Sunday, August 5, 2012

Washington, DC Trip Part 2

Wednesday was our first day by ourselves.  We took Michael to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, and then drove downtown.  I did the math and figured out that it was cheaper to drive downtown and pay to park than it was for all of us to ride the Metro.  Cheaper, but not easier.  It took me forever to navigate the confusing streets downtown and to find a place to park.  Our goal that day was to see the White House.  I didn't have enough advance notice for our trip to score tickets for an inside tour, but we did get to tour the US Capitol building (I'll write more about that later).  So, we decided to walk to the White House and go to the visitor's center.  By the time we found parking, it was lunch time.  I foolishly thought that we could just find a place to eat on the way to the White House.  We asked one of the people at the visitor's center and he told us about the Ronald Regan building.  It wasn't too far, and they had a large food court.  We ate there many times.  Anyway, we walked to both sides of the White House, enjoyed the visitor's center, had our lunch, and then walked back to our car.  It was a lot of walking.  We were told there was a lot of walking, but I didn't fully understand until we got there.  We seriously should have been in training for the amount of walking we had to do.  Even our stroller gave out while we were there and we had to buy a new one.  It was still so much fun, and I hope the kids will remember this trip forever.

The north side of the White House




The south side of the White House
We were debating on which side is the front, and when we asked at the visitor's center they told us that there is no front--just the north and south side.


Emily thought this was a good view of the Washington Monument.  When I took this picture, the south side of the White House was behind me.

After we were all exhausted, we drove back to the hotel to have dinner, do laundry, and take baths.  Then we went to pick up Michael at the Archives.  It was a full day!

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