Washington DC - day 4

For those of you that missed the Boston day, I posted it later and it probably got lost after New York if you want to check it out. For those of you sick and tired of reading every gorey detail, well, you have probably stopped reading. I am getting tired myself of keeping up. I may need a respite when we get home. We had such a great time at the zoo and the boys missed it so we went back the next day to see it again, it was that good. Here is a baby ape, born in January.
Remember the orangutan's? They have these towers with ropes between the indoor houses and the animals can travel between them any time they want. There aren't nets or anything. The signs say they won't fall or jump, apparently they don't. The ropes go across the walkways right over your head. It was so cool!

Next, we had tickets to go on a tour of the Capital building. After our tour, we went to Jason Chaffetz' office in the House of Representatives and got tickets to the gallery to see what really goes on, in person.

Then we went to the Library of congress. This is a really beautiful building.

Next we walked to the Supreme Court.

Here we are in front of the bench.

The kids can't stand one more nice picture so here's one that not so serious.

As we drove away, we passed the DC Temple. For our final stop, we went to the house I lived in before I moved to Alaska. 9908 Lakepointe Drive, Burke Virginia. It was really a thrill for me. I was almost 6 when we moved and so this is the first house I really have a lot of memories from. We walked all around and I told stories about swing sets, floating boats, fireflies, turtles, bee stings, big wheels, sand boxes and trick-or-treating. It was the perfect last stop to our great adventure.

The GPS sending us HOME!!!!

Washington DC - Day 3

The morning subway ride.




We started the day walking through the Smithsonian Sculpture Garden. This is a fountain in the middle of it. The kids can't resist water. The shoes are off in no time flat, they dunk their heads and then security's feathers get ruffled. Sorry, it's just who we are.

There were a few key items we wanted to see before spending most of the day at the Air and Space Museum so on the way we stopped at Natural History and saw the Hope Diamond. 45 carats of flawless blue beauty. Then on to American History.

They had a podium in front of a screen, with teleprompters for you to read, just like you were giving your Presidential inaguration speech. Here's David feeling like the president.

Next we had to see Dorothy's ruby slippers. We also saw Oscar the grouch, Muhamed Ali's gloves and Julia Child's kitchen.

There was a section on inventions and David tried out the windsurfer. It is harder than it looks.

Finally, lunch at the most efficient McDonalds in the world, and on to the Air and Space Museum. This is one of the Apollo lunar landers. The program was scrapped before this one was able to be used. Because they don't have to worry about air friction or aerodynamics, this looks a little elementary-school-science-projectish. Kinda funny for something that probably cost a kajillion dollars to build.

Here we are! Can you tell who is who? We were all standing in front of a heat sensor camera and it projected the image on a screen. There are some extra people standing around, but Nelson is the 2nd one on the left, I'm next to him with the cold nose (air-conditioning), then a stranger, then Michael. Katie is in front of Nelson, then David in front of her with cold ears and then Caroline to the right. How cool is that?!

There was a giant room filled with science experiments having to do with flight. We spent some time in here, it was really fun.

At this point, we split up because we (Caroline) had to see the giant pandas at the National Zoo. The boys stayed behind to spend more time in the Air and Space Museum and then they went back to the Natural History Museum to see a giant squid, skeletons, stuffed animals and walked through an exhibit filled with live butterflies. I am sorry I missed the butterflies but the zoo was great.

Here is 4 year old Tai, the giant panda.

Katie loves meerkats and she got to get up close and personal. He was really cute and would just stare you in the face.

Little did we realize all of these animals would just stare you in the face. Here are the girls up next to a great ape. It was so cool. He just sat there, looking around, not bothered that you were so close (ok, it was us that weren't bothered, but there was glass between us).

This guy was the funniest! This orangutan had the funniest facial expressions. He leaned his forehead against the glass and looked all around. He was checking out Caroline. We saw many other fun and interesting animals. Sorry Hogle Zoo, but you have been put to shame, this zoo rocks.

The escalator down into the subway at the zoo stop is super long and steep. this is looking up from the bottom. Quick picture, here's our train!

We met up with the boys at the bus station and went home for hot tubbing, spaghetti dinner, and Caroline went to the outdoor movie showing of Pirates 2. This campground has it all. Too bad we just sightsee all day or we could enjoy it, just kidding.

Washington DC - Day 2

We started this day seeing the few monuments we missed the day before. Here we are in the Jefferson Memorial. Again it was a hot, muggy day. Katie and I both wore skirts and flip flops thinking it would be best for the heat. It ended up being a challenge to run in. By the end of the day, we both had blisters and my feet were so swollen! I am writing this 3 days later and my feet still look bad.

Iwo Jima Memorial. It is so cool that it has a real flag, not bronze like the rest of it.

