DC Day 5

Some of you have wondered about my ability to blog on vacation. Well, we have our laptop with us with internet connection in our room. As for time, everything in the north closes between 5 and 6. So, by early evening, we are pretty much done with anything we can do and have the evening to regroup, relax and recover! Yesterday was the exception - Friday was FULL!! So, here we go for DC. We are all enjoying the museums, the architecture, the history, etc. but are not enjoying city life! Traffic, smoking, noise and business to name a few make it horrible to be here! But, we have made the best of our time and I will try to give you the highlights.

Our first day here, Wednesday, we played the "which way does this road go and where are we now" game for a little while. Finally, we parked the van at the hotel and went on foot. That was better! We went toward Old Downtown and walked behind the White House:

Our first official stop was The National Archives - following in the National Treasure Tour mode.

These are some pretty big columns outside the fake entrance!

Then there was the door:

The Corinthian Columns were just beautiful:

We were able to see so many things inside that I couldn't begin to tell them all here. All the main documents were there, even the Magna Carta and so many other things about our Nations history.

I pause for a commercial break here! We had a discussion this morning before leaving the hotel to come to DC that had something to do with the fact that since we were leaving Mt. Vernon and heading to DC, we would not be seeing anyone that we had seen at Mt. Vernon. Well, on we go to the Archives and are going along viewing the main documents (I have pictures, but the lighting was VERY dim in there to preserve the docs and you can't use flash so they are not good pics.) NYWAY... we are looking closely at each document, reading the notes and discussing what we were reading - like any good homeschool family would do. As we were nearing the end, I noticed a family in front of us and immediately recognized them as a family that toured Mt. Vernon at the same time we did!!! We left behind them and confirmed that it was them and that our second guess was correct as well - they homeschool! Too funny to run into them again in a whole different area and of all the places we could have gone to first in DC:

Lunch was coming quick and we went on a search of a place we had seen while driving around and were able to find it. It was Ollie's Trolley and they are family owned and make the most delicious hamburgers ever! I highly recommend it if you are ever in the DC area!

Next, we went to the Old Post Office where there is a tall tower that you can go up and have a great view of the city.

I have no idea what this building is, but we liked the patio on each level:

A view of the Lincoln Memorial from the opposite side of the city:

Constitution and Pennsylvania Ave. The slab of concrete to the right had the most amazing quotes by former presidents:

This is the elevator that we took to get to the tower - wayyyyy at the top!

We did a lot more walking around to get our bearings and sightsee. We took our first trip past the Washington Monument and Caleb and Daddy had fun getting this shot - he has grown some since we left for vacation:

Walking toward the Lincoln Memorial - lots of geese joined us:

The view from the Lincoln Memorial across the Reflecting Pond:

Abraham Lincoln and us:

MaKenna grew a little since we left too!

More about our visit here in the big city in the next post!