Recently, Julian and I went to Washington DC with his 5th grade class. It was a great trip, but it was also exhausting! We left the school at 5:45 am Thursday, and traveled by charter bus to DC. We had lunch at a rest area on the way and then stopped at the air and space museum at Dulles Airport. It was OK, but not amazing. I am not an airplane or missile kind of girl, and this place was all about airplanes and missiles. Next, we visited the capitol building and went on a guided tour. That was much more impressive. The history of the building was pretty cool, and our tour guide was a cute little lady that knew everything!
After the capitol, we went to the Pentagon City Mall to eat dinner at the food court. The meals were nothing to write home about, but we were fed... We got some dippin' dots (which are not worth the money, IMO)which Julian raved about. Next we toured several memorials and monuments including the WWII memorial, the Korean War memorial, and the Vietnam memorial, the Lincoln memorial and the Washington monument (from a distance; we did not go in). The memorials were beautiful, but unfortunately, they were scheduled for after dark, so we were not able to see them well. I would love to go back some time and spend some time really looking at them and appreciating them. The sights on this trip were back to back and very rushed. Finally, it got too dark to keep track of all of the kids, so the teachers finally decided to head to the hotel at around 9:00. Check in was uneventful, but the elevator was uncooperative. I would not recommend the Best Western in Potomac Mills based on their elevator and continental breakfast. It was a fiasco! By 6:45 am Friday we were on our way again!
On Friday we started with a tour of Arlington National Cemetery. For a cemetery, it was beautiful - and huge! We then drove past the Jefferson memorial, and stopped very briefly at the FDR memorial. It was very nice, but we only had 10 minutes before we were being rushed to the next. We walked by the White House, but again did not go in. The flag was flying, so the President was home when we were there. From there, we went to the Smithsonian museums, but again, we were very rushed, and by the time we finished lunch, we had a little more than an hour to see several museums. We decided to tour the National Archives to see the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The line was long, and it took most of our hour to wait in line and then to look at the documents. Again, I would really like to go back and take my time browsing. There is so much to see!
Things are very different in DC. For one thing, traffic is terrible! There are who knows how many tour buses making their way through. The police are very strict about these buses, and we had literally 2 minutes to load and unload from the bus. If you go over that 2 minutes, the police are there waiting to hand you a ticket - of $1000 (and we had 2 buses!)! Mind you, we had 50 students and adults on each bus. This was a tad stressful and made for some grumpy bus drivers! We did not get any tickets, but it was very close a couple of times. After the Smithsonian, it was time to head home. We were stuck on traffic for several hours, and the trip home took much longer than expected. It was 11:30 before we got back to the school. Needless to say, Julian and I were both pretty pooped, mostly because he refused to nap on the bus - no surprise there! We roomed with Julian's friend Chase and his grandma, which was awkward, but we were so tired by the time we got to our room, it was OK.
So overall, it was a good couple of days, and Julian's behavior was OK. We walked close to 9 miles between the 2 days, and the weather was perfect for it. I'm glad we went, but I'm also glad it's over!