Next we went to theNational Archives. This is a replica of President Taft's bathtub and the kids standing in front of a picture of him. He was a BIG man. This is the president that Nelson's grandmother kicked in the shins (see July 21 entry, Maine section).

Here is David's shoe held up next to Shaq's. That is one big shoe.

There was a room where you could inspect documents. It is mostly a resource room for teachers and parents but anyone can visit. They give you white gloves and magnifying glasses to look at things. The kids thought this was pretty neat. Then things got silly...

We have similar pictures of everyone but this one is my favorite.

Next we moved on to the real reason for visiting this building, the original Declaration of Independance, Constitution and Bill of Rights. Wow. I know I keep saying this but it is so cool to see all of these things from history that have had such an enourmous impact on the history of the world. Here are the boys by the Declaration of Independance. It is really faded and hard to make out many words.

Here is Nelson reading the Constitution. This document you can see much better and it is still readable. After this, we went to Ford's theater, where President Lincoln was shot. I didn't take any pictures there, so use your imagination. Nothing in the theater was original but it was interesting going through the visitors center museum and the ranger program. They have rebuilt an actual working theater in the same spot that Ford's theater was originally. Inside, they have a box set up like it was the night Lincoln was there. He died at a house across the street. That was open to see but we didn't have time... on to the National Holocaust memorial. That was a 4 story museum like building taking you through the story of the holocaust. We had wanted to go since Katie did Diary of Anne Frank at school this year. It is always eye-opening and sobering, no matter how many times you hear about it.

Next we went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. This is where money is made. Here we are with 1 Million dollars. Now that's a once in a lifetime event. It was cool to walk through and see the money being made right before our eyes. In one place they were printing $20's and in another they were cutting $100's into bills. At the end, the worker on the floor was holding up signs to show us he was holding $400,000.00 in one bundle in his hands. He pointed towards the exit and mouthed the words (we couldn't hear him, bulletproof glass most likely and loud heavy equipment) something to the effect of "We can share, they'll never know, let's go!" Next, we hustled to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum IMAX and saw "Night at the Museum:Battle of the Smithsonian". We didn't have time to eat anything for dinner, that'll have to wait, and we were still the last ones in line. The movie was fun, now we know what to look for in the museums!

After that, we literally inhaled pizza slices, no chewing involved, just swallowing, and RAN the length of the Mall to the Washington Monument so we wouldn't be late for our ticket time. We arrived with 2 minutes to spare just to find out the tours had been delayed slightly because of lightning. Someone actually got struck last week. Whew, now do you understand the blisters and swelling? We made it up in the monument for our tour but missed the bus after the subway back to our motorhome because it was so late so we had to take a cab. What a day.

View from the Washington Monument, 555 feet, 5 inches in the air. Luckily we didn't have to do the stairs, there is an elevator.

Good Night!

Washington DC - Day 1

We have arrived in Washington DC. We will spend 4 days here, the most of any city on our trip besides Palmyra. Thanks to a suggestion from Nelson's sister, we rented bikes the first day to get around the Mall. I would suggest this to anyone visiting here. It was so nice not to have to walk, and walk, and walk a rather huge distance. In fact, for the rest of our trip the kids would occasionally say "I wish we had bikes today" when we were doing a lot of walking.
Here are the kids wading in the WWII Memorial just before they got in trouble from security. Oops, our mistake, didn't mean to be disrespectful, ignorance, how embararssing.

Here we are riding down the Mall with the Washington Monument and the Capital behind us.

The Lincoln Memorial. It was so hot. Caroline's hair is wet from dousing it in a fountain or something. The paramedics arrived as we were leaving because someone was suffering from what looked like heat exhaustion. We have spent a fortune on gatorade from street vendors to avoid that very situation.

Next we went to the Vietnam memorial. They have a directory of all of the names on the memorial and we got a rubbing of my mom's cousin's name from the wall. His name is Arthur Allen Callister. He died February 1969 and was 20 years old.

After that, we went to Arlington National Cemetary. It is huge and very beautiful. This is the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier. This is really something to see. The honor guard is amazing.

On the way back to return our bikes we rode by the White House for a picture. Obama snubbed us, we didn't get tickets for a tour. Oh, well.

Here we are back at the motorhome for dinner. Afterwards, we went swimming and then to bed.

Philadelphia

They have totally changed the visitor's center for the liberty bell since I was here last. Before, I think it was behind glass and you couldn't get very close. Now, there is a gaurd watching but just a little fence around it. It was better to be able to see it up close!
Here we are in the Assembly Room in Independance Hall. The Declaration of Independance and the Constitution were signed in this room. This room has almost a sacred feel to it. It is once again, I keep saying this, so awesome to be in all of these historic places, being reminded of the history and the sacrifices that were made for us.

here are the kids in front of Independance Hall. We didn't see Nicholas Cage anywhere.