Washington DC - Part 1

Check one off the bucket list!  I always knew wanted to go here and see the Smithsonian's, but never in my wildest dream did I imagine all the treasures we would find and so centrally located.  It was like a capstone to my education in Humanities.  In a word: Incredible!

We left the littles home with Grandma and Grandpa, knowing that museum after museum would quickly tire them and my patience.  It felt liberating to just have two kids for a change, we missed Mark, Hollie and Gavin, but it was nice change of pace to just focus and enjoy the oldest two.  It was strange to think how different life would be right now, if we'd stopped with just two.

We flew into an airport about an hour away because we were using skymiles and I was so incredibly pleased and amazed with myself,  I was able to safely navigate us from the airport and to our hotel easy/peasy using public transportation, including a bus ride and two metro exchanges.  

These country bumpkins got pretty good at riding the Metro as it was our main source of transportation to and from the National Mall where we spent most of our time.  

Our first morning, we got up bright and early in order to get our hands on some free tickets to ride the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument.  

We had to wait several hours till our ticket time, so we headed over to the Smithsonian Castle to orientate ourselves, none of the other museums open until 10 o'clock so we had some time to kill. Other than being a pretty building and having a great aerial map of the Mall, I'd skip this spot, but then again it was the only thing nearby that was open.

 Top on my list of things to see was the Smithsonian's American History Museum, so as it neared 10 am, we headed that way and waited for the doors to open, only to realize as we walked in and were greeted by a giant elephant that we'd read our map wrong and were actually in the Ancient History Museum, somewhere we really hadn't planned on visiting unless we had time at the end. But we were here and like all the Smithsonian Museums it was well done and so we decided to take a looksie around.

 We enjoyed their gem and mineral display the most.  

 Hyrum with his birthstone, the opal.

I always hated my birthstone, the Topaz, but I learned 

there is also a blue, lovely, oh so lovely blue Topaz.

Hannah didn't love her Amethyst, but she fell in love the with the 

mineral Beryl. Emeralds are a variety of this.

We also saw the Hope Diamond. We hadn't heard of it before, 

but apparently it's pretty famous.

   By now it was our turn to head up to the top of the Washington Monument.

   

From each of the four windows at the top you can see the Lincoln Memorial:

 the White House,

  

the Capital,

and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

When I was doing my planning, none of my maps had a distance key and so I just assumed the National Mall would be more like a college campus.  But it's bigger, much bigger than I expected.  It's over two miles from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol Building, it took forever to walk anywhere.

Next we headed back to the hotel for lunch and to meet up with Jotham and join the tour his convention had put together for Arlington Cemetery.   We saw Kennedy's eternal flame and the resting spot of several supposedly famous dead people.  We had to stay together as a group and for some reason, I didn't really get to feel the spirit of the place until we went to watch the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It was very stirring.

Again being on the tour wasn't ideal because I was really looking forward to touring Robert E Lee's home.  I read a biography about him in preparation for the trip and really admire the man, despite being a southern general and all. Arlington was originally his estate, but during the war it was confiscated by the union army and 2,111 union soldiers were buried in Mrs. Lee's rose garden.  Determined to see this bit of history, I decided to leave the group to quickly run through it and then catch up, but I felt rushed and it kind of ruined it for me.  

But the tour was good for other things, like we learned why stones are placed on the top of the grave markers.  Its an old Jewish tradition to show that they are not forgotten.

We also hit a few of the other memorials, but again because we were on a tour I didn't get to spend enough time, we actually went back to the Lincoln Memorial our last day because we felt rushed and wanted more time there.  I particularly like the Korean War Memorial.

That night, I accompanied Jotham to his work dinner and we sent Hannah and Hyrum off with a map on an adventure to find their own dinner.  And what an adventure it was.  But they survived and here they are hanging out at the hotel waiting for us to get back. 

The next morning we stayed close to Jotham and once again joined his company on a chartered bus tour of the White House and the Capital Building.  Once we arrived at The White House, the tour was self guided.  We were only allowed into the main floor reception and dining rooms and a few other stately and historical but rarely used rooms.  It was fun to see the portrait of George Washington that Dolly Madison worked so hard to save when the White House was burned during the war of 1812.

We enjoyed all the Eagle motifs found throughout the house.

  

This was a prop set we found in a gift shop across the 

street because, of course, we didn't actually get to see the oval office.

Next we were off to the Capitol Building, too bad it was under construction. 

Once again we weren't shown any of the rooms that were actually being used, for obvious reasons, but a little disappointing none the less.  Had I know the convention tour wouldn't include those I would have made my own arrangements, it would have been neat to see Congress and the Senate at work.  We did see one of the original courtrooms and they had it lit similar to what would have been historically accurate, very dark compared to what we are used to now.

The rotunda under construction.

 Every state gets to put two statues of famous people in the Capital. 

This guy is one of two unfamous Idahoans, not even Jotham knew who he was. 

Finally that afternoon we made it back to the American History Museum.

We were delighted to find such treasures as the original Kermit the frog, 

made from Jim Henson's mother's cast off green wool coat.

Chunks of concrete from the Berlin Wall

Dorothy's ruby red slippers.  

Did you know the yellow brick road was actually made out of plywood? 

and was very noisey to dance upon, so they had to line her shoes

 with felt to muffle the sound.

A little piece of Utah History: the authentic Golden Spike!

  But my favorite item in the museum was one I didn't even know was there or even still existed for that matter.  Because of its frail condition, no pictures were allowed and it was kept under special lights, in a climate control room.  As we blindly stumbled upon the display, and I instantly recalled the historical significance of  it, I was overcome with the same patriotism that must have engulfed Francis Scott Key the first time he saw it waving over Fort McHenry as the british attacked, inspiring him to write our national anthem.  Its just a symbol, a ratty tatty old symbol...of my freedom and it was incredible.  It's in pretty rough shape about three-quarters of its original size, pieces having been cut off and handed out as souvenirs.  Regardless, its massive size still impressed me, it's huge. Larger in size of the home of woman who created it, by hand without any machines.  Definitely one of my highlights!

Top on Hannah's list of things to see was the Library of Congress. 

After a long, hard fast paced walk in the rain to get there before it closed, she was disappointed to discover that you can't even see the books.  The closest you can get as a teenager is an overlook into one of the reading rooms. 

But the Gutenberg Bible was cool. 

To be continued...