Washington DC

Our early start to get a full day in DC was slightly thrown out by an alarm clock failure.  I set it for 7.30.  It went off just as we were sitting down for our evening meal in a DC Burger King.  Oops.

Regardless of this slight hitch, we got away in good time and drove down to our chosen parking spot on Massachusetts Avenue next to the Postal Museum.  Washington is full of building work and driving to this spot took about an hour longer than we expected.  Children began to get testy towards the end of the drive but when we got going the first sight of the monuments took this away.

First monument: The Capitol building.  Even if you have seen this on films, nothing quite prepares you for the sheer size of the structure.  There is a ring of scaffolding around the top at the moment, but the architecture is arresting and the statues impressive.  As we were a little late arriving we headed straight for the Botanic Gardens.  This is a lovely (cool) garden and the children enjoyed looking around the plants.  The pitcher plant was a favourite.  We then ate lunch on the picnic tables outside of the gardens.  It was brilliant.

Then we set off down the mall.  This is a 1.9 mile straight walk, but with wandering around it will be 2 miles easily.  In 78F+ degree temperatures (26C or more) this is a long, hot walk.  Fortunately there are endless distractions on the way.  The buildings are massive and impressive, there are museums along the whole length of the Mall and there are public water fountains all over the place.

We chose to go into the museum of Natural History and saw all manner of creatures in the mammal and ocean sections.  Time was the great enemy and we moved on quickly when we could have spent the whole day in the one place.

Heading to the Washington Monument we had a great view of the White House and Jefferson Memorial.  This set us on the path for the Lincoln memorial which was worth the walk.  The statue of Lincoln is enormous and set well back in a shrine-like building.  It is as close to being a temple to a Nation that I have seen anywhere.  Hugely impressive.

We then set out on the long walk back up the Mall and stopped in at the Air and Space museum on the way.  This has replica and real rockets and aircraft.  I loved it and so did the boys and Nicola  (I think - I was too busy going, "Look at this!  Ooooh.  Have you seen that!" and so on.

From here it was a dash back to the car and then home.  We punctuated this with a visit to Burger King which was by far the boys' favourite thing in the day.