Washington DC - Day 7

Day 7 – Couple stops, then home

Everyone slept in late and we grabbed breakfast at West Wing again – egg McMuffins yum.  We got late checkout (2pm) so we headed to the Library of Congress where they house all the books (like, really, all of them).  The building where the public visits (3 total buildings) is very ornate with marble stairs and columns and frescoes.  We saw a special exhibit on baseball and got to view the huge reading room from an observation deck above it.  Pretty cool visit – we spent only about 45 minutes and then walked back to the hotel. 




   

Grand Foyer

Reading room

 

Gutenberg Bible - we have one in Austin, too

Supreme Court

On the way, we saw the Supreme Court building and snapped a quick picture.  It was pretty hot on the walk home, but nothing like last weekend.  At the hotel we literally chilled out for about 30 minutes and then went to the airport.












The Reagan Airport has some of the best food options I’ve ever seen in an airport – all before you go through security.  We ate at Legal Seafood which is a pretty good place (see Boston trip) and then headed home.  Flight to Atlanta, then Austin by midnight.

Bix with President Trump at the airport

 

Philadelphia - Day trip from Washington DC

Day 6 - This is the 6th day of our Washington DC trip - we take a day trip to Philadelphia

This morning we got up at 6am to get to Union Station for a 7:15am train to Philadelphia.  We got there in plenty of time and got in the front of the line so we could sit together on the train.  By 9:15 we were in Philly and ready to start our adventure.  We took Amtrak – not sure if it was the cheapest or not, it was about $50/person each way.

 

We exited the 30^th street station near Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania.  This station was in a good location for us, because we could walk to our first stops.  We headed along the river to the Philadelphia Museum of art to climb the famed “Rocky Steps” from the movie “Rocky.”  After a pretty easy mile walk we got to the museum and climbed the steps.  The view from the top was very nice – you could see a picturesque view of downtown Philadelphia.  After descending the steps, we got a picture in front of the “Fighter” statue in the nearby grounds. 



On our walk from 30th street station
to the "Rocky Steps"

  
 

From there, we walked about a half-mile to our second stop, The Eastern State Penitentiary.  This jail, which was revolutionary in its time, was built in the early 1800’s to hold violent offenders in solitary confinement.  The prison was closed in the 1970’s, and at one time housed Al Capone.  The grounds are now an exhibit on the old Penitentiary and the prison system in general.  The first part of the tour was a self-guided tour of interested spots, narrated by Steve Buscemi.  The headphone system was very easy to use and kept you moving through the correct parts of the prison.  It would be a pretty creepy place after dark, maybe haunted.  During the day though, we could study the architecture and systems used over the 150 years the prison was open.  We got a lot of cool pictures and learned a lot about different types of correctional systems around the world.     All told, we were there a little over an hour.  Admission was about $15 for adults and reduced for students.  I recommend a visit to this site. 



From where we were, it was 3 miles to the historic district, so we grabbed an Uber and headed to Christ Church.  This medium sized church is thought to be a source of the Episcopalian branch of Christianity and was attended by many famous people including George Washington, Betsy Ross, and Ben Franklin.  With a small entry fee, we got a tour of the church where they described the history and showed us some of the famous pews.  We spent about 30 minutes at Christ Church.  Then went to go find Sonny’s for some Philly Cheesesteaks, which it seems they just call “Steaks.” 

 
 

Sonny’s was only two blocks away and despite about a 15 person line, we were able to grab a seat inside and get our order in about 15 minutes.  The Steaks were very good – thinly sliced and you could choose what kind of cheese you wanted.  Shellie got Grilled Cheese with sliced ribeye and Brooke got a burger which was just OK.  Then Shellie and Brooke went next door for ice cream.

On the way to go see the Liberty Bell, we happened on the Ben Franklin Museum, which was really interesting – I think Ben and I would have been buds back in the day because he was really curious and liked to question everything.  He had a lot of influential inventions and social improvements like bifocals, lending libraries, volunteer fire departments.  An active swimmer, he invented a kite for swimming fast (like windsurfing) and swim paddles.  He did not invent or discover electricity, but really pushed the science of it by defining positive, negative, and battery terms and lightning rods.  He loved astronomy and could predict eclipses.  He is also known for many famous phrases like “Haste makes waste.” We spent about 45 minutes in the museum and it was a small fee to enter.

 

Then we went in search of Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.  Independence Hall was taking its last group for the day, which was only in early afternoon, so we did not get to tour it.  So get there early if you want to see that landmark where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed.  So then we walked a short distance to the building where the Liberty Bell was signed.  We could see the bell through a clear side window with people walking around it, but couldn’t get a great view, so we walked to the front where there were slightly fewer than a billion people in line to get into the building.  So we aborted that and went across the street to the Independence Visitor Center. 

