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Mr. cp Goes To Washington, Part One!
I managed to get the DC photos all edited, which means it's time for a trip recap! I was initially planning to just make one big post, but I think that would be too long, so I'll break it up, probably one post for each day. So here's Friday--enjoy!
I woke up at 4:45am on Friday, got the girls up and dressed, brushed our teeth and packed a few final things, and we loaded up and headed to the airport. They were excited, so they were up and ready to go pretty quickly! Here they are at the Orlando airport, waiting for our flight to board.
The flight to Baltimore-Washington was fine and on time, so we arrived and got our rental car, and hit the road for DC around 10am. I wanted lunch to be our first stop once we got to Washington, so that left us a little extra time to kill. I happened to spot the National Arboretum along the way, which was on my list of places I definitely wanted to go, so we stopped there for a little walk. It was chilly and sprinkling, and the place was under much construction--but very nice anyway.
See the columns in the distance? That's why I really wanted to come here. Those are original 1828 columns from the east side of the U.S. Capitol building--they stood sentinel as Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, among many others. When the dome was added to the Capitol, it was larger than what was originally intended when these columns were installed, so in 1958 they were removed to make way for an addition to better suit the dome. They sat around in storage somewhere for a few decades, and then were brought to the Arboretum in 1984. They stand on a base of marble steps, also original to the East side of the Capitol.
Hallie at the columns.
Normally there's a stream of water flowing down the channel here into a reflecting pool, but that was all off and mostly empty.
We didn't explore the whole Arboretum--it's pretty big!--but near the visitor's center was an awesome display of Japanese bonsai trees and other stuff that we really liked.
After the Arboretum, we were ready for lunch and the girls decided they wanted Taco Bell. Not my first choice, but it's a vacation, right? So I punched that into the GPS, and as luck would have it I was directed to a Taco Bell inside a shopping mall which happened to be right on top of a Metro station. So that turned out to be a good place to park and take the Metro into the city.
Their first subway ride!
I thought we'd start out at the Smithsonian Castle.
Couldn't pass up the vintage carousel nearby!
We found some chunks of ice/packed snow still lying around.
LEGO version of the Castle.
I liked this little guy in the crosswalk.
Across the mall to the Smithsonian's Natural History museum.
Obligatory, but fun.
This one didn't come out as sharp as I'd have liked, but I like how it kinda appears the people are scattering in front of a rampaging skeletal T-Rex.
In the Discovery Room.
Hermione with a huge quartz formation. The rocks and gems section was easily the girls' favorite part, and they spent some allowance money on bags of polished stones in the gift shop.
Just the Hope Diamond, nothing special. :)
Another look at the elephant in the atrium.
When we left the museum it wasn't raining, so I figured we'd better take the opportunity to visit some outdoor spots since the weather called for a rainy weekend. So we set off walking towards the Washington Monument.
This was about as close as we could get to it--it was still all fenced off while they finish up the work prior to reopening it in (probably) a few weeks.
So we kept walking.
To the Lincoln Memorial! They look a bit worn down here, don't they? That was a long walk, and then the stairs up to the memorial. The walk was a bit disappointing too, since the reflecting pool there was also fenced off for construction. The girls would have enjoyed walking along the edge of that.
I was fairly pleased with this one.
Re-edit: even more pleased with this one. :)
The wind really picked up when we went back outside!
From Lincoln we headed towards the nearest Metro station, and along the way we said hello to Dr. Einstein.
After taking the Metro back to the car, I asked the girls if they were ready to go to the hotel, or if they wanted to take the opportunity to go back to Baltimore and visit the National Aquarium. The aquarium was having a special deal on Friday evenings with pretty cheap admission--otherwise it would have been a bit too pricey. They were tired but said they wanted to go to the aquarium anyway, so off to Baltimore we went!
The Inner Harbor area of Baltimore seems pretty nice, but the water looked nasty up close.
Apparently these Friday night events are generally pretty popular, and this was the last one for the season--the place was packed, and we had to wait a little bit for our time to enter. But it was an awesome aquarium!
Not a great shot, but I love the sign on the glass.
The girls had been looking forward to the hotel pool all day, but unfortunately it was 10pm before we finally got to the hotel, and the pool closed at--of course--10pm. But that was just as well, since it was bedtime anyway! And that was it for Friday.
Getting late today, so Part Two probably tomorrow. Stay tuned!
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(Well, I already want them, but your adventures with your girls make me want them NAAAAAAOOOOOOW.)
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Did you intend for the girls to wear bright colors, or is that just what they wore? (Are all of their clothes like that?) Just wondering - the colors were a cool contrast to the cloudy day. I don't blame them for being tired after that walk - the mall was much bigger than I expected.
It's cool to see some of the places I didn't get a chance to visit on my trip, like the Arboretum. I didn't even consider going to Baltimore or the Aquarium - but then, I didn't have time or transportation for it. I might use your posts for ideas for my next trip. I really like seeing the columns - though in a way, they remind me of ruins in Italy or Greece, which I don't think is the intended effect.
Looking forward to your next post!
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The girls do tend to wear fairly bright colors anyway, so that wasn't planned per se (and as Floridians, these are pretty much their only jackets!)--but you're right, the colors really made for a great contrast on these dreary days!
Apparently the MARC train runs from DC up to Baltimore--for a while I considered cancelling the rental car and totally relying on public transportation, but in the end decided the car would make getting to and from the airport and hotel easier. I think I was right, and I figure it saved us some time and walking distance. Driving around DC itself wasn't much fun, though, especially when traffic was heavy and the weather got nasty.
I dunno, I almost think the columns are intended to be reminiscent of something like the Parthenon. It's very cool that you can go right in among them, though--I really like that sort of off-the-beaten-path sort of thing, so my trips tend to always include things like that. None of us are really big fans of cities (or people, for that matter), so we tend towards visiting obscure places like that, and places away from city centers. :)
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Looking forward to my first trip to DC in November...these got me excited!
Thank you for sharing them!
:))
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Ooh, November should be a nice time to go! I hope you get better weather than we did...
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I'm really drawn to columns and grandiose, classic architecture like that too. And when you add in historical significance--I mean, these are the very same columns you see behind Lincoln here!:
Thinking that I photographed those same columns, even if it was in a different location.. still just amazing to me. :)
Yeah, the photo of the girls in the Lincoln Memorial was after a long walk and climbing all those stairs, so I understood the looks. :) But as you can see, just a few minutes later back outside they were happy and playful again. Kids are resilient, generally speaking, but they surprised me a little on this trip with just how much energy they had. Hardly any complaints about the walking, probably more when we were stuck in traffic in the car and they'd ask how much longer. :)
Oh, and these all link back to Flickr, where you can download high-resolution versions if you like. Just click through, look for the More Actions button on the right (looks like 3 dots), then click Download/All Sizes. I don't upload at full resolution, but plenty big enough for a desktop background. :)
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I've always enjoyed building my own PCs, which I'm sure you know can be done fairy cheaply if you're careful about it. Once when I built a PC I took a few months, collecting the parts over time as I found really good deals, and recycling some things I already had until I could upgrade. Once you get the A/C squared away for the summer, maybe you can keep an eye on Slickdeals for particularly good deals on a motherboard, CPU, and RAM. If you could recycle Biscuit's case, power supply, and hard drive into the new machine, that would be all you need if you get a mobo with onboard video/audio/LAN. Probably not too pricey to get something with reasonable performance that way!
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