Deb N. & Family - June 2007

Our trip to Washington, DC:
June 9-June 11

It all started with us heading to Concord, NC for my nephew’s high school graduation party. It was very cool! His best friend’s Dad is crew chief for a NASCAR driver, and the party was held in his garage. He had been crew chief for Bobby Labonte when he won the Cup, so, he had a lot of trophies and championship rings on display. It was fun and hot and the girls enjoyed swimming at the hotel. On Monday we took the girls to Carowinds Amusement Park. It of course is not WDW but it was very clean. The small kids area was Nickelodeon themed and the girls had fun. It has a really nice new water park but it was cool that day and stormed that afternoon so we did not get to do the water park. The food was very pricey here too. All in all it was a good fun day.

Tuesday, June 12

We drove from NC to Arlington, VA. Not a bad drive at all. It took about 6 hours tops. A little background on our host: he is in the Air Force Reserves and a very patriotic guy. He was a Navigator on the Stealth bomber in the first Gulf War. His Dad is a Normandy Vet. He has been to Iraq and was in Sadam’s Palace. He was also in Afghanistan. He used to train Navy Seals. We graduated with him from High school and he has a great 3-bedroom home and allowed our family to take it over. It was great. He was very generous and a wonderful host. He is still single. His home is like a museum with a wonderful collection of military prints, GI Joes and helmets. We want to go back and just hang at his house. It is very cool.

When we arrived we settled in and our plans were to go to the Marine Memorial for the parade they have on Tuesday’s but it stormed and they cancelled it. We went into a suburb called Roslyn to have sushi. After a great dinner, I asked if we could take the girls into DC to see the monuments lit up. It was awesome. DC is very nice at night. He took us to the Air Force Memorial. It is 3 huge concrete pillars designed to resemble jet streams. It was awesome to see it at night. We went over to the Marine Memorial too but no parade. This is a huge statue of the famous “flag photo” from WW2. We were tired and went to his house to relax and plan our next day. We decided it would be a “drive” day. Good first day. We are very excited to get started!

Wednesday, June 13

For our first day, we chose the National Zoo. It is part of the Smithsonian and free. Yes I said free but it cost us $12 to park. But it was so worth it. The Zoo grounds open at 6am. So you can go and walk around before the crowds get there. The buildings do not open until 10 so we got there around 9 am. We got a great parking spot near these Wolves whose urine smelled like skunks. It was very strange, it keeps predators from them and it kept us from them also! We have been to many Zoos. We are Zoo Members of the Akron Zoo. This is a very nice zoo. It is well maintained. It has a great staff and interesting animals. Of course the Pandas are very cool. We were given 10% discount in the gift shop because we are Zoo Members. After touring the whole zoo we wanted to see the pandas again but it got very dark and we headed to the car before it stormed.

We left the Zoo and headed over to the National Cathedral. We got lucky and found a free parking spot right across the street. This is an awesome sight to see! It is beautiful and huge. We went a side entrance and there were free tours being held but we just tagged along on some to hear some facts and mostly toured it on our own. The pulpit was gorgeous. MLK gave a sermon there the week before his funeral was held there. Very creepy. The gift shop is underground where the busses drop people off. We went down there when the storm finally caught up to us. Melanie bought a Divine Chocolate bar. It was “divine” to say the least; for $3 it should be.

Since we were on that side of town we drove to Georgetown. You cannot park on the main street during rush hour so we had a tough time trying to find a parking spot. It was fun driving around checking out the different shops. We finally parked and found a place to have seafood. Let me tell you it is a good thing we did not have to pay for lodging, the cost of food is very high. We ordered a Seafood Platter that should have served 4 and it was barely enough for the 2 of us. Everywhere we ate had nice kids menus for a reasonable price. Unfortunately my 10 year old often likes to order from the adult menu. We walked around a bit and headed back to our friends house for a recap and to plan the next day.

Thursday, June 14

Today we decided to start at The Bureau of Printing and Engraving. In our research we found out that you have to line up in the morning for tour tickets. The tickets are free but they limit them so it is first come first serve. We were there at 8:30 and were able to get a tour at 9:30 after waiting in line for about 15 minutes. We went to the café in The Holocaust Museum, which was right next-door and had coffee. We were almost late for our tour. They let you in early. The tour entrance is on the opposite side of the building from where you get the tickets. We made it.

They show a short film before they take you on the tour explaining what they do there. This is a good time to mention the security everywhere we went. Every building has metal detectors and x-ray machines. You must empty your pockets and place any items on the x-ray machine. This was the case everywhere. We did not carry much but our camera. In this building where they print paper money and any official Whitehouse invitations, they also have alarms in the ceiling and if your kid touches it they escort the whole group out of the building. We watched them print $20’s and $1’s. It was very interesting and only took about 30 min.

They have a nice gift shop where you can purchase uncut money. While waiting in line to get our tickets we learned that the National Archives has a long wait so we headed there next. My WDW eyes told me that that line was very long. We asked the security guard out front and she said that it was about a 2-hour wait. We asked her if it ever slowed down and she said they shut the line down at 6:30, a half hour before closing or else it would go on forever! National Treasure has helped make this a very popular museum.

Well I don’t wait at WDW for 2 hours for anything so we went to the National Museum of Art. My Melanie has a gift for drawing and has taken some art lessons at our local American Museum of Art so they really like museums especially art museums. There were some cool paintings of George Washington and one of Napoleon. I hate to admit that my hubby and I got bored here long before the girls did but we got them to go around here quickly.

We then headed to the Natural History Museum, which of course is free too. It had the usual dinosaurs and we enjoyed it very much. We saw the Hope diamond and the Tiffany diamond; this gem area was the most crowded! As we left we walked past the National Archives and there were no busses and I guessed about a 20-minute line!! I was right! It is all that WDW training. We got in line.

This is worth the wait. Of course it is very cool to view these important documents. Here is a tip if you go. They let a certain number of people in at a time, head toward the middle first. That is where the Constitution is and on the left is the Declaration Of Independence and to the right is The Bill Of Rights. You have plenty of time to see it all. The other documents are The Emancipation Proclamation and various other important documents from our country’s history.

After you view the documents there is a gem of a hands-on area where we saw the letter that Albert Einstein wrote to FDR about atomic energy. There were Civil War documents and many unclassified documents from the Cold War etc. They were in drawers sealed under plastic or you can view them on video. My girls made a WW2 D-day film clip on a computer that was shown up on a big screen with their name on it. It was fun and we could have spent more time here.

We were off to The Air and Space Museum. In my opinion the KSC in Florida does a better job with the Space stuff. The Wright brother’s section was very good. The mock aircraft carrier was cool too. We ate at the Mc Donald’s here. The American History Museum is closed for refurbishing so some of their most popular exhibits are on display here. We had to wait in line for about 10 min to see Dorothy’s shoes and R2D2 and C3PO. Abe Lincoln’s hat and George Washington’s uniform were awesome. We definitely want to go back when this museum reopens next year. We closed this museum down and were quite beat!

We called our host and he picked us up and we drove to Old Town Alexandria for dinner. This was so cool! There was a bag pipe and drum group wearing their kilts playing in front of the old court house. We had a good pricey dinner and walked around a bit. We drove over to the Marine Memorial again and got out to take photos. It is a beautiful monument. Back to the house amazed at all we saw in one day! We plan to go early am to Arlington Cemetery.

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