A while ago Paul wanted to set up an adult trip. No where in mind, just a get away. He had points to use and we were in. We ended up on Washington DC. This past week the time came. We left the kids home, which I was nervous for, but it was a blast. The kids did great and we loved touring DC.
The trip had a rocky start for me. Our flight out was early and we got up about 3:45 am to get ready. Beckham was dropping us off and I told Paul I'd text on my way over. I went to text and my pass code didn't work. I figured I was tired so I tried again, and again, and yet again. It came up with a message that I had 11 more tires and then my phone would automatically re-set to factory settings. I even had Brad put the pass code in, didn't work. I used my phone just the night before, used the pass code but it wasn't working. Since I got the code wrong, it would not let me use face or my finger print. I'm a nervous flyer. Not really bad, just the first flight is the hardest for me. Then add on leaving the kids for the first time ever alone AND now my phone was messed up. Needless to say I was on the bring of tears all morning not knowing what to do. The thought of not being able to text the kids to hear how they are, or as dumb as it is, no way to take pictures of our trip. We do have a cloud that has past pictures on it, and I have an SD card as well, so after a bit of debating in my head we decided to just reset it. This started at 4:30 am and around 7:30 that night I had things almost back to normal. We don't know what happened to my phone. Someone either hacked it somehow or Verizon is messing with me. My phone is just over 2 years old and almost to the day that it was 2 years old I started to have issues. We searched Google and the short story was Verizon doesn't help with these issues. It was not the best way to start the trip.
We flew to Seattle then to Baltimore. From there we took a train to Union Station in DC. I will say that I've never been into history a ton when I was in school. This trip has made me appreciate so many things in history. Seeing it in 'real like' is totally worth it.
Union Station is a big hub for the subway and trains and taxies as well. Most of the buildings we went to were built a long time ago, some finished in the 1800s, but they are amazing. The details and colors of them all. This is Union Station. It was a few blocks away from the house we rented.
While I would never want to live this close to a neighbor, I did love how they looked. We were in the basement apartment, which was perfect.
The first day was travel, shopping at a store for snacks and resting up for the next day.
We got up early to head to the National Zoo. Our first subway ride was packed full of people.
The zoo was pretty cool. It, like most places, was free. We were there for a few hours walking around. Some animals were very active and others were not, but that's normal. They even had a farm area that just looked like a barn at the fairs in Idaho. Cows, chickens and goats don't scream zoo animal to me.
Hairless mole rat
Under the blanket is the male eating his food. He grabbed a snack then the blanket and hid himself while he ate.
The tiger was hungry or grouchy. He kept letting out a slight roar and walked from side to side of his enclosure.
Poisonous frogs.
Cute sting ray, while not nice, they are cute.
One seal was on one. Not sure what he was doing but he kept barking and we even heard him as we left.
The front of the zoo; it's so green. There was an area that was called Amazonia. With in that was a rain forest area. When we walked in a bird flew around, didn't do much more. I'm not a fan of birds flying around me like that, but I stayed calm. We were closer to the end and the bird was not happy about that. It let out what sounded like a very loud noise and it flew much closer to Brad and me. I was done and quickly left.
After we went and got lunch then headed to the Art Museum. It was huge, as all of them are. We saw a lot of cool art, this was my favorite, it's the US Constitution.
Our next stop was a capital tour. Although ours was a little different. Paul was able to get us a dome tour. Usually you have to go with a congressmen but the one he went thought, Simpson, was out so we were able to go with someone else in his office. Fun fact is both men worked with Charles when Charles worked for Congress.
This is a layout of some big things in DC, and we walked a lot of it.
350 ish steps, that's what we did to get to the top of the dome. They are not carpeted, wide, lots of space stairs. They are small, some times claustrophobic, metal stair.
We walked, about half up and were able to rest and see some sites from here. It already felt so high up and very hot but we were not done.
We were told a story of the guy who painted the black and white photo that circles the capital in the picture above. One day while he was working he fell and had to hold the scaffolding to stop from falling all of the way down. It's way too high to be how we were, let alone scaffolding.
More amazing art that was done years ago.
The stairs, I'm not great with stairs and these were very nerve-racking. There was a small moment that I was not fully sure I would be able to finish, but we all did.
And it was worth it. Took me a minute to walk out but the view was breathtaking. This is the Washington Monument.
This is the building we started at. We took a train underground to the capital.
From the ground floor. It seems high up not matter how you look at it.
This is who took us on the tour.
There are statues all over the capital. All of them are pretty cool. I have no idea who this guy was, just that he looked very square.
The blue mark shows where we were at from the outside. He said about 250 feet up.
From the capital we went to the Library of Congress. Again, this was finished late 1800s and just look at the artwork. Why can they not build like this today.
This is the first Bible, and I believe book, made on the first printing press.
An early map of the world. Notice USA is just a long strip on the left side. They were just a little off with how big it actually was.
I love books and these were so impressive. They were books from Thomas Jefferson's Library.
Things I learned today. Not eating enough and getting hot makes me very weak and shaky. After the Capital I had that happen. Not only did I feel dumb for doing it, but scared when it happened. No matter what shoes you have, after 22,000 steps, or 10.5 miles, your feet will kill. And water, lots and lots of water. We did bring a lot of water, which was the one smart thing I did. After this we went to dinner at a really good Italian place and went home to rest for day 3.
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