DC Trip Day 3

This day was the longest day of the whole trip! We did so much walking and sightseeing that we were out for more than 12 hours and we had walked at least 10 miles. That said, this post will most likely be very long and full of pictures :)

We started the day by going to the National Air and Space Museum. We saw lots of things there including some spaceships, Wright flyers, Spirit of St. Louis, rockets, and pieces of Mars and the moon. 

Rich in front of an engine

Amelia Earheart's Plane, The Lockheed

Replica of the first plane to ever fly 

by the Wright Brothers

Actual propeller from the original Wright plane

Space Suit

Rocket Engine

It was HUGE!

Then we wondered on over the the National Gallery of Art East Building. The east building is the more modern art and the west building is where all of the Classical art is held. We walked around the east building pretty fast because there really wasn't a whole lot to see, just some really large pieces and really awkward shaped spaces.  

Adam being the art

Arcimboldo piece...My Favorite! 

It was really large as you can see in the background of the previous picture.

Picasso

This is the walkway between the east and west building. The lights would change all the time.

Super awkward huge elevator in the east building

Too bad we don't have a picture of the tiny one!

Then we went to eat because it was about dinner time.  We walked up to Chinatown and got some food at...wait for it...an Irish pub! It was delicious food, but pretty funny that we didn't eat something Chinese.

Next we walked over to the National Portrait Gallery and wondered through that for a little bit.  There weren't very many interesting things, just painting after painting of presidents and famous people.  There was a really interesting little gallery in one of the rooms that featured numerous Norman Rockwell paintings and drawings.  There were things in the collection like pencil drawings of something he would paint later and then the painting hung next to the drawing.  It was so neat to see the slight changes he made before he painted it and to look at the drawings and see the smudge marks from the pencil. It was so cool!

After we left the portrait gallery, we walked past the Ford Theater where Lincoln was shot and the house across the street where he died. 

It was such a beautiful night, so we decided that we were going to go see all of the monument at night when they were all lit up.  The sun was just starting to set on our walk to the monuments.

The base of the Washington Monument

The Washington Monument 

from the WWII Memorial

WWII Memorial

Lincoln Monument and Reflecting Pond

Lincoln Monument...The walk to here along the reflecting pond was terrible....SOOOOO many bugs!

Ghostly etchings of soldiers faces in the black granite wall at the Korean War Memorial

Jefferson Monument

By this time, it was about 10:30 or 11:00 at night so we thought it would be a good time to go to bed.  What a day!

DC Trip Day 2

On the second day of our trip we had a tour of the Capital Building in the afternoon, so we took the morning to explore the new city.

Before we get started, I should mention that this is what our "little" B&B looked like from the outside. When we got here the other night, the tree was full of little white twinkle lights. It's so pretty!









First we walked down to the White House and then down across the mall.The funny thing here was that 1) There was some construction going on behind the White house, so there was a crane in the back of almost everyone's pictures and 2) there were like a million people in front of the White house, but on the back side, there's basically no one!

Next, we stopped off at the National Archives Building and saw the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence! We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside there, but believe me, the documents were so old and crisp. It's a good thing they are behind glass or it would probably disintegrate if someone sneezed! It didn't really look anything like what you see in National Treasure either :)

National Archives

We continued to walk across the mall and looked at all the buildings. We were just enjoying seeing everything and enjoying the GREAT weather! We wondered on over to the Botanic Gardens and looked at a bunch of plants. There were plants from all over the world in there!

Just inside the entrance

Huge palm trees that were growing INSIDE!

Really cool roots on a tree

These were pretty with really long wispy parts. They were called Cat Whiskers.

This was one of just a few beautiful lotus flowers that were floating about in a pool.

Finally it was time to tour the Capital Building! We had to go through a security check and then just went in to be standing in front of "freedom" a full size replica of the actual statue that is on top of the capital building. 

Next we watched a short film on the United States of America and then went into the Rotunda 

The ceiling of the dome

Standing inside the rotunda looking across the way

Then we walked around and saw where the original senate and the original house met. We saw where Clinton had his impeachment trial. We saw the original clock that was set up to be 5 minutes fast so that people would finish debating on time. There is a spot in the floor where it's dipped down because it is where people rub their feet for good luck. This spot is where Washington was supposed to be buried but he's not because he's in Mt. Vernon with Martha. This was basically the end of the tour and we walked in this long underground tunnel that came out inside the Library of Congress

 

The ceilings were just covered in beautiful mosaics and it was just amazing to see the designs and the architecture. After this we ended up just heading back towards our B&B and getting something to eat for dinner. 

It was a good day :)

Side trip to NYC (DC Trip Day 1!!)

So here it is...the long awaited Washington DC pictures! We had so much fun and saw so many things that it's impossible to put up all of our pictures and it would be ridiculous to try and get it all to fit into one post. So in order to try to make this easy for me to write and for you to enjoy, I will be breaking posts up into days and what we did each day. It is possible that soon I will even have to break the days up into parts because we crammed so much stuff in to one day. So bear with me since this could turn out to be a very long post...without further ado, here we go!

We left Seattle about 9 o'clock on the morning of September 11th, 2010. We flew first down to Albuquerque, changed planes and then left for Baltimore. We ended up landing just as the sun was setting and it was really pretty. We then took the train from the airport to Union Station in DC then took the monorail to Dupont Circle and then walked to our B&B (Akwaba Bed & Breakfast - They were absolutely amazing and I would highly recommend them if you travel to any 4 of their locations).

This is what it looked like when we came out of the tunnel up to the street level of Dupont Circle.









After we dropped our stuff off, we went to go eat and then head to bed because we had an early morning the next day (especially for us because it was 3 hours earlier than we were used to!)

We left early the next morning and got on the bus for New York at 8:00am (5:00am our time...Eek!)

Here we are...in Maryland!

And now New Jersey... 

And FINALLY New York (4+ hours later)

Welcome to NYC!!
We walked right up next to Macy's on 34th where they stop and do performances for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! And there were lots and lots of taxis!
Off We Go!!

Broadway! Someday I would like to go back and see the Lion King.

The 2010 ball they dropped on the New Year. 

 

 

                                                                          Standing in Central Park

 

Trump International Hotel and Tower (this was ridiculously tall)

So here's something weird that happened. As you can see in the pictures above, it just looks like a little cloud over but overall it's not bad. Still mostly clear, you could still see the tops of all the skyscrapers (which is saying a lot). So we get on the subway (which was totally fun and super fast!) at Central Park and when we come out just outside the 9/11 memorial it's raining and the clouds had dropped so you couldn't see very well. I couldn't believe it!

September 11th Memorial. The new tower going in will be really big.

 

 

 

 

 

 If you can believe it, the statue of liberty is out there in the center. It's the darker spot of fog :)

That's right...it's the Batmobile!

The NY Stock Exchange on Wall Street

At this point we were fairly wet but we decided that we would just walk around some more and find something to eat (we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast at 7:30 or so) because it was getting later into the evening. We ended up walking all the way up to SoHO and we were thoroughly soaked. We got on a subway from there and ended up back in Times Square. We ate at the Hard Rock Cafe (my first experience...pretty awesome to thing that the first time I ate at Hard Rock was in NYC Times Square) and then got back on the bus. We got back to the B&B really late, but it was totally worth it!

All in all, we saw quite a bit of stuff when we were in NY for only one day. I can't believe all the stuff that we saw and how much more we missed out on. Such a big city. Obviously we took hundreds of pictures but these are mostly the highlights of the trip. 

Stay tuned for days 2-10!