Washington DC Trip: Sunday

Our last day in DC :(

It was cloudy and a bit chilly on Sunday morning. We found an awesome parking spot right in the middle of the three things we wanted to see! First, we walked back to the White House. Lots of success this time; we had a beautiful view. We meandered around and saw the front of the White House as well. It wasn't quite as grand, but we were much closer. We imagined the president sitting in there somewhere reading the paper in his underwear (we didn't "picture" it, just imagined the general idea of it!).

We then walked over to the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum. That place was a zoo! Kids everywhere! We still managed to see some neat meteors, gems, jewelry, animal skulls, and the like. We also saw the Hope Diamond. I actually wasn't that impressed. It was big, but I thought some of the other jewelry there was prettier. We also went through a gallery of nature photographs. They were amazing, stunning, whimsical, sad, endearing, everything you can imagine. It was probably my favorite part of the museum.

We ate lunch at the Nancy Hanks building. There is a tower there with bells at the top. The bells were donated to the US by Westminster Abbey. We were hoping to tour the bell tower, but couldn't because the bells were being rung for six hours for some special occasion.

We then left DC and went south to Mount Vernon, home of our first president, George Washington. Mount Vernon was definitely a highlight of the trip. The grounds are meticulously maintained with fantastic landscaping (I'm running out of adjectives to describe how great everything was!). The mansion is in excellent shape and we got to see the room and very bed that President Washington died in.

One cool thing I learned is that Martha was 4'11" - about the same height as me! One of her gowns was on display in the museum, and it looked like it would fit me! George, by the way, was taller than Ray at 6'2". That's quite a height difference!

Exhausted, we started our drive back to Raleigh. It rained almost the whole way, with major downpours during much of the drive. After much discussion (Tom), indecision (me), and irritation (Ray), we ate dinner at a Cracker Barrel on our way back. Tom almost left Ray at a gas station while the two argued over who was going to pay for gas! Lol! A very fun day.