges themselves in a 30 minuet ruling session. On this day a new Supreme Court justice was even announced.

Library of Congress

We then went over to the library of congress. This was probably our most favorite place. We got a tour of the most magnificent building. The highlights were viewing the library itself, browsing George Washingtons library in which Pres. Washington himself had touched over 30% of the books, and seeing the first map that had the word AMERICA written across the top.

Capitol Building

We then went on a tour of the capitol building, which has some of the most beautiful architecture and art in DC. It was a wonderful reminder about how grateful we are to live in America!

Lady liberty

The Colosseum

We decided to catch the movie Night at the Museum because it was filmed at the Smithsonians we went to on Friday. It was VERY lame (Jeff fell asleep during most of it) so don’t pay a lot of money to see it although it was fun to recognize everything that was in the movie.

Kennedy Center for the Arts

We caught a free concert at the Kennedy Center for the Arts by a young instrument band from Finland. Afterward we walked over to end our day at the Abraham Lincoln Memorial.

Wednesday 5-27-09

The view that almost made us miss our flight.

Honorable Mention

The UP escalator that Jeff bolted DOWN and I tried to follow and biffed it! Other than a few mishaps we really liked riding the metro rail.

Our lovely $30 meal with me sporting the t-shirt that came in our complementary travel bag because the airport lost our luggage. They actually just lost Jeff's but I wore mine anyways so that he wouldn't feel left out:)