We hoped for a little less walking after the workout we put our feet through the day before as we toured lots of monuments and memorials,
For breakfast, we tried a deli that was right next to our hotel. L loved his breakfast burrito, and I appreciated the egg-free bagel & cream cheese I had. Toasted even. Yummm! A soda for each of us took care of our caffeine requirements.
Metro to Federal Triangle, then a walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, admiring the Old Post Office and FBI buildings. A sign pointing to Ford's Theatre National Historic Site made us take a slight detour, but then we were quickly back towards our destination, the National Archives. As I already hinted, L HAD to go here, because of his enjoyment of the movie National Treasure. I am so glad he pushed to visit it, because I loved the exhibit area. The display of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights didn't do that much for me honestly - too dim and hard to see anything really, and the crowds of teenagers were very pushy.
But the exhibits were great!
After spending a long time in the Archives, we finally made our way out and headed for the National Museum of Natural History. Neither of us are all that interested in Natural History Museums, but we thought we should at least stop in and see the elephant and Hope Diamond. And they had a big cafeteria where we got some lunch. ;)
We actually ended up looking through the Mammals gallery pretty closely, and a brief glance in the gem gallery to see the Hope Diamond. We spent a long time admiring a special photography exhibit, then while L rested his poor sore feet (newish shoes spelled disaster for his feet with all the walking we'd done) I poked my head in the insects and bones galleries.
Since we had a little over an hour before most of the museums closed, and we wanted to stick around the area so we could see the Lincoln Memorial at night, we went to the National Gallery of Art (West Building). They very nicely had a brochure that had a list of "highlights" so if you only had an hour, there was a list of some of the most famous pieces. That timing worked out perfectly for us, so we hit the highlights and then went back outside to wander towards the Lincoln Memorial.
Slowly making our way West, we stopped at the Washington Monument to take pictures of the Capitol, which is just amazingly beautiful, especially at night. And that's when my camera battery died. I could not believe it. I'd charged it fully the night before, so I have no idea why it lasted for such a small amount of time. Since the camera is so new, I'd had no time to get a backup battery, and we hadn't carried our old camera with us so we were out of luck. What a disappointment. So, instead of taking pictures of the Lincoln Memorial, we just sat on the cold marble seats around the Washington Monument and admired it from a distance. We decided to save L's feet some work and just head back to the Smithsonian Metro stop. Dinner that night was in the Hotel - a cheeseburger for L and a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich for me. Tasty enough, but my wine wasn't that great. I did get a piece of chocolate torte packed up and took it back to our room. It made a nice addition to the other desserts we still had waiting. Sadly enough, this meal was pricier than any other meal had been. Overpriced hotel food. But it was nice to just walk upstairs and not have our clothes be super smokey smelling like they'd been the night before.
Our hope for tomorrow is to get tickets to tour the Capitol. Hopefully they won't run out of tickets before we can get there!
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