Living Life: Washington, D.C.

Today we woke up an hour later than planned, but were still able to get out of the hotel at a good time. The weather was cool, and slightly damp. We headed straight to the Library of Congress, making sure to go straight to the Capitol Building for viewing. Once in the library, we went to the Young Reader's Center where we spent an hour, pretty much alone, reading books in a quiet comfortable space. Lucy made a list of new books she wanted to read and we ordered them from our library. Amelia and I read many books, but one was by Herve Tullet, Help! We Need a Title I love his books and this one was great also.

We left the library, headed past the Supreme Court building and headed down the hill to the Smithsonians. Our first stop was the National Gallery of Art. First we went to the Leonardo DaVinci painting (the only one in the USA) - Portrait of Ginevra Benci. Then Lucy went to 18th-19th Century French while I took the other two to Power and Pathos, over 50 bronze sculptures. We met back up and went to Medieval together, followed by the American Galleries. Lucy greatly enjoyed all of it, Toby and Amelia liked the Power and Pathos quite a bit, and I, well, I really don't feel a great fondness for art, but there was a lovely portrait of the Copley family which I spent quite a bit of time studying, but that might have been because there was a couch there.

From there we went to the Air and Space Museum. The weather at this point was beautiful and I think we got slight sunburns. Amelia was thrilled to see her hero, Amelia Earhart, and her plane. We took multiple pictures with her standing near it and ended up with a t-shirt before we left. We touched the moon rock (highly anti-climatic for all), went to the war plane areas, the Wright Brothers section (which I think we liked best), and some of the space things. We also stopped and had a very late lunch there. Trail mix and granola bars weren't cutting it anymore by 2:30.

We walked to the American History Museum next. As we were walking we noticed there were police cars on every single street corner and a helicopter circling overhead. We convinced Amelia it was because she had "dropped" her trail mix packet and that she was in trouble for littering, but turns out President Obama was attending an Irish Luncheon on Capitol Hill. We didn't see him though. We got to the museum and started with the Hope Diamond, which was closed. Then we did the Ocean Hall, the Mammals (stuffed animals), Bones (unstuffed animals), Mummies and Dinosaurs, along with the Insect exhibit.

By now it was 5:30 and the museums were closing. We were supposed to go to the Renwick Gallery but realized a couple hours before that it was going to be too much to do and a lengthy walk on top of our already lengthy walk. We walked back to our hotel, passing the IRS building, and Trump's new hotel at the Old Post Office.

We relaxed in our room for a couple of hours and headed out for dinner at the Elephant and Castle where I had a delicious Steak and Mushroom Pie and the children had the same foods that can be found on the Children's menu of every single restaurant we go to.

Now we're back in the hotel. Amelia is asleep. Lucy and Toby are watching Chopped which they will regret in the morning when I wake them up. Tomorrow the Metro is closing for 24 hours which is practically unheard of and relates back to our experience on Monday. Metro Shutdown The problem with this is that tomorrow is our Metro day, we are going to the zoo and the cemetery. My Uncle Steve found a bus route that looks like it will work, but since there is no Metro it means there will be many, many people looking for transportation, should be fun! The weather tomorrow is supposed to be beautiful and if we're up for it on the way home from the cemetery we will go to the tidal basin and the monuments we didn't see yet.