Spring Vacation-Day 1

We just got home from an amazing week on the Eastern side of the United States. We first headed to Washington D.C.. We got there late and took a taxi from Dulles airport in Virginia to our hotel in D.C. When we got there we were hungry but it was after midnight (It was only 9:00 Pacific time). We called the front desk and they didn't have any good recommendations for a place to eat so late that was within walking distance. We decided to order room service; just a few appetizers to hold us over until morning. We felt so fancy when the food was delivered on the little rolling cart. The next morning we were ready for some serious tourist action. Our first order of business was to find out about the tourist busses that do various loops around the city. We walked several blocks down to their headquarters and learned that when you buy a pass for one day you get the next day free but they are closed on Sunday so if we bought the pass it would be good for only one day. We decided to wait until Monday to buy the pass so we could get the two days. This meant we were "hoofing it" as Steve said. We had reservations for a tour, so after a quick McDonald's breakfast we had to make our way about 10 blocks to the Capital.

We arrived just in time for our tour. We got to see the routunda and the old senate floor but there was alot we didn't get to see. It had started raining so we took an underground tunnel to the Library of Congress. Our tour guide was very knowledgable and it was much more interesting than I thought it would be. The kids were a little less impressed and even though our guide offered to continue the tour for as long as we wanted we decided to move on. We found a cute Mexican restaurant and stopped for lunch. One of the waiters told us about the subway system and how to use it. This ended up being very valuable information. For around $50.00 we were able to get around the city and see the sights we were interested in. Ultimately we decided not to do the bus tour because it was expensive and we had already seen on our own much of what we would have seen on the tour. After lunch we made our way to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. We stayed until it closed and didn't even get to see all of the exhibits. This was one of Ryan's favorite things in Washington D.C. We found a nearby Metro station (That's what they call the subway) and headed back up to our hotel. We found an area with some restaurants and had dinner. Our legs and bodies were so sore from all of the walking and we were tired because of the time difference. We were happy to get into bed for a good sleep.