DC Bound

Right after school got out Lexi went to camp with her neighbor friend Rachel.  It was 4 hours southeast already, so Adrienne, Sof and I decided to drop them off and keep going to DC.  We have two connections there, Joni and Dave and Roxanne who we met in  Sri Lanka.  Anne and Rick were already planning a trip the same week, so the guest bedroom at Joni’s house was full!  No problem though, because Roxanne was happy to have us.  Plus it gave us the option of leaving Sof with Anne and Rick for a day of bigger girl sight seeing:)

We started out early on a Monday morning to get the girls to camp on time.  Almost immediately we hit some construction and it took us forever to even get 10 miles from our house!  With all the speeding up and slowing down, going and stopping, twisting and turning…it wasn’t long before Rachel was car sick.  What should have been under a 4 hour drive turned into a 6 hour drive.  Late or not, we were so happy to finally get there!

     

The counselors were so nice, and they quickly got settled and joined their group.  That meant the rest of us were back on the road headed to DC!  We got there later than we anticipated(obviously) but that didn’t matter because Roxanne is a night owl!  She had dinner waiting so we could eat and talk through a plan for the few days we were going to be there.  There is so much to see you could be there for a month and not run out of places to go! 

Our first day was spent at the capitol.  We did the tour, museum, and lunch.  On Roxanne’s suggestion, we stopped at our congressman’s office first and got tickets from him to go and observe the House of Representatives while they were in session.  All were very cool experiences!  I had purchased some flashcards with the Presidents on them, so Sof had fun finding the ones she knew in the building. 

That evening we went to Joni and Dave’s for dinner.  Their house is beautiful, but we were more interested in Paige! She is all sorts of cute and sassy.  Sof was obsessed with her!

Even Adrienne(who is NOT a baby person) fell in love with her!

Adrienne and I wanted to do the Holocaust Museum and the Newseum the next day, so Anne and Rick offered to keep Sof for us.  It was a lifesaver!  Sof spent the night with them even though she didn’t have to!  Adrienne and I got brave and decided to take the Metro into the city.  We parked at Joni and Dave’s and walked to the station.  It was confusing at first, but so much easier than driving!! 

Sof was so much happier hanging with Paige at the library!

Meanwhile, Adrienne and I covered some serious ground.  We loved the Newseum!  We could have stayed there all day!  The Pulitzer Prize pictures were breathtaking.  It’s hard to move on, you could stare at them indefinitely!  The 911 display was also moving.

We pried ourselves away so we wouldn’t miss the opportunity to see the Holocaust museum.  It’s something I’ve had an interest in since I was a kid, and Adrienne also picked that up.  We’ve both read many books about the Holocaust and it was number one on both our lists for this trip.  We got there and looked around, but felt a bit confused.  There wasn’t much to see.  A gift shop, a place for quiet reflection, and that was about it.  We noticed a special exhibit entrance so we went there.  The lady asked us for our tickets, and we of course didn’t have any.  She directed us to the desk, but informed us there probably wouldn’t be any tickets left.  Sure enough there wasn’t.  UNLESS, you are in the military, a policeman, or fireman.  “What about teacher?” I asked.  Nope.  So I switched gears and said that yes, in fact, I was a policewoman. 

No you’re not.

Okay, true, I’m not.  But I’m married to a policeman.

Really?

Yes.  Absolutely.

And the tickets were ours.

Low and behold, The special exhibit is the entirety of the museum.  I do not endorse lying, but come on.  How was I supposed to know about these special secret tickets??  I would happily have gotten them ahead of time had I known, but I didn’t, and we drove all that way and left my young child back in order to see this one exhibit.  So in this case lying was necessity and totally worth it.  Also, he knew I was lying anyway.

The very idea of genocide is too big to even wrap my head around.

We were very lucky with the weather, so despite feeling done, we decided we better see the basics while we’re alone and can cover some major ground fairly quickly.

Our walk back to the metro even took us past the White House.  We were very pleased with all we saw that day!  We picked Sof up from Joni’s and headed back to take Roxanne out to dinner.  I can’t even believe after 5 days there we didn’t take one picture with Roxanne!  I can show you Sof was wiped out after her day with Paige though!

 

The next day we did the Museum of Natural History because we figured that would be of more interest to Sof.  Also, the weather was iffy and we knew we could spend the whole day there if need be.

The next morning we went to Georgetown to check that out before we headed back to Ohio to pick the girls up.  When you find out Ben and Jerry’s has dairy free ice cream you must have it for lunch!

  Of course our last stop was a Starbucks for the road!

It was a fun road trip for us girls, and I’m so glad we did it!