DC 2016: Day 5 (The Monuments and the Library of Congress)

Our last day in our nation's capitol ended up being a full day of sightseeing as our flight home didn't leave until nearly 6pm. We started the day with a tour of several of the monuments on the National Mall.

It's a bit of a walk between all the monuments and it was chilly, so we decided to use the Circulator bus to hop between the sites. We started at the Jefferson Memorial (view from the back).

After visiting Mount Vernon, Henry would now like to tour Monticello to learn more about our third president!

Boys at the monument.

Our second stop was the Lincoln Memorial, which the boys understood better after visiting Ford's Theatre.

Henry stood and read the Gettysburg Address aloud.

And of course, you can't miss the Washington Monument! This view is from the Lincoln Memorial.

We walked along the Vietnam Memorial too.

Our last monument was the newest: the World War II Memorial.

This is the Freedom Wall, which holds 4.048 gold stars. Each star represents 100 Americans who died or remain missing in World War II.

Views from the World War II Memorial

 

After a couple of chilly hours exploring the monuments, we grabbed a cab and headed to Capitol Hill for lunch. We stumbled upon We, the Pizza and enjoyed pizza and salads in a warm, cozy restaurant. 

Spring daffodils

Our last stop was the amazing Library of Congress, the largest library in the world. We visited the Jefferson Building; this Beaux Arts structure, built in 1897, is stunning inside and out!

This is Thomas Jefferson's collection, which he sold to the Library of Congress for $23,950 after the British burned the Capitol (and with it the library) in 1814.  

"I cannot live without books."  Thomas Jefferson, June 10, 1815

My boys can't live without books either, and their favorite part of the Library of Congress was the Young Readers Center, which is comprised of three rooms full of new and classic noncirculating books, comfy beanbag chairs, puzzles, and more, all designed for children and teens. We spent well over an hour there, just lounging and reading and relaxing after a morning of sightseeing.

 

Our spring break vacation was very full but we all had a truly wonderful time exploring Washington, D.C.!

DC 2016: Day 4 (Air and Space, American Indian, and National Geographic)

Our fourth day in DC called for another good chance of rain (that never materialized), so once again, I left my big camera at the hotel and only snapped a handful of photos with my phone.

I took this photo of General James McPherson, a Union general, because McPherson Square was our daily Metro stop!

We started the day at the National Air and Space Museum, which was one of the boys' favorite museums in 2010 and remained so today. We arrived well before opening, but the lines through security move slowly! The museum is amazing and massive and we could have spent all day there. Some of the boys' favorite exhibits were Time and Navigation, Explore the Universe, and The Wright Brothers.

Rockets

Apollo 11 Command Module

1903 Wright FLyer

Airplanes

After a couple of hours exploring America's air and space history, we decided it was time for lunch. Instead of fast food at Air and Space, we crossed the street to the National Museum of the American Indian's incredible Mitsitam Cafe. The cafe features Native American dishes from all over the Western Hemisphere. Gene ate a fry bread taco from Meso America, the boys ate turkey and sides from the Northern Woodlands, and I enjoyed soup and blue cornbread from South America. It was all delicious and a definite treat!

After lunch, we explored the museum a bit. The exhibit The Great Inka Road: Engineering an Empire was fascinating! We found a khipu, which Will and I had just read about in a novel. A khipu is a way to keep records using knotted cords.

We all enjoyed the museum, and then headed back to our hotel for a bit of downtime before our last stop of the day, the National Geographic Museum. This museum was only two blocks from our hotel and it was on my not-to-miss list!

There were three exhibitions on display at the museum:  Pristine Seas, Crocs, and Photo Ark. All three were excellent, but Photo Ark was absolutely phenomenal and just blew me away. National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore is halfway through a massive project to photograph more than 12,000 animals. Most of the animals are in captivity (many at zoos and aquariums, including the Houston Zoo), and Sartore's goal is to create portraits of each species before they disappear and to motivate people to want to do something to prevent extinction. The project is incredible and the photographs are inspiring. This is Henry with a ploughshare tortoise. There are only about 600 left in the world.

The Photo Ark is a stunning project, and if you are interested in seeing Joel Sartore's work in person, some of his photographs are on display in Houston as part of the FotoFest's Changing Circumstances exhibit at Spring Street Studios in the Washington Avenue Arts District. And, as luck would have it, Sartore and two other National Geographic photographers were in Houston to speak about their work the day after we returned from our trip. I read about it in the paper and Gene made sure to get home in time for me to attend the talk.

What an incredible experience, to see the Sartore's work and then to hear him and two others talk about their extraordinary photography projects. We saw so many incredible places and artifacts on our trip, but the National Geographic Museum was absolutely one of my favorite spots.

DC 2016: Day 3 (Five Museums!)

Despite losing an hour due to Daylight Saving Time, we woke up early and ready to explore more of DC on Sunday morning. The forecast called for a pretty decent chance of rain, so I left my big camera behind and used my phone for these pictures. It ended up not raining much at all, so we lucked out, but I realize looking back on my photos that I take a lot more when I have my big camera around.

