Washington DC - Part I

The National Mall, Thomas Jefferson Memorial

Yesterday we took a trip into Washington, DC.  It was only the third time I've ever been to the city--and the second time that Amy and I have gone together.  But this was Abigail's first trip.  It was a long day, but a fun day.  Amy's sister Joanna went with us so we did have three people to help out taking care of Abigail--changing her, holding her, pushing her stroller.

It was also Abigail's first time to go on a metro system.  She handled the day fairly well--mainly because during most of the trips she was asleep or feeding.  There were a couple times she cried (I wonder if it was just hunger or perhaps some pressure differences), but I figure that people have heard quite a bit on the Metro--most of them had earbuds anyway.  The one difficulty was that nearly every station didn't have an elevator going from the track level up to the next level.  I ended up carrying her up most escalators in her car seat while Amy or Joanna brought up the rest of the stroller.

We exited the Metro at the Smithsonian stop right on the Mall.  The construction is the National Museum of African American History and Culture which is scheduled to open in 2015 I think.

The Washington Monument is completely covered by scaffolding due to earthquake damage from 2011.

Hopefully the next time we get to DC we'll be able to travel up the Monument.

We didn't want to stress about visiting too many places, so we just went to different places as the fancy struck.  Amy and Joanna hadn't been to the Jefferson Memorial in years and I'd only been there once (and not on our last trip to DC), so we decided to head there first.

The walk isn't actually that far off of the Mall.

You can get some good views across the Tidal Basin.

This view was taken through the posts on top of a bridge--they reminded me of the top of the Washington Monument.

Sadly these ugly concrete barriers completely surrounded the Monument.  I wish if these were necessary that there were a way to make the barriers look nicer.

 Yes, we carried the stroller up all those steps.  We didn't look for the ramp access until we were leaving.

 Tyranny was a big topic in colonial Virginia.

Four different selection of Thomas Jefferson's writings are preserved inside the dome.

I'd forgotten this, but the monument was constructed during World War II and FDR was a big backer of the project.  Apparently some people were upset that some of the cherry trees would be destroyed and there are reports that some people chained themselves to the trees for a short time.

After a short time in the monument Abigail got hungry and we all decided to join her in eating lunch.  A squirrel got rather aggressive about stalking us and hoping for handouts.

He even decided to try sneaking around the corner.

Joanna decided to try and scare him away.

Abigail passed out once she was full.

The columns framed the Washington Monument nicely

 The label says that this is a bust of Jefferson--I dubbed it "The Emperor's New Bust."

 The bookstore was a great little place.  We ended up buying a board book about Jefferson for Abigail and at the suggestion of the clerk we put a passport stamp in the book--it was a nice way to remember when and where we got the book.  I think I'll do this in the future whenever I buy a book at a National Park site.

I was careful to only put stamps in my passport book for the sites that we actually visited.  DC has so many stamps I didn't want to just fill my book with stamps of places we hadn't visited this trip.  There will be trips in the future when we'll be able to go to other places.  We did stamp the George Mason memorial as we planned to head there right after Jefferson--but that I'll save for the next post.

~Matt