Days 36-40: Monuments, Museums, and One heck of a Fireworks Show!

We’d had a great break from intense tourist activities with friends in Virgina, but it was now time to hit up our nations capital.  The short drive from Virginia to College Park, Maryland where we had reservations at the Cherry Hills RV park was a breaze.   Our site was just inside the Beltway and a few miles from a Metro Stop.   We’d been told that the DC metro system was very good, and that was the truth.   The trains were always clean, and ran frequently enough that it was easy to get around with very little waiting.  That first night was limited to swimming and grilling some dinner since we had an early start planned for the morning.  

We fumbled our way through much of our DC touring without too much planning except for our Capitol building tour and White house tour, which were planned long in advance.    On Tuesday, July 3rd we started the morning out at the Museum of Nature and Science, where we went through a great butterfly pavilion experience, and Claire held the biggest cricket any of us have ever seen.  The gem exhibit was a big hit with Claire, until she was over it.  It’s a big exhibit, but seeing the Hope diamond and other amazing mineral formations was a highlight of the day. The museum is huge, and we honestly had to pick just a few areas to focus on, but it is truly impressive.    After Lunch we walked past the National Archives and found there was no line, so we lucked into seeing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with no wait.  What amazing pieces of history, compromise and wisdom.    That night we went and stayed with a dentist friend of Dave’s from his Air Force days in Arlington, VA.  It had been 12 years  and there was much catch up on.  They hosted us for the night in their beautiful home.  Claire and their 3 year old daughter played in the back yard while we enjoyed some great BBQ.  

Fourth of July was an adventure.  We were scheduled to do a tour of the capitol building at 2PM, and we knew we were going to be up late, so we drove back to the trailer and relaxed before taking the Metro in around lunch.  We caught the end of the 4th of July parade around The Mall before heading over to the capitol building tour.  The video presentation at the beginning of the capital tour was really, really good.  Our congressmen and senators should be required to watch the video once a month as a reminder of what our founders wanted for this great nation.  On that note, Washington DC is littered with engraved quotes from the finest statesmen our country has ever known, and one has to wonder how modern politicians walk past these quotes all the time without seemingly giving heed to their wisdom.  But,  I digress………   It was really cool seeing the statues/monuments throughout the building and we have already seen some of the locations on TV during interviews.   The Supreme Court was closed, but we got a photo in front of it’s stately steps. We killed some time in the Air and Space Museum where we paid for what turned into an expensive nap in the Planetarium (oops), and really enjoyed the exhibit about the Wright Brothers. 

Food truck food, and a blanket was all we needed to park ourselves on the mall in anticipation of the coming fireworks.  Claire, characteristically, found some other kids to play with while Annie and I made friends with the theater students behind us.  The fireworks show was impressive, and we had a perfect view.   The mad rush to the Metro stop was a blur.  We had prepared ourselves mentally for a long haul back to the campground, but impressively we didn’t have to wait to get on a train and even got seats.   The only slow down was the bottle neck getting down into the station.

The Next day involved a tour of the Holocaust Museum which was very well done and a very somber time.  We also hit up the Museum of American History with the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner as well as George Washington’s famous teeth – fun dental fact: they are not made of wood. That night we did a night bus tour of the monuments around central Washington DC.  It felt a little bit rushed, but we got to see everything and really enjoyed it.  

Our final full day in DC was on Saturday.   We drove into the city for our tour of the White House which involves many layers of security to walk through self guided tour very much devoid of information and context.   Still it was cool to see, if not very short.   George Washington’s  Mount Vernon Estate was how we filled our afternoon before heading back to the camper for the night.

Washington DC lived up to its reputation, and we feel like we barely scratched the surface of what is available to do.  I think we will be making another trip in the future.