The breakfast at our hotel in Clinton, MD was probably the worst we've had so far, only slightly better than nothing. The one benefit was that there was basically no one down there when we were, so it was calm and quiet. The breakfast consisted of the same waffles we've had all along, some very bland rounds of scrambled eggs, and some undercooked sausage. And that was essentially all. Hopefully tomorrow will be different?
We did some initial scouting last night to determine our plan of action. There are several websites dedicated to finding parking in Washington DC, and they even allow you to reserve a spot in a parking garage, estimate your cost for parking, offer free cancellations, and guarantee a spot if you have a reservation. Very cool. We picked a garage right off of Pennsylvania Avenue which was also pretty close to the DC Circulator route, a bus which offers $1 fares and encircles the National Mall.
We started at the White House Visitor's Center, about halfway between our parking garage and the White House. We looked through the small museum for a few minutes before trekking out to see the real thing. We walked down to the path between the White House and the Washington Monument, past the National Christmas Tree safely tucked away behind its chain link fence. We looked on for a few minutes before walking further back around The Ellipse, a large elliptical green space.
We walked across the street and into a really weird, funky shaped building: The National Museum of African American History and Culture. This museum, and our next one, are both free and incredible places, but they have a reservation system. You can only get in if you have a reservation and you have to make it at your scheduled time - no reservation or miss your scheduled time, and you don't get in. Yesterday, we didn't have tickets and they were all booked up, but they release a small number of tickets each morning so we were able to snag some this morning.
This museum was huge and impactful. Unfortunately, we didn't have as much time for this one as we wanted or it deserved, but we took in as much as we could in our limited time. The largest and most impactful for us was a 3-story, 1.5-mile exhibit winding through history from the 1400s through roughly current day. There were sections devoted to slavery, of course, and the horrible conditions experienced by those on slave ships and plantations, lynchings, segregation, civil rights, and more. There was also a memorial honoring Emmett Till. Directly outside of the history exhibit was a contemplative pool which was beautiful and the walls were covered with thoughtful quotes from famous black people throughout the years.
Our time in the African American museum came to a close and it was time to strike out on foot again. It was HOT today, and very humid with thunderstorms forecasted for about 5pm today. The skies were clear now though, with very few clouds overhead and the only shade to be found was under some trees, but we didn't have time to stop. We were on a pretty tight timeline. We had about a 15 minute walk plus lunch to squeeze into 30 minutes, but we made it work. We stopped for a quick photo of the US Capitol building before a quick picnic lunch in the shade of a tree.
The other big free museum that we scored tickets of was the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. This was a HUGE museum that I wasn't really looking forward to walking through. The heat and humidity had sapped almost all of my energy on the walk over and I didn't want to walk another several miles through another museum. Luckily (I guess?) about half of the museum was closed for renovations! Suddenly, the museum got a lot more doable. We've done a lot of similar museums on this trip, so I think I just wasn't as into this museum as I probably should have been, but I do recognize that there was a lot of cool stuff in here. I think the space stuff was the most interesting to me in particular today, since we hadn't really done space yet on this trip.
It was close to 5 by this point, and the clouds were just starting to roll in but it was still mostly just hot and sunny. Up next were the numerous memorials in the area. We took our first trip on the DC Circulator bus as the stop was only a few blocks away. "K" has been to Washington DC a few times but has never been to the Jefferson Memorial, and none of the rest of us have been here at all, so we were all interested in this one. There were a few stairs up to a large marble pagoda with a statue of Jefferson in the middle and quotes of his around the interior of the pagoda. There was shade and a cool breeze, so we stayed there while the kids had an apple for a snack.
Jefferson memorial MLK, Korean War, Lincoln, Vietnam, Einstein
We hopped back on the DC Circulator (a whopping $5 for each ride for our whole crew) and rode it about a mile up the road to the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial. We stayed there for a few minutes before walking across the road and down a bit to the Korean War Memorial where some large event had just ended. There were news crews and lots of uniformed veterans leaving flowers in various places on the memorial
We walked a bit further down and over to the Lincoln Monument, sitting opposite of the Capitol building across the National Mall. This was being renovated and there were an incredible number of tourists visiting the monument. We snapped a couple pictures before riding the elevator down into the mini Lincoln museum at the base of the monument. The air conditioning felt incredible in here, so we slowly meandered through some of the stone slabs etched with his quotes. Walking out of the building, the humidity was still quite high but the heat was a bit less brutal. We kept heading left and over to the Vietnam War Memorial.
My dad was in the Vietnam War, and it was hard not to think about which of the people n the monument he may have known, been friends with, fought beside. We meandered along the length of the wall, trying to remind the younger kids about the seriousness of what the memorial represents, but honestly they're just too young to really grasp it. We kept walking around the corner and crossed the street, walking a few blocks down to a large statue of Einstein. The kids posed for another picture and "C" insisted on giving him a big hug, before we walked back to the bus stop. The air was actually beginning to feel cool and the wind had picked up, so the thunderstorms were coming, just a bit late.
When we got off the DC Circulator at the bus stop closest to our parking garage, the rain immediately started to fall. Like Philly, the rain in DC was out to get us. Luckily, we were like 6 blocks away, so by the time we would make it to the parking garage, we were all thoroughly soaked. Once again, "C" was living her best life in the rain, enjoying every second of it. And honestly, I think we all were, after being so hot all day - it felt quite nice. We got to the corner of 12th and Pennsylvania, across from the parking garage we used, and the police had the road blocked off, preventing anyone from crossing the street. We asked what policewoman stationed at the crosswalk was happening but she said "all they tell us is that someone important is moving". We didn't have to wait long before a large contingent of police and secret service came driving down the road, flanking the president's vehicle. We looked online a little later and saw he was on his way from the White House to the National Archives. Pretty awesome!
