Washington DC

A few months ago we were having dinner with Matt’s aunt and uncle and they let us know they were going to be spending a few months in Washington DC while Greg was on TDY out there. With a quick sparkle in my eye we invited ourselves out for a visit. They were super nice and said we were welcome to go, so we booked a flight for the 24th of July weekend.

I have never been to DC before, and Matt had only been there for a few minutes on his cross-country motorcycle trip years ago. This was an awesome opportunity for us to do this trip as cheaply as possible (because I am cheap!) and we would have the chance to hang out with Greg and have our own personal tour guide.

We had an afternoon flight from Salt Lake, changing planes in Denver and arriving kind of late in DC. It was interesting for me to leave on an afternoon flight. Usually I book my flights first thing in the morning and arrive beat up and sleepy. With the short notice we had for this trip we were happy to have a flight at all, so this one was good. It was a nice short connection with just enough time to grab some dinner and then we were on our way to Washington.

Greg met us at the security check point and took us to the metro. I was so happy to be off the plane that I wasn’t even paying attention to where we were going on the train, but it was only one stop and then time to get out and walk to the apartment.

They had a really nice situation with the apartment. It was close to the metro stop and had a nice balcony to sit on and relax. Greg offered us some nice root beer and we relaxed until it was time for bed.

The first day we got up and set out for our trip to the Capital. Matt had arranged a tour for us in advance so we had to be there at a certain time. It was super hot and humid and I was working hard to not melt as we walked around the capital building. Greg was coming on the tour with us and since we forgot to print the confirmation (seriously, who makes you print stuff anymore!) he was going to print it off and meet us at the capital. We walked around and took some pictures and tried to adjust to the heat and humidity.

We had to go through a lot of security to get into the Capital building. You can feel good knowing that the Capital is so safe that you are not even allowed to bring water bottles (yes empty bottles) into the building. So it is 100 degrees outside and we had to throw away our bottles first thing in the morning. Awesome!

The tour was good. I was expecting the Capitol rotunda to be larger, I don’t know why but I was, but it was still really neat. We went all around, but since our Congressmen didn’t return our email we were not able to go on the tour of the actual chamber rooms, but that was OK.

We left the capitol and went looking for food. We walked up to the train station where there was a food court and had some sandwiches. We sent Greg home to go get some business done and we headed to the Mall to go to the Smithsonian. We didn’t have too much time so we headed to the Museum of American History (or something like that). Basically it is the museum where they have the ruby slippers and Michael Jackson’s hat. Yep, the important stuff.

After the museum we went back to the apartment and met Greg and got in the car and headed to Baltimore to go to the Oriels game. IT was an awesome coincidence because my sister had asked us to get her an Oriels shirt for her birthday (and because they took us to the airport, Thanks Chrys and Preston!)

The game was fun, but I did spend a few innings running around the entire stadium trying to find a cute shirt for Chrystie. It was a lot harder than I thought. There were cute ones that were the wrong size, and ugly ones that were the right size. Finally we found one that was cute and picked it up and went to watch the end of the game. The O’s won. They were playing the Angels.

The next morning Greg took us on a tour of the memorials. He drove us to the Pentagon memorial and was our personal tour guide explaining the meanings of the subtle details of the memorial. I thought it was really nice. We went to Arlington Cemetery and watch the changing of the guards at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That was pretty amazing also. We stopped at the Air Force memorial. I was not able to get any good pictures there but it is pretty neat. It reminded me of the Thunderbirds. I thought it was really nice.

After we dropped Greg off we headed out (in his car) to Mount Vernon. That is really a beautiful area of the country. I love the old buildings and all the Green! Mount Vernon was cool. We walked around the grounds (again it was 100 degrees and SOOOOO humid) and looked at the flowers in the garden and the view of the river. We had a nice conversation with one of the grounds keepers there before our tour of the house.

The tour was interesting. George Washington sure liked color. The rooms were all bright and different colors. The rooms were small, but there were a lot of them. It was a little strange when they showed us the actual bed that George Washington died in. Weird.

After the tour of the house we walked around the grounds for a while. We went down to the farm by the river. The workers were lounging around because they were told it was too hot to work that day. We talked to them a while but the biting flies were too much. We went past the tomb, and that was a little strange too because they just have the stone box where you can see it. I don’t know, weird to think that dead George Washington is in that box right there. Yep, weird. I think I like graves more than tombs. We stopped by the museum, because there was no way we were going to leave Mount Vernon without seeing the teeth. (there are guards standing there to shoot you if you take pictures of the teeth...really)

We drove back to the apartment and had dinner with Greg and then just relaxed. Matt and Greg have this wonderful ability to talk to each other for hours on end. It is fun just to listen to them. I also read out on the deck and just had a nice evening.

