A Capitol Time in the Capitol City

We had plenty of reason to celebrate recently and decided to take a trip. First and foremost it was our fourth anniversary! Secondly I had just finished the first part of my national board exam, which had occupied much of my time for the previous four months. Also we figured this may be our last anniversary without kids so we decided it was time for a big trip.

D.C. in the spring sounded like fun so we set about planning an itinerary; we each came up with specific things we wanted to see and tried to come up with a plan to work it all in. Neither of us really wanted to brave driving and parking in the city, but we also were not quite up for taking the train all the way up there and back so we settled on driving to a hotel in Fairfax and taking the metro back and forth to the city each day. This worked out better than I could have imagined. During our planning, we even watched youtube videos on how to purchase and use a smart pass for the metro as well as basic train riding protocol and etiquette.

Inside the metro center station

The first highlight was before we even got to DC. Kristin had never been to an Ikea and wanted to see one so we stopped by the one in Woodbridge, VA on our way up. We spent a few hours meandering through all they had to offer then grabbed a cinnamon bun on the way out. Traffic reports sounded bad heading towards the city so we decided to get an early dinner and bum around the mall adjacent to the Ikea. Boy were we in for a surprise! The Potomac Mills mall, though unassuming from the exterior, had to be one of the biggest malls I have ever visited. It was a sprawling indoor outlet mall where we agreed we could have spent a fortune if we had a penny to our name. My personal favorite was a Sears outlet store which had open box and overstock appliances, furniture, and craftsman tools on incredibly deep discounts. Between the Ikea and the mall we wound up walking 7 miles that first day. We finally made it up to our hotel and had just enough energy left to walk across the street to the Bruster's ice cream. I though I was going to choke when they told me our two single scoops cost nearly $11, but thankfully I didn't because I would have missed some incredibly delicious ice cream.

Shopping at Ikea

The next morning we grabbed breakfast at Panera and headed over to the metro station. Thankfully, a good mix of restaurants and the metro station were all within a few blocks of our hotel. Buying our smart passes went smoother than imagined and we were soon off and riding towards the capitol! It was a little drizzly when we got there so decided to start off seeing indoor attractions. We started with the Smithsonians, but apparently we had arrived about the same time as every tour bus in the country full of kids and they all had lines out the wazoo so we moved on to the Library of Congress. It was not at all what I would have expected. The portion we were in felt more like a museum than a library; you could look through glass walls down into an area of books and desks where people where studying, but I had expected to walk through stacks of archives with bookcases for miles.

It was Incredibly impressive, but not the kind of library I had envisioned

This is what I expected (and the part of the library we did not see)

We walked all over Capitol Hill just staring at the massive buildings. I had never been to D.C. and was utterly overwhelmed by the sheer scale of everything. In my mind everything was of a similar scale to the state capitol and legislative buildings in Raleigh. I could not have dreamed how much larger everything was in DC! I soon realized my expectation of how many things we'd be able to walk to in a day were grossly ambitious as these buildings were a lot bigger than they looked on google earth. Thankfully the rain had passed almost as soon as we got there so it was as nice day to walk. That was a good thing because the only inside visits we made all day were the Smithsonian castle, the Library of Congress, the National Museum of Natural History, and the Air and Space Museum.

I had planned to avoid the Natural History Museum because few things upset me more than silly stories of evolution and displays about the origin of the species (in middle school I had a paper assignment about Darwin and I wrote the entire thing based on the perspective that he was a tremendous disappointment to his family and wasted most of his life). However, the appeal of seeing the Hope Diamond drew us in. The gems and minerals display was probably my favorite. Aside from the Hope Diamond, there were numerous other jewels as well as extensive displays on minerals and mining.

There was also a huge mammals display with countless stuffed animals from all over the globe. Many were positioned in intricate action poses making it feel like you were walking through a zoo frozen in time. We both really loved it, but from all I have read it seems that these types of displays are a dying breed.

The Air and Space Museum was our next stop and, while there was no shortage of incredible things to view, we were starting to get hungry and very tired so barely touched the surface of the exhibits. We did see the original Wright brothers' plane as well as a cool exhibit on aircraft carriers and one on flight during the World Wars.

We couldn't come up with a good restaurant for lunch so wound up grabbing a sub at Quiznos and riding a loop around the mall on a city bus to cool off and rest our feet. We got off the bus at the Lincoln Memorial and this began one of my favorite parts of the day. The size alone of the Lincoln memorial was staggering, but the tone of the monument really strikes a chord too. Kristin and I both agreed that this was our favorite. This area makes for a lot of walking, but it is a really cool loop. You can start at the Vietnam Veterans memorial, loop down past the Lincoln Memorial, then continue around the tidal pool stopping at the Korean War Veterans memorial, MLK memorial, FDR memorial, and Jefferson memorial, then make your way up to the Washington monument and the WWII memorial. We visited each of these and then caught the metro back to Fairfax where we barely had enough energy to walk across the street to dinner. All told we walked just over 12 miles the second day.

