Can you believe I have never been to Washington DC. Deb has but it was a long time ago. The big bonus was Charlotte, our niece, who finished her freshman year at American University so knows the town, offered to give us a tour. We started the morning as rank amateur Metro riders and ended the day as less rank amateurs.
First stop, breakfast, at the Je Ne Sais Quoi for pastries and coffee. Good people watching as DC is a busy fast moving diverse town. People walk fast here and it seems to be a young fit person's town. Lots of Bird and Lime scooters, bikes to rent everywhere, and you can even rent what look like 125cc scooters. By rent I mean just scan a QR code (ask your grand kids) and off you go. There is a lot of car traffic, but I could see the day where cars are not an asset in getting around this town.
The Metro is also easy to use. You buy a card for $2 and then fill it with money. You touch it to the turnstile and it tells you how much money is left on your card. When you exit you touch it to the turnstile and it tells you what's left. It cost $2 to ride anywhere off peak and $2.25 during peak times for where we went today.
It was very humid and in the 80's so we were sopping wet most of the day (check out our pictures for sweat).
The first stop was the National Portrait Gallery where among other things the president portraits are. Wonderful to walk through, or in our case power through (thank you speed reading course back in high school). We realized half way through that we need to come back for a week and really see everything. So high gear the rest of the day. We then boogied over to the mall which is when it hit me that we are really here!! All those news pieces and movies that are shot here make this place a sort of fantasy place but once you step out on the mall and see the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Monument, Jefferson Monument, Reflecting Pool, you realize it is indeed a real place.
Lots of activities going on with stages and fences being put up or torn down I suppose for whatever public event, protest, speech or demonstration is happening this last or coming weekend. This really is the people's place.
Next up was the Spy Museum. Once again, it was hard to spend enough time here to really take in all that they were showing. It would have been twice as much fun with a couple 10-12 year old kids. Secret compartments, invisible ink, tiny cameras, they have it all. Underwater kayaks, encryption machines, interrogation rooms. Again, we need to come back when we have more time.
But next was a short walk down to the riverfront to the TNT Tiki Room to meet Michelle and Jon, Pete and Louise for drinks and dinner. Charlotte had to work at the library but we did have her all day so we did not see here again. (Thank you so much Charlotte for spending the morning with us.).
Charlotte offered to give us night tour of the monuments but at 9 point something miles on the ticker, we were ready to call is a day.
We gladly accepted a ride back to our hotel with Pete and Louise and said our goodbyes.
We will be back!!
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