Washington DC

On April 25 – Sam, Wes & I jumped on a plane to Washington DC.  I have a cousin that lives out there in Gainesville, Virginia and we’ve been wanting to visit for years now and it finally happened!  The three of us traveling together is a rather fun situation.  I think it may happen again!  As my dad would say . . . “Wes got to take his two wives on a vacation!”  Ha Ha – lucky him.

After we landed in the late afternoon, we went straight in to DC.  The weather was PERFECT and it was so nice to walk around outside after a day of travel.  We saw the Washington Monument, Lincoln Monument, WWII Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, White House & just walked around and enjoyed the architecture and scenery that is nothing like the desert we came from.  It’s beautiful out there & I love seeing the American Flag on every corner.

Day 2 was in Washington DC.  We walked over 10 miles seeing the Bureau of Engraving & Printing, American History Museum, Air & Space Museum, National Archives, Ford’s Theatre & the Portrait Gallery.   I loved seeing all of the buildings along the way filled with people who help run our country.  I enjoyed everything we did on this day but a few of my favorites included the Star Spangled Banner exhibit & war/slavery exhibits at the American History Smithsonian & everything about Ford’s Theatre.  There is a relatively new museum at Ford’s Theatre that was fascinating.  And I did really like the portrait gallery, too!  This part of DC has ZERO places to eat – other than a McDonalds. The ONLY thing we ate before 5pm was an ice cream bar at 1:30pm. I don’t know how we walked that many miles without any food or Diet Coke!  After we ate a real meal at Corner Bakery – we hiked back to the car and drove down by the rest of the monuments we didn’t see the day before and took a nice walk along the Potomac.  The FDR monument was huge and beautiful.  And as always, loved the Jefferson Monument.

Day 3 started at Mount Vernon.  I love that place.  The main house is always interesting to see but they also have so many of the side houses for the slaves, seamstress, clerks, etc. still in tact.  And it’s so pretty right on the water. The museum there is fabulous.  A highlight for me on this trip.  On our way to DC, we stopped in Old Town Alexandria to walk around and have lunch.  I remember loving Mt. Vernon and Alexandria when my parents took us out there in Junior High and they did not disappoint.  Alexandria was also one of my favorites.  What a cute town.  I’m pretty sure I could happily live there one day.  Then we went straight to Arlington National Cemetery.  We took the shuttle throughout the entire thing that dropped us off at the Kennedy grave site, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier &  Changing of the Guard, and the Arlington Lee House [the Curtis-Lee Mansion].  What a pretty view up there.  After we were done with Arlington, we went to Georgetown to walk around and grab dinner.  I liked Georgetown but I definitely preferred Alexandria.

Day 4 involved a day trip to Gettysburg.  This is the one place that all three of us wanted to see & the one place all three of us had never been.  We all loved it.  It’s amazing that after all of these years it is still preserved & that they have so many monuments.  It covers a lot of ground!  Devin & Jen gave us their auto tour guide . . . so we drove it while listening to a guy tell us all about different battles, etc.  Sam & Wes were perfectly okay sitting in the car and were a little annoyed at me wanting to get out so much to check it all out!   We loved learning all about Gettysburg while enjoying the beautiful scenery.  On our way home, we almost drove to Baltimore to see an Orioles game but it was pouring rain and didn’t want them to cancel the game after driving all of the way there.   Instead, we enjoyed the drive back to Virginia by stopping at every little roadside stand selling kettle corn, homemade pies, roasted almonds, etc.  When we got back to Virginia we found a cute shopping area with a ton of restaurants and enjoyed our first real meal of the day at 8pm.

Day 5 was Sunday so we slept in a little [what “sleeping in” means is that Sam wasn’t in our room at 6:30am telling us to get up] and Devin and Jen made us a delicious brunch before we headed to church with them.  After church, we headed back in to DC to catch up with Sam’s friend who lives there and we walked around DC one last time.  Sam wanted to peek in the National Gallery of Art and we walked by the Old Post Office before we got back in the car to drive to the Washington DC temple where Devin’s Institute Choir was putting on a performance at the Visitors Center. 

We loved seeing Devin & Jen and their 3 boys still at home. We were gone all day but they were ready for us to come home to chat & play games.  Well, at least Devin, Jen & Connor were!  Connor thought Wes was pretty funny.  It was great to see family we haven’t seen in a really long time.

Day 5: Getting up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight home!  Thanks mom and dad for watching the boys.  Until next time, Washington DC!

A few things to remember about this trip:

- Sam’s poor choice of shoes gave her GIANT blisters on the BOTTOM of her feet.  But she was a trooper.

- It was really neat to learn more about so many events that have shaped our country.  There were a few nuggets of information that none of us knew and it was a great 5-day-long history lesson.

- The Challenger rental car.

- Wes drove & Sam was the navigator.  Which meant I got a morning nap in the back seat!

- Our poor meal planning.  We either ate 3 normal meals or we missed them all!

- Apple crumb or BLACKBERRY?

- Taxi de Weston.

- The burrow

- “I have angered the burrow.”

- “8 minutes is 8 minutes, folks.”

- “I am in love with this kettle corn.”