Summer Vacation Part 1: Washington DC

We recently got back from an absolutely wonderful family vacation.  We spent 4 days in Washington DC and 6 days in New York City.  Our family has traveled quite a bit over the years, but this is the first time that we’ve taken a big vacation in the summer together.  It’s also the first time that any of us, except for Steve, had been to DC.  Today I’m going to share the highlights from DC and tomorrow I’ll share the highlights from NYC.  I also have to thank my daughter, Nicole for sharing her photos for this post (she’s much more talented than I am at taking photos of people and scenery).

Washington DC had never been high on my list of places to go, but once we got there, I really fell in love with the city.  It’s a beautiful city that is so rich in history and it’s an amazing place to tour.  I would go back in a heartbeat!

As soon as we got to DC, we hit the ground running.  We only had a few days to see things and so we wanted to make the most of our time.  We started with a delicious lunch around the corner from our hotel and then, after consulting the map, we were off to see what the city had to offer.  The map photos below, are a running joke we have about Steve consulting a map whenever we’re on vacation and “allegedly” getting confused and frustrated.  These are his daughters poking fun at him!

Day one we toured the Holocaust Museum, which gave a very sobering and thorough account of everything that went on during that period in history.  It’s so hard to fathom that something that awful actually happened and so sad to think about all of the lives that were needlessly lost.

Day two we started our day by touring the monuments.  The Washington Monument is one that can be seen from almost anywhere in the city.  We also were able to see the Martin Luther King, Jr Monument which has only been open for six months, the sculpture of King was amazing.  We also saw the Lincoln, Jefferson, Korean War and World War II Monuments.  But everyone’s favorite was the FDR Monument.  It was a beautiful park right on the river that you could stroll through and took you through all four terms that he was in office.

Once we had finished with touring the monuments, we went to Arlington Cemetery to see the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  When you get to the cemetery, you take a peaceful 20 minute walk to where the tomb is.  I say peaceful, because even though there are many people there, everyone is very respectful and either doesn’t speak or speaks very softly.  Once you get there, you see the tomb and the guard.  You’ll watch the guard and he takes 21 steps, turns, waits 21 seconds, turns again switches his gun to the other arm, pauses another 21 seconds and then starts over with 21 steps.

After we finished touring the monuments and Arlington Cemetery, we scarfed down one of the fastest lunches ever because we had an appointment at the White House.  We thought that the President and Mrs Obama would be there on the front steps to greet us and invite us in for tea, (lol) but for some reason, that just didn’t happen.  But we did get to go into the White House and see the public areas like the state dining room and it was all very cool.  When we finished the tour and came back out, we discovered that a very large protest had gathered right in from of the White House, right on the other side of the fence, which is something we’d never seen before.  There were also a couple of secret service agents standing not far from where we came out of the White house holding ENORMOUS guns, I’m sure just in case anything got out of hand.  Believe me, we just walked by on our best behavior!

Now we’re on to one of the highlights for me in DC.  We went to the Smithsonian American History Museum and I got to see Julia Child’s ACTUAL kitchen.  Before Julia passed away, she donated the kitchen from her home, which dates back to 1961, to the Smithsonian.  This was the place where all of her shows were filmed and it was just incredible to see it.  One of the things I found interesting was that she bought her stove used, early on, and never replaced it.  I guess she felt like if it worked well then why get something new.  She also had an amazing collection of pots and pans as you can see.  As well as seeing her kitchen, you could read many interesting facts about her and her history of cooking  and of her TV shows.  One fact that I found interesting is that she is credited with introducing the European habit of drinking wine with meals to Americans, she said that it was a “normal and natural compliment to the table”.

I probably could have stayed at this exhibit all day long, but we had to move on.  So much to see, so little time to see it.

Sunday included a trip to see the Capitol building and the Library of Congress.  Unfortunately, we didn’t realize until we got there, that the buildings were not open on Sunday.  But we had a good time looking at the outside of the buildings and taking lots of photos.  On Monday before we left for NYC, we had time to go back and tour the inside of the Library of Congress, which I have to say is absolutely gorgeous inside.  We didn’t have time to take a tour of the Capitol, but we did go inside briefly, we’ll have to wait for next time to tour.

Of course we had some fun lunches and dinners while we were there, as well.  Our first night, we were so exhausted that we stayed at the hotel and had dinner at the hotel restaurant which actually was very delicious, in fact, we ate there again for lunch the day we left the city.

On both Saturday and Sunday, we stopped to catch our breath with a little afternoon snack.  Saturday afternoon Steve and I found the cutest sidewalk patio with nice comfy chairs at a place called The Occidental Grill.  While the kids were relaxing at the hotel, he and I enjoyed some wine and just watched the world go by.  Shortly before dinner, the kids joined us and then we all walked to dinner.  On Sunday afternoon, we stopped at a cute pub called Elephant and Castle and enjoyed some house made potato chips topped with parmesan and truffle oil as well as some pretzels with homemade mustard dip.

Our dinner on Saturday night was at a great restaurant called The Hamilton.  It was an enormous restaurant with an enormous menu, they had everything from sushi to pasta to steaks.  We started with a couple of appetizers, house made loaded tator tots (remember, I have a serious tator tot addiction) and roasted olives.  Both were so delicious and well done.  I then had an absolutely delicious bowl of clams and linguine.  There was a good portion of clams, still in the shells, a delicious, light wine sauce and it was all topped with some toasted bread crumbs, YUM!  Most everyone else at the table enjoyed steak frites, which were also delish!

As you can see from the photos below, we like to get a little silly at dinner….or maybe we just waited too long for the food.  Either way, we do enjoy some silly fun!

Our silliness isn’t just for meals either.  At the FBI building, we had to talk into our wrists (you know that’s where the agents always hide their microphones, right?).  At the US Customs and Border Protection, we of course, had to look tough…..we do look tough, don’t we?  The rest of the photos are just of us wondering around, enjoying the city.

Next up, the train ride to NYC and more vacation adventures!

ENJOY!