 


 

At the Visitor Center, besides enjoying the free AC, we bought some souvenirs and listened to a guy play dulcimer.  Then we hung out at the Hershey café and plotted our next move.  We have a few hours to burn prior to the baseball game, so we looked for a movie, but nothing looked good or had the right timing.  I found out there was mini-golf at Ben Franklin Park about two blocks away so we did that.  Bix, Brooke, and I played the patriotic themed course while Shellie finished her book on a nearby park bench.  Bix gave up the lead on 16 and I swooped in for the kill.

 
 
After golfing, we headed to the park – took another Uber and went to a large indoor outdoor place across from Citizen’s Bank Park.  The place had a stage outside and played music inside where there were about five restaurants.  We enjoyed some beer and queso for about an hour before the Phillies game and then headed across the street to the park.   Citizens Bank Park seemed to us like a big version of the Dell Diamond in Round Rock – with more stores and capacity – they had a couple of cool extra features – Pass and Stow, a large indoor outdoor place to eat and watch sports was on the grounds, and the kids area was cool with a whiffleball field and giant rock wall where you climb a huge picture of the Philly Phanatic.  Our seats along the right field line were pretty good especially after the sun started to set, but Atlanta ended up whipping the Phillies 9-2.

 We took a cab back to 30^th street station and caught our train which was 45 minutes late – getting to our hotel at a robust 2:30 in the morning – yay. 

Tomorrow (today?) we go home.

 

 

 

Washington DC - Day 6

Day 6 - today we are going to see the Capitol Building and some of the museums along the south side of the Mall.

Capitol Building (front)

Capitol Building (rear)

We headed to our Representative Bill Flores's office in the Rayburn building just south of the Capitol - about a 10 minute walk from our hotel.  There we met up with his staff (Bill was in session) and an intern named Peter took us on a personal tour of the Capitol building.  It was nice skipping the huge line and most of the big crowds to see the most important stuff.  The tour was a little over an hour long and we saw the old Supreme Court room, several rotundas and statues, and learned a lot about the history of the Capitol.  We saw the statues of Sam Houston and Stephen F Austin (every state gets two) and Shellie got to find the two Montana statues - Charles Russell and Jeannette Rankin.  I also learned that Sam Houston is the only person to ever be Governor of two states - Tennessee and Texas.  The Ronald Reagan statue has pieces of the Berlin Wall embedded in the pedestal.   We had passes to see the Senate and House in action, but the security line was supposedly one and a half hours for each, so we said, "No, You" and left to get on about the rest of our day.

Old Supreme Court room

 

Bix showing the back of a $2 bill with the same painting
you can see on the wall behind him

We walked a couple of blocks to the National Botanical Gardens, a combination of indoor and outdoor plants - you can wander through various climate zones from desert to rainforest and see a lot of interesting plants.  We spent only about 20-30 minutes at this stop before we needed to get lunch.

For lunch we were recommended to eat at the American Indian Museum and we will not be re-recommending this.  Super duper expensive and though some of the dishes were OK (Indian taco, tamales) the rest was not to our taste or budget.  We blasted from there to go to the National Air and Space Museum. 

Apollo-Soyuz

We started our trip on Saturday with the Apollo 11 50th anniversary show and now we finally mad it to the museum.  The kids went in the flight simulator right away since the line was short ($8-12 each depending on the simulator).  Shellie and I looked around at the first floor exhibits while they did that.  I loved the Apollo-Soyuz mission as a kid and made a model of it, but they had a life-sized version on the museum floor.  They also had many rockets and missiles on display, some looked to be 30-50 feet tall.  They had a recreated Skylab you could walk through.  Another highlight for me was seeing the Kitty Hawk exhibit - how they did their trials and took first flight in 1903.  They had a full size plan in that display as well.  It's amazing comparing that to the vast array of World War I planes we saw as models in the Pentagon tour, and that all happened only one decade later.  We spent about an hour and a half at the museum and could have gone longer - they have many IMAX movies to watch as well.



Wright Brothers' Plane

   

Missiles

Our last stop was the Hirshhorn museum - a circular art gallery next to the Air and Space Museum.  They have mainly specialty/odd pieces along with a few more famous paintings (Dali, Magritte, Miro). I wanted to see Pickett's Charge by Mark Bradford as shown on 60 minutes.   But we also saw some other strange stuff.   Like the pictures below that I took of the lifelike Giant and the huge rock with a face smashing a car.