Our last day to play was soon upon us. Matt and I got up and headed out hoping to fit as much into one day as we could. We started by walking past the White House. It was harder than it sounds. I guess the President was supposed to be headed to the Capitol so they had the road in from of the White House shut off. We stayed there or a while watching people and waiting, just in case the motorcade went that way ( I think there was a chance). We sat through a little rain storm and then they opened it up and we were able to go across the front.

After that we headed toward the Washington Monument. It was pretty much my landmark for most of the trip. From there we took a right and headed to the Lincoln Memorial. We passed the Vietnam Memorial on our way. It was not very crowded when we went by, but it was still so quiet. Just after we climbed up into the Lincoln Memorial a downpour started, so we stayed in there for a while watching it rain and reading the inscriptions on the walls.

When the rain let up we headed back toward the Washington Monument. We stopped for a moment at the Korean War Memorial and the WWII Memorial. The WWII memorial has a much different feel that the others. It felt a lot more like a celebration than the others. I wonder if it is because the passing of time, or because the way the war ended? Anyway…

We walked around the Washington Monument, but we didn’t know we needed to get reservations for the Monument way in advance and we didn’t’ have a chance to go up. We tried to sweet talk some park rangers, but that didn’t work.

From there we headed to the National Archives. We had to wait in line to get in, but that wasn’t too bad. Then there was the line to get into the room where the big three were waiting. Yep, the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. I was surprised how faded the documents are. I guess it makes sense considering how old they are, but the writing on most of the is not legible.

After the archives we worked our way over to the Air and Space museum. It was pretty neat when I would think that these are the Real thing! These are not copies of the plane it is the plane. We walked around, looking at the Wright brothers’ plane for the longest. They have a bunch of space stuff, but I was probably not impressed enough with that because I have been to Kennedy Space Center and seen a lot of that stuff there. But it was really neat. From there we went to the Natural History Museum because I wanted to see the Dinosaur bones. That was awesome too. The T-Rex does have a Big Head and Little Arms. Really, really little arms.

After the museums we wanted to see the Jefferson Memorial. Holy Cow! They put that way off the beaten path. I think our mistake was waiting to last to go out there. We were already pretty tired from being on our feet all day, and that walk seemed to last forever. But we made it out there, and I was glad we did. There were some interesting quotes on the walls, it was a nice peaceful place with a view back over the river into the Mall area.

Then a tour bus showed up and it was time to get out of there because it was suddenly LOUD! We walked back to the closest Metro stop (which wasn’t close) and went back to the apartment. Greg took us to a really nice Italian restaurant near his apartment. It was super yummy! We even splurged on dessert and it was totally worth it.

Then it was time to go home. I had planned our return trip to get us home around 4:30 so we would have time to clean up and unpack before I had to go back to work the next day. So we got up and headed out to the airport. Our flight was supposed to leave around 9:30, so we got there about 8:30 and guess what? Yep, the flight was delayed an hour and a half. That wouldn’t have been a problem except we only had an hour to change planes in Denver so we were going to miss that flight. Bummer. We stood with the airline workers for quite a while in silence until they were able to find us our only option. We needed to take a cab to Baltimore, catch a flight that left there at 5:00pm and then change planes in Dallas and reach Salt Lake about 11. I wasn’t happy about it, but didn’t’ have many choices. We had hours and hours to burn, but we also had our suitcase, so we hung out at the DCA airport for a while, had some food (using vouchers from the airline that Matt made them give us) then took our cab to BWI and hung out there for a while. I was pretty upset when our flight from BWI to Dallas was delayed about an hour. That left us with a pretty short turnover in Dallas. But I was also resigned and knew there was nothing we could do about it. The flight to Dallas was overbooked but we lucked into getting a seat assignment (since we got to the airport so early) and we had an OK flight to Dallas. We got to Dallas to find out that our flight to SLC was delayed an hour and a half. Awesome, but at least we didn’t’ have to run though the airport. We stopped and got more food then got on our flight home. That flight was miserable. The seat was just wrong so that it dug into my knees and I was hating it the whole way back. We didn’t get to Salt Lake until around midnight and my Brother-in-Law Preston was still amazing and came and picked us up. So the return trip didn’t’ work as planned, but we got home safe and I would still say the trip was totally worth it.