Last week, April 8-13 we went to Washington DC. One of the best things about living in the East is getting to do some sight seeing and vacations for a much more realistic cost- I have wanted to visit DC for a long time but living in Utah it wasn't at the top of my list for spending the money on a plane ticket to get there and I didn't want to drive 3-4 days. We walked over 20 miles in 3 days and had a fun, but very exhausting week and Quincy did awesome considering the circumstances-thanks baby girl!
Here is what we did:
Monday: Scott got off work about 1;00 pm, came home, packed up the car, had lunch and we were on the road just after 2:00. 7 1/2 hours of driving, another 30 minutes of making wrong turns, 1 hour of feeding and playing with Quincy out of car for sanity we arrived at our hotel a little after 11 and ready for bed.
Q helping me make muffins and cookies for the trip
Tuesday: Sight seeing of Arlington Cemetery memorials, monuments. and seeing the mass cherry blossoms (we went during the cherry blossom festival.) This day we walked about 9 miles.
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| Arlington Cemetary |
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| Koren War Memorial, the etched wall on the other side was pretty cool too. |
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| Oh yeah we hit one museum too, Scott in American History Museum |
Wednesday: Tour of the Capitol Building, stopped in Library of Congress (tourist building,) Supreme Court building, saw a large Hispanic immigration protest,
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| Quincy breaking the law. Good thing she hasn't reached the age of accountability. This star is in the Capitol Building and represents what was the center of Washington when it is built. After the picture I learned it was against the law to sit in the Capitol Building. (To prevent sit ins. At the same time they made a law against singing in the building too.) |
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Where George Washington was going to be buried inside the
Capitol, until he decided he didn't want to be like the English Kings
being buried in their castles. |
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| Thanks to Chris Stewart's staff for the awesome tour Outside his office. |
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| Outside the Library of Congress (tourist building) |
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| Inside the Library of Congress |
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| Smithsonian |
Thursday: Thursday we had to switch hotels so it made a great day for going to Gettysburg.
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| Quincy thought she'd take her turn driving |
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| Scott a top Little Round Top. The hill that we read the most about with the Battle at Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge. |
Friday: Began at Ford's Theater, national archives, White House (still sad they canceled all tours due to budget cuts less then 2 months before we went,) and back to the mall hit the several museums: Art, Natural History, American History again by this time Scott was trying to fit everything in and Q and I crashed. He ran around to find highlights from museum to museum: hope diamond longest squid, Lincolns hat he was wearing when shot, Thomas Edison incandescent light bulb..... I now understand what Mom Richens has said about Scott going on vacations. Oh boy. I think my favorite museum piece was the original star spangled banner- the one that the song talks about still standing. Very neat. the dimensions were probably 15 feet X 20 feet (ish)
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| Outside Ford's theater. We watched a little play about what happened. (Or Scott watched and Quincy and I were in the foyer trying to be quite.) |
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| Inside the theater looking onto where President Lincoln was when he was shot. This is the balcony, people worked together to lower him down onto the stage to allow for quickest attention. |
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| Across the street from the theater, the home Lincoln died in the next morning. |
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| This is a stack of books that have been written about Lincoln. Pretty cool! Yes it is in the center of a spiral staircase. |
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| Scott teaching his Sailor the ways of nuclear energy |
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| Outside the White house |
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| Poor girl. Just going going going. |
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| I believe this is the only Da Vinci in North America |
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| In honor of Neal Caffery |
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| Easter Island Man |
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| Hope Diamond 45.52 carats |
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| Super long escalator to the subway...look at Q |
Saturday: Checked out of the hotel and scored 3 free boxes of Girl Scout Cookies...mmm. Stopped by the Washington DC temple grounds and drove home.
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| Q's first picture with a temple. DC temple is the tallest temple. |
It was a tiring week, but I am so glad we did it. I loved learning a little more about the nations history and again seeing how God's hand was in it all to help our country be what it is today. I hope and pray we can continue to allow his hand to be in our nation and keep that wonderful phrase "In God We Trust"
