Trip to Washington

This past weekend I had the marvelous opportunity to go to Washington DC. My family came from NY and I went with my friend Ben (the mullet guy). I came up with the idea of packing a cooler, figuring we could save some money on food that way. By the time I was done buying lunch materials and snacky foods though, I had spent $60 on two people for 4 days. Hmmmm.... well, at least we would eat more healthy-like. So we packed up and headed out on Wednesday afternoon at about 4:30. Our plan was to stop in Durham at a campground for Wednesday night, spend some time visiting some sites around Durham on Thursday and then drive up to Washington DC Thursday evening. But when we got to the entrance of the campground on Wednesday night at about 11pm, the gates were closed and locked! Apparently they lock them at 8pm. Well, that thought had never even occurred to me and having no other feasible option, we made the rest of the drive to DC that night. We arrived at the campground there around 3:45am. I knew from the website that this campground had 24-hour self check-in, and you leave your payment in a drop-box. We found a campsite, and then began to set up the tents in the dark. We got the first tent set up with no problem but the second tent had the wrong sized poles or something because it looked a bit droopy.
Oh well, what do you do? So we each crawled into our own tents; I got the nice dome tent and Ben took the partially collapsed one, and I finally got to sleep around 4:30.

The next day we slept in until about 9:30 and then got ready and went to the nearest Metro Station where we took the Metro into downtown Washington DC.
We started at the Washington Monument, then headed over to the Lincoln.
In between them you will find the relatively new World War II Memorial, which has a beautiful fountain and granite panels representing each of the war ships used by the United States during the war. We then headed up to the Lincoln Monument which was about 20 degrees cooler than the rest of the mall.






We rested there for a while and then walked forever and a day down to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. My feet were aching at this point so we decided to watch a movie in the planetarium about space collisions. It was pretty cool to watch, especially after having just studied astronomy with my students. Ben really wanted to eat dinner somewhere in the city, so we picked a stop on the Metro with some hotels nearby figuring that they might have restaurants there. We saw restaurant called Bravo Bravo and the menu posted outside looked pretty good so we decided to go in. You had to descend some stairs to get to this basement bar, but once we got down there and looked around, we decided it was probably a pretty laid-back place to hang out. Instead of normal tables and chairs, there were couches and tables which were slightly lower so you could lounge while eating. We were much disappointed however, when the host came striding up and informed us that they do not serve dinner. They were only serving drinks and there were free ourderves (sp?). Well, we were not so much interested in free appetizers which didn't really look that appetizing at all, so we left and found an Indian restaurant where we ate instead. Ben had never had Indian food so I was happy that he was willing to try it and that he liked it! Personally I consider Indian food one of my all-time favorites. I need to learn how to cook it I think ...


Friday we had intended to go to Mount Vernon but we got a slow start due to some logistical problems and so by the time we got there, the parking was all full. No, not a spot! We drove down the road about a mile and a quarter and there was a little park there along the banks of the Potomac. There was actually a trail that dumped you right into the parking lot at Mount Vernon. We had seen it when we were looking for a spot there. So I had this genius idea to walk the mile and a quarter back to Mount Vernon. Well, it was a nice walk but having walked to much the day before, I was getting pretty tired of walking. We only had a couple of hours at Mount Vernon, but we got the see the house and the tombs and we watched a cool video in the museum. It was a pretty neat interactive theater where the seats vibrated when the cannons were going off and they actually blow snow at you during one part of the movie. After we left Mount Vernon we drove to Fairfax where we met one of my mission companions for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. It was yummy! We then drove on to Manassas where we were staying with my parents at the Residence Inn. It was so good to see my family! I miss them.



Saturday the weather was a little gloomy, but we drove down the street to Manassas Battlefield, site of both battles of Bull Run. We had a very pleasant time on the guided tour. The guide seemed to know a lot about the battles and drew a very comprehensive picture for us of how the battle went. It was pretty cool. We then drove around to some of the other sites but everyone was pretty much too tired to walk around. We did get out and look at the infamous stone bridge, however. The ground near the banks of the river was covered in bluebells. It was gorgeous! When we got back to the hotel I took a nap since my feet hurt like the dickens and I was just plain exhausted. Late in the afternoon we headed down into DC again, this time parking and walking to the Jefferson Memorial. We then got to walk along the banks of the Potomac at sunset and I've rarely seen anything so beautiful. The weather was perfect!


Sunday morning we loaded up and headed out, stopping after about 45 minutes to attend a Sacrament Meeting. We then continued our journey, stopping only for gas and arrived home around 9pm. It was a long day and a long trip. I was so not ready to go back to work on Monday morning but back I went. Suffice it to say I had a wonderful vacation and wish that Spring Break and my vacation could have lasted longer!