The wife had a conference in Washington DC, so we made it into a long weekend. It was the kids’ first time in the Capitol, and it was my first visit in many years.
Arrival: Thursday
We arrived at a rainy, wet BWI airport. We chose to fly into BWI because we are big fans of Southwest Airlines, and they don’t fly into the DC airports. We got into town by public transportation, taking a shuttle bus to the MARC train to Union Station. After dinner at the “America” restaurant in Union Station, we took the Metro to the Mariott Wardman Park, arriving in the evening.
Day 1: Friday
Friday was rainy, so we made it a museum day. We began with the Smithsonian Museum of American History. We arrived just as it opened and began at the top floor to avoid crowds. There we enjoyed a first-rate exhibit on the Presidents. Interesting artifacts included a sample of hair from the first dozen presidents or so, a death mask of Lincoln, sample toys from presidential children (TR’s son’s paint set, Chelsea Clinton’s ballet shoes, etc). On the lighter side, we also saw pop artifacts such as Judy Garland’s shoes and — believe it or not — a portrait of television parodist Stephen Colbert.
After lunch we headed for the American Museum of Natural History, where we saw a ton of bones, including all sorts of dinosaurs, and an exhibit on the human remains found at Jamestown, VA. I found this quite interesting, as I have been reading a few books about early European settlements in the US, and I have previously been to Jamestown, years ago. In fact, I remember when the settlement was first discovered and excavated.
Dinner found us at Taste of India restaurant near the hotel. It was my restaurant pick and I enjoyed, it. The kids didn’t like the food, though, so we picked up some Frosted Mini Wheats and yogurt at a local convenience store.
Day 2: Saturday
Saturday the wife had a conference to attend, so I took the kids to the National Zoo, which is a short walk from the hotel. The weather was still cloudy but the rain held off, and we had a great opportunity to see the pandas, cheetahs, and gorillas, including the new baby gorilla. The elephants did a brief training session for us, which was cute.
After lunch, daughter wanted to head downtown to the Air and Space Museum, mostly because many of the artifacts there are featured in the new “Night at the Museum” movie. I was thrilled to see artifacts that I remember from the tail end of the “age of space exploration” such as the Apollo/Soyuz mockup and the Skylab replica. I was proud that I was able to explain to them how the enormous Saturn V rocket launches from the pad but only the Command Module and the Service Module and the Lunar Module actually make it to the moon, and ultimately only the tiny Command Module returns to earth — of which the museum had at least two on display.
My favorite exhibit, however, was the replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer. When I was younger I took the story of the Wrights for granted, thinking that flight was inevitable, but now I am so very impressed with their achievement. Firstly, the role that bicycle technology played in aviation development is very interesting to me — the Wrights drew on their experience with light weight materials, chain drives, balance, wind resistance and aerodynamics. “Wheeling is just like flying.” Further, the fact that the Wrights had to solve so many aspects of flight all at once — from generating enough thrust, to understanding lift, to being able to pilot the thing safely — all these were poorly understood, and the Wrights simultaneously had to solve all of them in order to be successful.
Dinner was take-out Chipolte and McDonald’s, eaten in outdoor seating at the hotel.
Day 3: Sunday
By Sunday, the temperature was getting quite hot, into the 80′s. Our first stop was the National Building Museum, mainly because it was open relatively early for Sunday (11 AM). We got off the Metro a few blocks away, and walked through a Hot, empty city. On the way we wanted to check out Ford’s Theatre, and as we rounded the corner we were confronted with about four full-size tour busses and huge crowds of people. For Ford’s Theatre, you can get free same-day tickets, so we got tickets for 12:30, although as it turned out we could not fit it into our itinerary. The building and gift shop were jammed with people, and we got ourselves a souvenir pressed penny.
By contrast, the National Building Museum was empty. There was a special demonstration for kids, and the docent was begging us to attend, as there were no other kids around. It’s a pretty decent museum devoted to architecture and urban planning, which are two of my interests. The cafe was pretty good, too, and we brought some of our own food to go with it.
At 2:30 was one of the highlights of the trip, a DC monument tour by bicycle. It was a great way to see the monuments. Son rode on a Trail-a-bike type attachment, daughter rode a multi-speed bike for (almost) the first time. We had a great time, despite the humidity and heat.
When we got back to the hotel, we were ready for a pool dip, but the pool was too crowded for our taste. I promised Daughter we would return for a late evening swim. We had dinner at Open City, which we adults enjoyed, but the kids found the pasta and pizza too garlicky. We’ll never be able to travel more adventurously as long as the kids remain such picky eaters.
Day 4: Monday
Our flight out of BWI was in the late afternoon/early evening, which left us with a dilemma: what to do between hotel checkout time and our departure. It was our experience that most of the museums were pretty paranoid about security and would not give us the chance to check bags. For example, the Museum of American History has bag lockers that are long and narrow; they are barely wide enough to hold my day pack, and would never accommodate my big suitcase. We discovered that there is a bag check at Union Station (it’s right near the entrance to Track A). This left us with the question: What is there to do right near Union Station?
The Postal Museum is the closest to Union Station, but the kids were not interested in that. We wound up taking a walk to the Capitol building (Son wanted to see it), and we walked the perimeter of the building. It was really hot, and we were wilting badly. Therefore we headed to the nearest air-conditioned museum, which was the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art.
It turns out, they do have a substantial bag check at the National Gallery. I saw several big suitcases checked there (they x-ray each bag for security). It could be useful for some folks to choose this over the Union Station bag check, since the gal at Union Station is overworked and very slow to check and uncheck bags. The bag check at National Gallery is not nearly so busy.
Anyway, we had a good hour around the East Wing of the National Gallery. The kids have not seen a lot of modern art, so this was a good experience for them. Son really liked “the naked ones.”
Took the MARC train to the BWI airport shuttle and back home again.
Full photo set on Flickr.
