The Fearsomely Fantastic FIVE!

Friday, April 08, 2016

D.C. Trip: Museums

Nowhere else on the planet will you find a place like the National Mall in D.C. It is home to a dozen world class museums that are free to visit. And within easy walking distance of the Mall are many more institutions dedicated to preserving art, science, and history. You could visit D.C. every week for the rest of your life and not see it all.

What did we choose to do with our time on the Mall?

First on our list was the National Museum of Natural History home to the Hope Diamond and a truly fabulous gem and mineral collection. We visited this museum three times. Besides viewing the gems and minerals (on every visit) we saw live animals, stuffed animals, mummified animals, animal fossils, animal bones, and animal photos. We visited a live butterfly pavilion. There were some great nonaminal photos, too.

Kara and I took the children to my favorite museum on the Mall, the National Gallery of Art. The kids all participated in the Sketching Is Seeing program by taking time to do a little sketching. Bentley was in charge of the map and we searched out the Leonardo Da Vinci portrait, walked through the Impressionist galleries, saw Thomas Cole's four Voyage of Life paintings, and paused for a photo in the East Garden Court.

Late one afternoon we stopped in at National Museum of American History. Evan napped through our entire visit. We saw the Star Spangled Banner (a famous flag). In the American Stories gallery we looked at Dorothy's red slippers from the Wizard of Oz movie. We walked through the First Ladies Gowns and The American Presidency exhibit. Viva, Jake, and Lincoln took a ride in a simulator.

We visited the National Air and Space Museum twice, once with Matt. There are lots of very large items in the museum that detail the history of flight from the Wright Brothers to the first lunar landing and beyond. This is the most popular museum on the Mall!

On Saturday Matt took Bentley, Jake, and Viva to Virginia to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center which is home to historic aviation and space artifacts items too large for the National Air and Space Museum's building on the National Mall.

In addition to the above museums, Matt and Kara and the kids went into the National Archives to see famous American documents such as The Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights.

Kara and I and the children visited in the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building to view its beautifully decorated interior and to take a peek at the Reading Room. (The photo below with Bentley in it is of books from Thomas Jefferson's private library. It is not a photo of the Reading Room.)

We took photos of the Capitol building and the Supreme Court building, but did not go in. There wasn't enough time to go into all the famous buildings in D.C. (I haven't been in all of them and I've been to D.C. nine times and I make it a goal to see new places every time I visit!)

Thursday, April 07, 2016

D.C. Trip: Monuments & Memorials

Our first full day in D.C. we took the Metro to the National Mall and we started our D.C. tour with a visit to the Washington Monument, then we checked out the National World War II Memorial and walked along the reflecting pool to see the Lincoln Memorial.

Our last evening in D.C. Matt drove Bentley, Jake, and Viva downtown to view a few monuments and the White House after dark.

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

Washington, D.C. Trip

Matt travels to D.C. every few months for work. We decided to tagalong on his most recent trip. Opa stayed home with great-grandma and I went with Kara and the five children. Our adventure started with getting there. Jake traveled with Matt on a companion fare ticket on Alaska Airlines. They took all the luggage with them because Matt was renting a car for work, so he could more easily deal with the luggage.

The rest of us traveled together on Delta flights. We left on a red eye from Anchorage and changed planes in Seattle and Minneapolis. When we arrived in Baltimore the next evening we rushed through the airport to catch a bus that dropped us at the end of the D.C. Metro green line. After taking the metro we had to walk for a half mile to our rental house. It was a long day, but the children were good sports.

We rented a house near The National Zoo, a short Metro ride from The National Mall. The house we rented was a hundred year old row house. It had been recently renovated and it was clean with beautiful hardwood floors throughout. We had a good amount of space including three bedrooms upstairs. It was really nice having room for the children to spread out in the evenings. Bentley, Jake and Viva shared a room with a king sized bed and they stayed up very late every night reading and using their iPads. They loved it!

The first morning Matt went off to work and we slept in: Washington D.C. is four hours ahead of Alaska! After we got up we headed to The National Mall. We chose to travel to D.C. the first week of April in hopes of seeing the famous cherry blossoms in full bloom. Unfortunately for us, the peak bloom was the week before. We found a few late blooming trees, but we did not see the entire tidal basin dressed in pink. C'est le vie.

We spent seven days in Washington D.C. (3/30/16-4/6/16). We visited museums, monuments, the zoo, and a cathedral. We saw many interesting things. Kara is still weeding through her hundreds of photos, but soon I hope to post more pictures from the trip.