Vacation Day 3

After visiting with the cousins on Sunday, we decided to tour Washington, DC a little on Monday.  Having grown up there, dh and I have been countless times with family and field trips, but our kids hadn't been to very many sites.

We took the train in because parking is so difficult in DC, but we paid through the nose for that "convenience".  8 people on the metro gets a little pricey!

We went first to the Washington Monument to get tickets

Alas, they were not to be had until 7:30 pm.  And this was at 10 a.m.   We figured we'd be long gone by then and decided to skip it.

From there we walked to the Lincoln Memorial:

This picture is deceiving.  This is the WWII Memorial which stand halfway between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.  You can't even see how long the Reflecting Pool is here.

So we walked around the WWII Memorial,

Sidestepped the goose poop alongside the Reflecting Pool, and saw this adorable little family,

And finally saw him in all his majesty.

Then we had to start the long walk back in the other direction by way of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, while we ate our ice cream sandwiches to keep us happy,

With a quick stop at the WWII Memorial, again.

And then we went to the Holocaust Museum that neither dh nor I had ever been too. We still didn't see the whole thing, namely the permanent exhibit, but we went to the children's section which is a tour of a fictional Jewish boy's life. Little Princess found that "exciting." It was very well done.





We also went to the large "Propaganda" exhibit there which I found extremely interesting from a current events perspective.

Wave 'hello' to Mr. Jefferson.  We didn't stop to see him as he was too far off the beaten path!

I don't know about you, but at this point, my feet are gettin' tired and I'm a little hungry.  I'm sure the children's tummy and foot pain was much greater than mine, so we started looking for lunch.  There are tons of street vendors in this section of the Mall, but we wanted to avoid those.  We ended up at the National Air and Space Museum because they have a McDonalds.  

Come to think of it, the street vendors might have been cheaper.  Lunch at Mickey's was easily 3x what we would have spent at a normal one.  We only saw a couple of things at Air and Space and went directly across the Mall to the National Gallery of Art.

I was enjoying this:

and this:

while the little ones enjoyed this (supervised by a tired teen):

Now, there's a ciborium worthy of Our Lord!

I loved seeing the originals of some of my favorite paintings!

I think some of the kids actually saw more of the museum than I did as they kept moving at a brisk pace, while I stopped to enjoy, rest, and take pictures.  But that's fine with me.  I don't need to make them examine every painting.  They're seeing a variety of artwork and getting exposed to it.  They'll slow down and look closely when something grabs their attention.

The walk back to the metro station went through this sculpture garden.  Some of these I remember from my youth, especially the typewriter eraser.

Wonder who did that one? 

He cracks me up sometimes!

Okay, I don't know about you, but we're exhausted and heading back to the Metro, even if it is rush hour and we have to pay $2 more per person for the trip.  We're TIRED!

Join us tomorrow for a tour of the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and Gettysburg!