We started the morning at the International Spy Museum. The online reviews I read indicated that it can get quite crowded, so we were there just minutes after opening and didn't face any problems with crowds. This museum was one of the boys' favorites, and it was pretty interesting even for the adults! When we arrived at the museum, we all chose "covers" and had to memorize the details in case we were interrogated later. (For the record, the boys both did better than Gene and I did with this assignment!) Here's Will's:

Throughout the museum, we learned all about different spy gear and techniques. Ninjas are the consummate spies!

And remember that George Washington was Agent 711 in the Culper Spy Ring? My favorite part of the museum was seeing this letter, written by George Washington, in which he agrees to pay Nathaniel Hackett to set up a spy network. Wow!

After visiting all the exhibits (including a temporary exhibit on James Bond), we grabbed lunch before heading directly across the street to visit the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. These two museums share a building that was formerly the U.S. Patent Office. I didn't take a single photo inside, but our favorite spots were the massive Bierstadts, the presidential portrait gallery and several photography exhibits. Will saw "Men of Progress" by Christian Schussele, which showcases 18 American inventors of the 1850s. The National Museum of American History has an interactive replica that Will studied in depth, so it was fantastic to see the original two days later. And Henry identified a bronze work called "George H.W. Bush as a Horseshoe Player" that we had seen in College Station. The two museums are amazing and we really enjoyed spending our time there.

After the museums, we headed a couple blocks away to visit Ford's Theatre. I had purchased tickets online weeks ago and am so glad we did because we wouldn't have been able to visit otherwise. 

We purchased audio tours for all of us, which ended up being great for the boys as they had a special version just for kids. The boys haven't studied the Civil War or Lincoln yet, so the museum was a good introduction for them.  

After visiting the museum, we walked upstairs to the theatre, where we saw the box where Lincoln was shot.  

And then we headed across the street to the Petersen House, where Lincoln was brought immediately after he was shot, and where he died the next morning. 

A replica of the bed where Lincoln died. 

We ended up skipping most of the Center for Education and Leadership because of the detailed information about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth, which the online materials said could be disturbing for younger children. One fascinating part of the center is this massive Lincoln Book Tower, which features 205 repeating titles that go up three stories high. There have been over 15,000 books written about Lincoln!

Even though we'd already had a pretty full day by this point, we all still had energy and decided to visit one last spot, the National Postal Museum. Though it's now a museum, this Beaux Arts building next to Union Station was originally the main post office for the District of Columbia.

This Smithsonian museum was not crowded and was actually very interesting. We saw many rare stamps as well as airplanes, trucks, trains and stage coaches that were used to deliver the mail.  

Our third day in DC was definitely a full one!

DC 2016: Day 2 (Arlington National Cemetery and the National Museum of American History)

Gene travels to DC for work fairly frequently, but the boys and I hadn't been since 2010 and they didn't remember it at all, so spring break was the perfect time for us to visit. We saw so many different things on this trip (since the boys are older) and in many ways, this trip was all about connecting the dots -- the boys made so many connections to things they've learned in school or seen elsewhere and it was incredible to watch those little brains click into gear. 

We started off our second day in DC by once again leaving the heart of the city and heading to Virginia to visit Arlington National Cemetery. After a sunny, warm day on Friday, the rest of our trip was gray and a bit dreary, but I thought the gray skies fit the more somber tone of the cemetery.

We opted to take a hop-on, hop-off bus tour of the cemetery and our first stop was the gravesite of JFK and the eternal flame. Arlington House is in the background.

The Washington Monument is in the distance. 

And best of all, everywhere we went, the cherry blossoms were in bloom!

The knowledgeable guides on the buses told us all about the monuments. This is the Air Force Monument.

Nurses Memorial

Memorial Ampitheater

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

We saw the changing of the guard.

We also visited the gravesite of a family friend.  

We ended our tour with a visit to Arlington House, which was the home of Robert E. Lee and sits on a hill overlooking Washington.

Arlington National Cemetery's tagline says it all: Honor. Remember. Explore.

After a morning of contemplation, we headed to the National Mall to explore the National Museum of American History. We stood in a very long line to get through security, but fortunately, the lines in the cafeteria were nonexistent. After a filling meal, we set out to investigate the museum, which ended up being one of Will's favorite places of the entire trip.

We visited so many exhibits, from the Star-Spangled Banner and exhibits about inventions and Americans at war. Here are some other favorites:  

Fantastic Worlds: Science and Fiction

Will knew immediately that this was a (replica of) an early computer (Babbage's Difference Engine No. 1) because he had read all about it in a book at school.

This is the Gunboat Philadelphia. When we were in Vermont last summer, we visited the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and learned all about the Philadelphia and walked aboard a replica. It was fantastic to connect those dots and see the actual boat in Washington.

In The Price of Freedom exhibit, we saw a piece of the Berlin Wall (we had just seen a piece at the George Bush Presidential Library).  

Day 2 in DC was all about history and remembering the past and it was just phenomenal!