WWII Memorial

Our Personal Favorite

The third day we swore we would limit our walking as much as possible since we were already worn out from the first two day's expeditions.  All we really wanted to see was the Zoo and maybe the National Monument and the White House if we felt like it.  I think we may have previously established that I LOVE zoos. I get super pumped about any trip involving a visit to a zoo and that suddenly becomes my main focus for the entire trip. Imagine that coupled with the fact that Kristin said we could go to the NRA museum and I seriously kept forgetting that this was an anniversary trip and not my birthday. So this was the day I had really been looking forward to! We lacked energy or funds for another breakfast out so we ate pop-tarts in bed and caught the metro to the zoo.

Somehow, somewhere between Fairfax and the zoo the metro must dive deep into the belly of the earth because when we got off we had to ride the longest escalator I have ever seen up and up and up. We figured we'd be at the highest point in the city, but somehow were at the bottom of a hill that we then had to hike up for half a mile to get to the zoo. It was a busy zoo, but once you got further away from the entrance it wasn't too bad. The pandas were clearly the most popular exhibit, but I think the otters were certainly the most entertaining.

This panda seemed to have found the most uncomfortable position

Yep It's a boy

It's a little intimidating having all the lions staring straight at you

We walked all around and saw everything except the reptile building. We even bumped into some people we knew! Afterwards, we found a California Tortilla (like a Moe's) and enjoyed sitting down for a while. We maybe should have taken it as a sign that we got down to our last bites before either of us realized we were eating the other's burrito (mine was pork with bbq sauce and Kristin's was chicken with ranch, so no excuses here).

Since we obviously had so much energy we decided we could swing the one mile walk to the National Cathedral. It was a nice quiet walk through a gorgeous old wooded neighborhood. What we didn't realize was it was basically straight uphill the whole way. We made it and were pleasantly surprised to find that Sunday was the only day of free admission to the cathedral (apparently it hinders attendance if you charge people to enter on Sunday), and we arrived about 20 minutes before they closed. I felt sacrilegious entering with my hat on so I took it off and immediately felt self conscious about entering the house of the Lord with my horrendous hat hair. However, these concerns were soon assuaged upon walking past the gift shop. The presence alone of a gift shop in a church reminded me of Matthew 21:12 even before I saw the coexist mugs and stone Darth Vader busts. The gift shop aside, seeing the cathedral was certainly a highlight of the trip. Both inside and out were breathtaking and we even got to see the tomb of Woodrow Wilson. Probably the coolest part was going up to the seventh floor observation level. Kristin noticed a small elevator that was open to the public and we rode up and walked all around. We had the place to ourselves and felt like really cool insiders that got to do something no one else does.

 We made our sojourn back to the metro and began to realize we had a problem. All of the public buildings close at five and none of the metro stations appeared to have bathrooms--and Kristin had to go! We rode the train back towards the White House trying to plan where we might go. We walked into a Panera...the one bathroom was locked with a keypad on the door. We walked to a Starbucks...it had just closed. We looked for any type of store or restaurant...nothing. We went into the White House gift shop...no bathroom at all. Kristin finally asked the clerk where we might find a restroom and she recommended the Old Ebbitt Grill informing us that "as soon as you walk in just go straight downstairs and don't tell them I sent you". Thankfully it worked perfectly! We snuck in used their facilities and snuck back out without anyone calling us out for being covered in sweat and wearing backpacks. We made a loop around the White House then took the metro across town to meet some friends who were in town for a nationals game for dinner. After dinner we took our final metro ride back to the hotel. By this point each of our smart cards was down to 70 cents less than the fare for our last ride so I knew we would need to add a dollar to each before we exited the station. However, joy of joys, when we got off the train the add value machine was down and the station agent just waived us right on through! I love it when a plan comes together. After all of our care to walk less this day we had held ourselves to only 13 miles, even more than the day before.

Our final day was a nice easy one. No more walking or trains. We checked out of the hotel and drove our own care to the nearby NRA museum. If you like guns you should go. If you don't like guns you should still go and you're bound to find something you like. They have over 6,000 guns with approximately 4,000 on display at any given time. Once again and for the final time on this trip I was way under prepared for the sheer scale of the exhibit.

Not sure if I am really excited or just squinty

It was an amazing trip and while it took our legs and feet a few days to recover and we'll likely have to throw our shoes away for the smell, I wouldn't hesitate to go back.


Highs:
National Zoo
National Cathedral
Lincoln Memorial
NRA Museum
Potomac Mills Mall
Bruster's ice cream

Lows:
Long lines and stinky people in Smithsonian museums
Finding affordable yet distinct D.C. food options
Lack of public bathrooms after 5:00 pm
Very tired feet and stinky shoes

Things we'd like to see next time:
Teddy Roosevelt Island and Memorial
Union Station
National Archives
Arlington Cemetery
Possibly eat at Old Ebbitt Grill in thanks of their bathroom services
and most definitely take a motorized scooter!