Three Little Girls Go To Washington

Our Spring Break adventure was just that! I'm not sure what possessed me to load the family up in the minivan and drive many, many, many hours to a place that's really made for older kids and families. But we headed out to Washington DC on March 15, armed with portable DVD player, iPod, trivia cards, toys and stuffed animals, pillows and snacks. We loved seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains and watching the sun set, so driving was, well, long, but not so awful.

WHY WE REALLY SHOULD WATCH MORE NASCAR
I did not make hotel reservations for the first night, because I wasn't sure how far we'd get. The plan was to stop around Bristol, TN, which is right on the border with Virginia and would get us closer to Monticello (in Charlottesville, VA), where we planned to stop the next afternoon. Little did we know, there was a big Nascar race in Bristol that very weekend. Apparently the track there seats around 100,000 people. And east TN is prime Nascar country. So every hotel within a 3-hour radius of Bristol, from Motel 6 to the Hyatt, was booked solid. Some big volleyball tournament was also taking up our rooms. So we just kept driving. The kids were angelic and perfect all day. No, really, they were. By the time we started searching for a Room at the Inn (and were quite willing to accept a space by the manger at this point), they were sleeping soundly. So when we finally rolled into some town about an hour from Charlottesville and checked into a hotel with an indoor pool (which is an amenity we'd promised the girls) at about 1 am, we carried dead-weight girl bodies in without a hitch. We awoke the next morning, took a very brisk dip in a not-so-heated indoor pool, and had a leisurely drive into town for our tour of Monticello.

WHAT'S SO GREAT ABOUT JEFFERSON ANYWAY?
Peter loves Monticello. "It's my favorite building in the whole country." And what's not to love? Symmetry, classicism, clean lines and dumb waiters. We gathered reading material and attempted to educate the kids beforehand about how great Thomas Jefferson was and you know, about the slavery and all that, too. The gardens were a hit. I taught the girls how to rub leaves between their fingers and then sniff those fingers to identify which herbs were growing. Rebecca loved the rosemary and got really into the sniffing, rubbing grass in between her fingers and leaves from trees: "I think maybe this one is actually rosemary, too, Mommy." Molly liked his game room, with the chess board. The tour guide complimented them on their good behavior during the tour and complimented us on "bringing them when they're so young." The whining that ensued as we waited for a bus back down the mountain made me question that decision.


AMERICA'S ATTIC
I once interned at the Smithsonian, so it holds a place near and dear to my heart. Much to my dismay, however, "my museum" (the American History museum) was closed and had been since 9/06 for renovations! Still, we visited the Air and Space Museum, which had a small exhibit hall with special stuff from the history museum, including the ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz and Abraham Lincoln's hat. We kept emphasizing to Molly and Rebecca that these were the REAL items, the ones Dorothy wore, etc. As we left Air and Space to find some lunch, the lines were long. Our best bet seemed to be the McDonald's cart by the museum. Rebecca said quite seriously and not at all mocking us: "Is it the REAL McDonald's, Daddy?" Touche!
We went to the Natural History museum as well, with all the stuffed animals and the Hope Diamond. The live butterfly exhibit was sold-out.



A THREE-HOUR TOUR
So not really three hours, but we did cram things in. Some DC-area stuff that is quite time-consuming really is over the kids' heads, so we were spared long train rides out to Arlington Cemetary or tours of Ford's Theater. We basically saw two museums, a sad little national aquarium (I mean, a few tropical fish and a turtle? come on!), and hit the National Mall for some serious walking, to drink in all the monuments at sunset. We drove out to Mount Vernon also, which was well worth the day we spent there. I do not remember Mount Vernon from childhood--perhaps I hadn't been there?--but I was impressed.
This is the new World War II Memorial with Lincoln Memorial in the background. It's impossible to capture the whole thing in one picture (and rest assured, I took MANY more pictures, because it was powerful).

The girls were playing in the trees, waiting for our Mt. Vernon tour.

Rebecca loved the subway--she liked to guess what was overhead.
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART?
Rebecca: "smelling the rosemary, riding the underground subway train and the fish" (at the aquarium I mentioned above--the crappy one)
Molly: "seeing the White House because that's where they make "Cory in the House" TV show, the game room with cards and chess at Monticello, and eating Who-Cakes at IHOP"
Amelia: getting carried around in the Baby Bjorn and, of course, the important history so beautifully displayed in our nation's capital
Mommy: the World War II Memorial and getting to see Jessica and Rich and their 3-week-old daughter Sydney on the way back home
Daddy: Monticello and getting back home

I would like to point out that Molly's and Rebecca's favorites could have been reasonably accomplished in similar fashion, by staying right here, especially IHOP and smelling rosemary (we have a huge rosemary bush right in our yard). But now we have a scrapbook to make. And isn't that what Spring Break is all about?

Lots more photos on our Website (see first link on the blog).