Washington DC (09/29)

Woke up to cloudy skies this morning, hopefully it will not rain.  We are taking the metro into Washington DC today.  Joe's brother, Jim, works there and we will be meeting him for dinner.  The last time we were in DC was about 17 years ago.  Much has changed after 9/11. Security is tight everywhere you go.

We left the metro at L'Enfant Plaza and headed to the National Mall.  This is where all the Smithsonian buildings are and the Capital building also the Washington Monument and the reflecting pool can be seen at a distance.  We only have about 3 hours to see things before meeting Jim at 20th and Pennsylvania Ave.

First we went to the Smithsonian Castle.  This houses mostly office but it does have a few nice exhibits.

They have a very nice cafe in there that we ate lunch at.


After leaving there we headed towards the National Archives.  Stopping to look at the view of the Capitol building and the Washington Monument.

One of the security changes was going into the National Archives.  Seventeen years ago you walked up the big front steps into the building with all the exhibits right in front of you, now you go in a side entrance and you feel like you are getting ready to go through an airport terminal.  You have to put all the stuff from your pockets, any electronics and purses in a tube to go through a scanner and then you walk through a scanner yourself.  There are guards everywhere you look.  But needless to say this did not take away from the impressiveness of these documents.  I think I will always be impressed by viewing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the US.  It is hard to imagine them writing these documents with a quill from a turkey, the hand writhing is so neat and perfect.  You also see some of the original documents as they were being developed, you see words or sentences crossed out and you phrases put in.  From there we went to another room that displayed the Magna Carta.  We did not see this displayed 17 years ago.  it was pretty cool to see something that was written in 1215.  Along with this exhibit they also had the history of women's rights.  I learned a few things, like if you were a woman and a US citizen and married someone that was from another country you automatically became a citizen of his country and no longer one of the US.  The only way a women could get her US citizenship back was either through the death of her husband or by divorcing him.  This changed around 1922.  I am sure glad I didn't live in those times.

We had to cut our time at this exhibit short as we had to walk 2.5 miles to 20th and Pennsylvania Ave to meet Jim at the Founding Farmers restaurant.  We managed to get lost several times on our way there.  We tried to follow Pennsylvania Ave but kept losing it.  Part of the reason is because the White House is right in the middle and really messes up the streets.  I was so tired by the time we finally arrived at the restaurant about 10 minutes late.

A look back at the National Mall area with the Capitol in the background

It was really good to see Jim again, the last time we saw him was about 12 or 13 years ago and their fathers funeral.  The restaurant was really nice and only serve locally grown natural food and it was delicious. I had the slow roasted pork chop and it was about 3 inches thick, needless to say half of it came home with me along with some of the mashed potatoes.  Joe had their pot roast and Jim the BBQ Ribs.  All was very good.  Jim and I shared a slice of carrot cake.  This had three layers with cream cheese between each layer and came with vanilla ice cream. Jim and I could not eat all of it and Joe didn't want any.
Now it is time to say goodbye we really enjoyed visiting and catching up with Jim. It is already 6:30 and we need to get over to the metro for our 30 min trip back to College Park Station.    From the metro stop we get on a bus that takes us back to Cherry Hill RV Park.  It was so nice not to have to drive and worry about traffic.