    


The rest of the day we spent relaxing at the hotel until we went to dinner two blocks for our hotel at The Dubliner (more Irish pub food).  My Shepherd's Pie was very good, the kids had Steak and Fries, and Shellie had beef stew, while we listened to a guy sing Irish folk songs.

Tomorrow we are headed to Philadelphia for the day.

Washingon DC - Day 5

Day 5 - Today we have a light agenda - Natural History Museum, Pentagon, Washington Nationals baseball game

We started the day going to breakfast at this deli across the street called West Wing Café.  They had hot and cold sandwiches and three of us got the Egg McMuffin - sausage, egg, and cheese on an English Muffin, but it was better than McDonalds'.  The egg was like a small omelet.  They also had
fresh fruit and a variety of drinks. I recommend it.


So then we went to the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian about one mile from our hotel on the north side of the mall.  We arrived on the ground floor which did not seem to have any exhibits, so made our way upstairs to the first floor where a huge Elephant is in the middle on the foyer.  On this floor we saw the dinosaur collection (mostly re-creations of dinosaurs instead of the actual fossilized bones (which were on the top floor)).  Then we went through an exhibit on Africa, Sea Creatures, and Mammals.  Some of the more interesting pictures or cute ones are below.  Shellie did not like the deep sea creatures or giant arthropods.  "Gross," she said.

Hope Diamond

On the second floor we additional exhibits - one interesting one was on epidemics, with a lot of emphasis on viruses and disease transmission like SARS, AIDS, and Ebola.  There were also the actual fossils/skeletons mentioned above, and a very large exhibit on gems and minerals.  In one room, they had the 45 carat Hope Diamond on display.  Bix looked it up and its estimated worth was between 200 and 300 million dollars.

Air Force Memorial -
"Missing Man" formation

After a couple of hours in the museum, we decided to head to the Pentagon to make sure we did not miss our 2pm tour time.  After a short ride, we got there with no one in line and 45 minutes to spare.  We sat in the lobby which also had a gift shop until the called the groups to the small auditorium for orientation.  About 30 of us were in the group which was led by a young Naval enlistedman.  We were not allowed to take pictures along the tour route which mostly stuck to the inner passageway around the 5 acre courtyard (which may contain a Taco Bell).  He described various branches of the armed forces, showed us memorabilia, and described some of the history of the Pentagon.  The tour lasted about 45 minutes in which time we covered a little over one mile of the supposed 17 miles of the building.  We suspect there was more to the building, underground, but who knows?  One of the stops was to the "reflecting room" where there was a tribute to the victims of the Pentagon plane bombing in 911.  It was a solemn moment and another guide relayed information about the day itself and who were affected, on the plan and in the building.  Over 180 people lost their life that day at the Pentagon.  




Union Station lobby

The tour ended somewhat abruptly and we wee back out on the street in front of the main entrance.  The family wanted lunch so I suggested we check out Union Station as a dry run for our 7:15 am trip to Philadelphia on Friday.  We found the food court, which luckily had Taco Bell.  We ate our fill and then I decided we could walk home, which Shellie was doubtful but played along.  Two big blocks, slightly downhill, and we were at our hotel. Come Friday, it will be a little uphill, but still only about a 10 min walk.





We left for the Washington Nationals baseball game is at 6pm and 5 minutes after we got to the stadium it started pouring rain.  They resumed the game after a 2 hour rain delay, so we still got to see the game.  Washington won 2-0. 

  

Washington DC - Day 4

Day 4 - Wow.  It really cooled off here.  After three days over 100, some light showers came in and the whole day was in the mid 70's.  We grabbed a bite at The Alibi near our hotel and next door to Hamilton's where we went Sunday.  More Pub food, which seems to be our staple for lunches.  Shellie liked the fish and chips and I had a Steak and Cheese sandwich, Bix had Buffalo wings and Brooke had tomato soup and mac and cheese.  Also some good draft beer.



Then we headed to the International Spy Museum just south of the main mall.  Inside we saw lot of detail on spy gadgets, double agents, methods, and famous historical spies.  You're supposed to take time and stop at all the kiosks and apply what you learned, but it was very crowded, even on a Tuesday and we just went around to see what interested us the most.  We liked a short movie on agents and handlers - the people who work with the spies to keep them undercover.






At around 2pm we headed to Ford's Theater, where President Lincoln was shot right as the Civil War was ending.  Everyone sat in the actual theater and a site Ranger provided information about events leading up to the assassination and then details about the actual event.  Even though he was shot in the head at close range, he was transported alive across the street to a house where he died 9 hours later.  You can tour the house and also a civil war museum, but we didn't get the tickets for the museum or want to stand in the long line to go into the house, so we left.  But the theater part was very interesting, free and I would suggest it to any visitor in the area.




