Saturday, October 04, 2008

Washington DC Day 1

Well, after the long day yesterday, we slept in until 930, and really only woke up because of room service knocking on our door with breakfast. 6.5 hours of sleep after the long day didn't seem like much, but it would have to do. As we were still on California time, it was like waking up at 630 anyways. After today though, I can safely say we are on East Coast time now.

Even though we didn't really leave the hotel until 11 or so today, we got to see a lot. It is about a 45 minute subway ride to DC from our hotel, but it isn't bad at all. We got off at the Smithsonian exit. As it is underground, you can't see anything at first. It is weird to take the stairs up and then all of the sudden, there is the Washington Monument right in front of you. We had to take a picture....



From there, we decided to go across the street to the Natural History Museum. This had a ton of cool things. We saw dinosaur skeletons, the Hope Diamond, live insects, magnetic rocks, and everything in between. Here are a couple of pictures...


Me in the mouth of a Giant Great White Shark


Me holding some big ass cricket...





We were there, with lunch too, a good 4 hours or so. After that, we decided to walk over to the Holocaust Museum. We got there a little over an hour before it closed at 5 and after being there 10 minutes, we left and decided to come back as we knew we wouldn't be able to finish it all and give it the time it deserved in that hour. We headed back to the Washington Monument and took some pictures from the base of the monument; some of the monument, some of the Capitol in one direction, and some of the Reflecting Pool in the other direction:















From there, we decided to walk to the end of the reflecting pool and see the Lincoln Memorial. Along the way, we also stopped at the WWII Memorial. The Lincoln Memorial was full of people and we got some good pictures:








After this, we decided to hit the Korean War Mermorial and the Vietnam Memorial, but not without taking a picture of the Washington Monument from this other side:








Korean War Memorial





Vietnam War Memorial - "The Wall"





Finally, we had to call it a day, but not after taking one more picture of the Washington Monument with the beautiful DC sky:




Ok, see you tomorrow...

8 comments:

Miss Sassy Pants said...

I am IN LOVE with our vacation so far! We did SO much today, and I know we still have SO much to do! Oh, and the food at the museum was AWESOME! I had a turkey and swiss sandwich with pumpkin on pumpernickel bread. Yumm-o!

Mom said...

Those were cool pictures. My favorite was the monument reflecting in the reflection pool and the sunset one. I love your perspective on the food too Jess, because that is just as important on a vacation as the sites to see.

I shared this with Manuel already, but for the bloggers, I had to share the funny Orko story. Next to our sliding glass window is Papi's saw and it is covered in plastic to protect it. Orko somehow got underneath the plastic and then couldn't get out. My first reaction was you aren't supposed to let your kids play with plastic bags so I was worried about him because he kept trying to go through. Hilarious - I wish I had taken a picture for you guys. Anyway - catch you guys tomorrow@

Jose said...

Absolutely awesome! That has got to be a great place to visit, I am happy you are there and sending those great images along with your narrative. Looking forward for more.

Mrs. Hairy Woman said...

Nice vacation from the sounds of things.. continue on with your journey and have a lot of fun..

dmarks said...

I've started to post more DC pictures today. Yours are so familiar... it is what I saw a week before.

How 'about those geese? They need diapers or something.

Anonymous said...

Wow, you did get a lot done on your first day. There is so much more to see. Especially at the Smithonian. Can't wait for your pictures. Jess, yes please do tell us what you eat. That is such an important part of vacation. Hugs and smiles.

Churlita said...

So cool. I love the pics. It's like we're right there with you.

laura b. said...

It is so cool of you guys to share your vacation photos with us, almost in real time! What great shots you got.

I like your mom's Orko story too :-)