Me on the mall
Our June extravaganza began the day before my final workday at school. I worked extra hard to get everything done so we could leave as early as possible on Tuesday and so I wouldn't have to come in on Wednesday. The plan was to get up about an hour north of D.C. on Tuesday and Brad would come down and meet us there on Wednesday morning to pick up the pup for the week while Jenn and I
gallivanted around. Everything went off without a hitch although it was a very long day on Tuesday, not getting in to the motel until about 11.
The next morning Brad came down to meet us and we treated him to breakfast as a reward for picking up our troublemaker. Then Jenn and I headed down to D.C. As we couldn't check into the
Washington Plaza hotel until 3 o'clock we stopped on the way at the
National Zoo. We thought at first we were in a bit of trouble because there was no parking anywhere in the zoo. Luckily we problem-solved and parked a few blocks away at a shopping area and just walked up to the zoo.
It was really nice to wander through this zoo. We saw all the animals we were interested in seeing and also enjoyed people watching. We saw a panda, oryx, otters, elephants, gorillas, emus, lions, tigers, and many more. Jenn even made a new friend as you can see in the video. It was a great way to spend the afternoon.
Then Jenn and I drove down to the city to check into the hotel. By a lucky coincidence, my good friend and college roommate Dan lives in D.C. and only works 2 blocks from where our hotel was located. So he met up with us after work and we all walked down to the mall where Dan had a softball game. Jenn and I would never have guessed how the National Mall changes in the evenings. There seem to be runners and sightseers all day long, but in the evenings all the grassy areas become softball/kickball/flag football/etc. fields. It's pretty neat. Jenn and I walked the mall a little while Dan waited for his team at their "field". When we returned to see his game I recognized my friend from Penn State Jess playing on the other team which was neat. As the game progressed, it became more and more intense. An innocent bystander was hit in the head with a wild throw to first, a player went to the emergency room with at least a dislocated shoulder, and Jenn was recruited to play on Dan's team. I guess they saw her potential and called her up to the big leagues. Unfortunately, the good guys lost the game but it was a nailbiter. Dan, Jenn, and I ended up going out to Chinatown for dinner and drinks after the 2 hour game.
Jenn at the gorilla exhibit
Jenn and some gazelles
Can you tell she enjoyed her day?
Me and Jenn in front of the White House on the way to the mall
Chinatown
The following morning Jenn and I awoke nice and early. We planned on hitting up as many museums as we could while they were open. Most were open 9-5 while a few were open 9-7:30. After planning our museum route, we stopped at 4 different ones.
We started at the
Native American museum. The architecture was really neat and if we had more than just a couple days in D.C. it would have been really nice to walk around the building and see the different areas and sculptures they had set up around the museum. Inside was pretty neat, too. There were all different exhibits with lots of videos explaining different traditions and beliefs of the Native Americans. We didn't see everything in this museum as we kind of added it to our list at the last minute, but it was interesting.
Next we went to the
American History Museum. This had a lot of cool exhibits we both were looking forward to seeing. Jenn was especially interested in the First Lady exhibit which I will admit was mildly interesting. We also visited an exhibit about all the wars the United States has been a part of. I found this one particularly interesting and wish I could have spent an hour or two reading all the information. Due to our time-monitoring though we kind of had to pick and choose and focused mostly on WW2. Interesting tidbit- Civil War was the most deadly American War we've had at over 600,000 Americans killed. 2nd was WWII with over 400,000. 3rd was WW1 at over 100,000. This makes the war on terrorism with
just over 6,000 not seem quite as bad. We also visited an exhibit about the American Presidents which talked of the different jobs of Presidents, how it has changed over time, and what different Presidents have done to modify the present position. Finally we toured the "American on the Move" exhibit which talked all about the different advancing forms of transportation. It was really cool seeing all the old cars and reading about them. Probably the most interesting thing I learned from this exhibit is that originally cars were all completely different. Some had driving wheels on the right, some on the left; some had engines in the back, some in the front; some were diesel engines, some were gas, some were steam-powered, and some were electric! When the automobile companies began to standardize their machines (although not on which side the gas tank was located, which I know bothers my dad) they decided to make them all use gasoline. Imagine if they had decided to make them all electric...
After having a snack for lunch we headed to the
Natural History Museum. Again- a lot of cool exhibits. We had to pick and choose a little again. We visited the oceans exhibit, the dinosaurs exhibit, the evolution of man exhibit, and saw the hope diamond. Jenn also visited the mammals exhibit as I was taking too long for her in the evolution of man. I think Jenn began to get frustrated at the fact I like to read every sign about every thing I see. Especially when I find the topic interesting like I did with the evolution exhibit. It reminded me a lot of my anthropology class in college. Definitely one I would recommend.
Our final stop was the
Air and Space Museum. I think I have visited this museum every time I have been to D.C. but with the changing exhibits there's always something new to be seen. We chose this site last because it was one of the few museums to stay open until 7:30. And we used every minute of the time visiting the exhibits of the Wright Brothers, 50 years of space flight, exploring the universe, and WWII Aviation. Of course we also walked through the sample space station, saw all the planes and rockets. Again, I wish we had more time as everything was so interesting to read about as you were seeing the examples in front of you.
We must have walked about 8-10 miles overall, and while we slowly headed back to our hotel that night (getting Chipotle on the way back as Dan has raved about how good it is for years now- and it was pretty good) Jenn and I decided that we could easily have spent an entire day at any one of those museums. We will have to go back again sometime to see other exhibits we had to skip through, and visit entire museums that we did not get to see this trip.
I have the Washington Monument in my hands! (Jenn hates these kind
of pictures but was a sport and put up with it because I think they're neat)
Jenn and Dorothy's ruby slippers
Jenn at the Air and Space Museum
Jenn's next christmas present
Me at the Dinosaur exhibit in the Museum of Natural History
On our third and final day in D.C. Jenn and I were inspired by seeing so many runners on the mall the past two days and also felt a little guilty as we were going to be eating out for most meals for almost a week. So we had decided to go for a morning run down to the mall and run around to see all the monuments. There were a few that are fairly new that neither Jenn nor I had seen before. We started at the Washington Monument then worked past the WWII Memorial and Vietnam Memorial before getting to the Lincoln Memorial and the FDR Memorial and ending with the Jefferson Memorial. Neither of us had seen the WWII Memorial which was very pretty with the fountains and the reliefs on the walls. Probably the most impressive part of the memorial was the wall of stars at the end toward the Lincoln Memorial. There was one star for every 100 Americans killed in the war. Over 400 stars. The FDR Memorial was very large and spread out. It went through his tenure as President and had different quotes etched in stone as well as different statues depicting events such as fireside chats and soup lines. Neat to see.
After our run through the memorials we had to pack up and head out on another fairly long drive to my old hometown. Back to Bethel Park to see Dan and Sarah finally get married. Sarah and Dan had been dating about a year before Jenn and I did. Of course I knew Dan and the rest of the crew since high school and Jenn met most of them in college as the majority (Dan, Jeff, Danny, and Vernon) went to Slippery Rock, too. Sarah was instrumental in getting Jenn out to meet me so we are excited to see Dan and Sarah share the blessings and happiness that married life gives.
Jenn at the WWII memorial
Me at the Washington Monument
Jenn at the Lincoln Memorial
Me and Jenn posing with the Washington monument in the background
Video of the D.C. trip
