On the way home from Mohonk we stopped in Washington DC for a couple days. We scored a nice historic hotel for a decent price, only a few blocks from the Capitol Building.
The National Mall is a great pedestrian area and we walked all over the place, visiting the famous sites that we had seen many times behind national news casters and in doomsday scenario Hollywood movies. It was quite an experience to finally see everything in person.
The Lincoln Memorial was a highlight; we found ourselves speaking in hushed tones inside of this powerful place which felt more like a temple than a memorial.
On our way to the White House we caught the Washington Monument in some really cool evening light:
The White House was surprisingly small looking upon first glance with only two stories visible from the front. There are actually six stories in the house and two of them make up the basement. When we were there a large pink ribbon hung in front of the doorway in honor of breast cancer awareness month and before we left we had fun watching a Secret Service officer climbing around on the roof.
It was getting dark when when we left here, and still had a longish walk back to the hotel. We went through some sketchy neighborhoods but made it through unscathed…
We met up with our friends Jason and Laura for dinner. They live in DC and took us to a cool burger joint run by a former contestant on the show “Top Chef.” It was fun catching up and hearing about what it was like living in the city; they really like it here.
On our last morning in town was the big moment we’d been waiting for: a White House tour! Denae had arranged it over a month earlier by writing to Peter Defazio’s office. Camera’s weren’t allowed so we don’t have any pictures, but we started in the East Wing and worked our way through a series of impressive historical rooms and finally into the main foyer, and right out through the front door. We’d taken the picture above the night before by sticking the camera through the fence bars, and it felt surreal to actually be inside there now.
We had a fun time in DC and appreciated how most all of the tourist activities are free to visitors. We were a little reluctant to leave our nice hotel room for a cramped week long car ride back to Oregon, but we had started to feel the excitement that starts to build before we go on any long journey and decided that we had better load up the car and leave.
