DC Trip Day 6

Today we planned on having a pretty easy going day. We got some breakfast and then headed down to the Washington Monument to see if we could get tickets to go up inside of it. I figured that all of the tickets would be gone but we were able to get some of the last ones for 4:00 that afternoon.

With tickets in hand, we headed to the National Gallery of Art West Building. This has all of your classic artwork and there were thousands of pieces. Room after room of different art pieces by all sorts of people I didn't recognize. It was pretty crazy. After hours in the gallery, everything just started getting jumbled together and they all looked the same after a while. We were able to see a few famous pieces though including one by Da Vinci. It is actually the only work by Da Vinci in the United States! His painting style was unlike any of the other painters. It was incredibly detailed and so well done. It was also painted on boards and the back of the piece was actually painted as well. Down on the bottom floor of the gallery was a sculpture gallery. That was neat to see and we got to look at things like Degas dancers and the Thinker by Rodin.

Statue of Mercury

After we finished there, we still had some time before going up in the Washington Monument so we thought that we would see the aquarium. When we got to the building though and saw the price of the tickets, we figured we would just go to the one back home in Newport. This one looked like it was probably not worth the cost they were asking. Once we decided this, we headed over to the Vietnam War Memorial to check that out. It was so huge and there were so many names on there. It was crazy to think that most of those people were no older than I was. It was hard to watch people just run through there and appear to have no respect for what this wall represents.

Next we wondered back over to the Lincoln Memorial in the day time. It was just as full of people as it was the other night! This place never gets a break. Then we walked down along the reflecting pool and ended up sitting at the WWII memorial for a while.

Then the time came to go up in the Washington Monument. I was really iffy about going because everything I read said that it was over 800 stairs to the top. I don't really like going up and down stairs that  much and even debated waiting at the bottom while Rich went up and back down. I eventually talked myself into it thinking that I would possibly not get this chance again and it would be pretty cool to be at the top of the Washington Monument. So our group got called and we walk in to the base of the building and I'm pleasantly surprised to see that there is an elevator and no stairs to be seen! I was so excited and Rich was pretty bummed. He was really looking forward to the stairs. We got to the top and you could see so far in all directions. There were two large windows on each side of the obelisk and of course all sorts of people crammed in there to see out. We waited our turn and it was great!

North - White House and lawns

South - Jefferson Memorial and government buildings

East - Capital Building and Mall

West - Lincoln Memorial, Reflecting Pool, Pentagon, Arlington

 It was so fun to see all of DC (and then some) from 500 feet up in the air! It was a pretty quick elevator ride back down to the bottom but it made a few "stops" along the way. Really, it was just a slowing down part where the walls would become transparent and you could see the inside of the obelisk. Some of the stones that were used to make the monument were carved and decorated in some way. There were stones donated from all of the states and even some cities and foreign countries too!

We got back to the B&B just in time for some more chicken wings and apple pie. It was just as good as the day before! We hung out in our room for a bit and then headed out to find something for dinner. Tonight we decided to head up to the northwest instead of going to the southeast. It turns out we found a packed out restaurant and we waited for just over an hour for a table. There were over 350 people there and they said it was packed out like that every night. At that point, we knew we made a good choice. It was a TexMex restaurant called Lauriol Plaza and it was by far the best food we had in DC. The wait was all the way up to two hours or more by the time we were seated and people were plenty happy to wait that long. Mmmm....I can still remember how great it tastes! We eventually found our way back to the B&B and just went to sleep.