When we were in Maryland, the weather was better than it ever has been on a summer visit. It felt like spring most of the time instead of the normal heat and humidity. One day we went downtown to see some sights. We actually covered a lot of ground. We started off with the goal of going to the Art Museum. So we rode the subway down to the Archives stop, walked over to the National Gallery and stayed as long as the kids could handle having good Art Gallery behavior, which ended up being about 45 minutes. We saw some old favorites as well as a visiting exhibit called "The Art of Power" which had all kinds of armor, weapons, paintings, etc. from around the 1500s. Shayne thought it was great.
Then, we went to the fountain in between the Art Gallery and the Natural History Museum where we relaxed for a little while. After that, we decided to go to the Natural History Museum. We had been there a few days earlier, but hadn't seen all of the exhibits. We went there for about 45 minutes, saw a lot of the things we missed as well as revisiting Maya's favorite part,the ocean room, then decided to keep walking down the Mall. We went to the Washington Monument, where we debated what to do next. We wondered if we should go on to the Lincoln Memorial or head back to the metro stop. The weather was great and morale was slightly above average, so we decided to continue.
We walked through the World War II Memorial, then moved on to the Lincoln Memorial. Shayne learned about many of these sights in first grade last year, and it had been a few years since we had seen them, so he really liked it. It was about this time that Maya started insisting on being carried most of the time. That was fine...she had already walked quite a long way.
On the way back from the Lincoln Memorial we walked through the Vietnam Memorial, which Rick had never been to. We got a good view of the White House from Constitution Avenue. When we were about half way back to the metro stop, we stopped and got some popsicles, which gave the kids the last puff of energy they would need to make it back to the Archives stop. We must have covered 5 or 6 miles, and we heard no complaining from Shayne. Maya had nothing to complain about, as she got carried on shoulders or backs about the last third of the way. I never thought we would see so many interesting things in one day, but we wouldn't have made it half as far if the weather wasn't so great.
The kid's area of the Natural History Museum
The dress-up area
Yes, this is the dinosaur skeleton from Night at the Museum
Looking up the side of the Washington Monument
WW II Memorial
Vietnam Memorial
1 comment:
I have been here for years, and don't have many good D.C. photos. That was a fun and busy day for you.
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