We headed up the block to Madame Tussaud's to see the wax replicas of all of the Presidents and other celebs.  Being in DC, this Tussaud's focused on the presidents and historical figures and less on the pop culture icons we saw in the NYC one.  It was also a little smaller.  I had gone with the kids in NYC, but Shellie was working and had never been.  We spent about 45 minutes there, taking pictures with the celebs and presidents and then headed down the street to our next event.

 

    

We arrived at Kraken Axes for our Axe throwing event an hour earlier than our reservation, but the nice people there let us move up the time.  After getting some drinks (always good if throwing axes), we paired up with our instructor who showed us the basics.  After a short period of time we were throwing bulls-eyes all the time (just kidding, but we were hitting the target fairly regularly).  We teamed up kids vs adults and it was an even match.  We will have to go again when we are back in Austin.






After axe throwing we headed to dinner at Hill Country Barbecue Market which was only a couple of blocks from Kraken.  Walking in the door felt like we were instantly back in Austin - the smell and atmosphere were so familiar and unlike being in DC.  It's like Rudy's where you order by the pound.  We thought it was pretty OK and hit the spot.  I even got Shiner Bock on draft. 

Since we had saved an hour earlier, it was still only a little after 6pm.  So we headed to see some of the monuments we had not yet seen.  It so happened that on Tuesdays during the summer there is a military band and marching demonstration in front of the Lincoln Memorial.  So we watched that - mostly Shellie watched and the kids and I explored the vast monument - we went behind it where it was quiet and you could see the bridges over the Potomac.  We also got some pictures in the monument,

 

    





After the concert, we went to the Vietnam Memorial which was awe inspiring how many soldiers died during that war. It was still not dusk, so the memorials were not yet lit up, but I can tell it would have been very nice. 


We tried again to catch the DC Circulator and this time we did it!  Took it to the Capitol and walked home to find our room not made up for the second day in a row.  Bix and I fled to the pool while mama raised hell with the cleaning staff.

Tomorrow: Natural History Museum, Pentagon, Nationals game

 

Washington DC - Day 3

Day 3 started a little later - grabbed breakfast on the run and headed to the Washington monument.  The monument was closed for refurbishment so we could only see it from a couple hundred yards away, so it was a quick stop.

Afterwards, we walked a couple of blocks to the Holocaust Museum,  I had grabbed same-day tickets online that morning.  The tickets are to get you into the main exhibit on the 2nd-4th floors and were basically free- just timeslotted to control the crowds.  We spent about two hours at the museum and still did not see everything.  It was good for the kids to see what a tragedy happened during this time, through the eyes of survivors and lots of footage and photos.  The museum does a very good job of preserving the memory of the 6M Jews killed as well as the trials that some many survivors and allies endured.

We spent the rest of the day in Georgetown.  Our first stop was Crumbs & Whiskers which bills itself as a cat cafe.  Though we didn't have an appointment, they worked us in quickly to pet and play with the 28 cats in the small house.  Brooke was in cat heaven, as the big cat lover in the family, but I enjoyed it too.  However, there was no food there and it was pretty cramped with a few other visitors in the tiny house at the same time.  If you really like cats I would recommend a stop, otherwise, don't expect to be able to eat there.

We found lunch at an older place called Martin's tavern where we sat in the Harry Truman booth, where Truman "may have" sat when his daughter went to school at Georgetown University.  Pub food, but some interesting features, like my Turkey sandwich served in a cast iron skillet and covered in queso and bacon.  Brooke had pancakes that Mom and Bix also liked.








Then we proceeded down the street to Pinstripes - a bar with a bowling alley and indoor bocce.  We played a Bradley variant of bocce for a little over an hour and had a great time.  We'll have to play more at home.






We walked back up the hill a few blocks to the Exorcist Steps - a narrow very long and steep staircase featured in the movie, the Exorcist.  We started at the top and went down, but Bix and I went up and back down as second time.  Then we walked about a half mile to the waterfront and another mile or so along the Potomac.  Since we weren't hungry, we decided to skip eating a seafood dinner on the wharf and headed back to the hotel.  After waiting unsuccessfully for the right DC Circulator (free bus) to come by, we Ubered home in about 15 minutes.




 
  








 
 

Everyone voted for Chinese and there were surprisingly few options, even with DC having a Chinatown.  We opted for Reren Lamen and Bar (Lamen is Ramen?), since it was the top rated place on TripAdvisor.  It was pretty good and kids liked the pork dumplings they had not tried before.  Afterwards we headed home for an early night and everyone crashed except for me typing this up and Bix playing on his phone in bed.

















Check out this bowlegged "Frog Dog"