2013 Summer Vacation – Day 2

The next day of vacation was spent touring Washington DC on a double-decker bus.  It was a long, hot, exhausting day but we were able to see so many sights.  It was pretty awesome.

Waiting for the tour to start at Union Station – on the open-top second level of the bus:

Checking out Columbus Fountain while leaving Union Station:

US Capitol Building

Peace Monument

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

US Capitol and James A. Garfield Monument

Smithsonian Castle

Checking out the Washington Monument (under construction due to damage from an earthquake in 2011):

Thomas Jefferson Memorial

(There was a slight obsession about pretend “holding” things during this trip. LOL)

After that we took a loooooooong walk over to the FDR Memorial:

The FDR Memorial had lots of water fountains.  The boys were ready to jump in to all of them.  LOL

After that, we walked over to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.  The statue was very impressive and its location (1964 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, D.C.) is a reference to the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

“Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.”

After this, we hopped a bus to a stop near the Lincoln Memorial and the boys got some lunch from street vendors.

After that, we took the looooong walk over to the Lincoln Memorial (lots of walking this day, despite the on/off bus tour).  We saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial but we didn’t stop and I didn’t take any pictures.

Did you spot Mike and the boys in the picture above?

No?

How about now?

We walked all the way down the Reflecting Pool to the World War II Memorial.

World War II Memorial

Then we walked all the way around to the White House.  Lots of walking.  Lots of complaining kids at this point. 😉

First funny faces in front of the White House and then serious faces:

After that, we walked to the Washington Monument in search of the darn bus stop.

We took a quick ride on the bus that took us to Arlington National Cemetery and the Pentagon.  Ian and I chose to sit inside on the first level of the bus (read: air-conditioning) while Mike and Matthew went upstairs to the open-top, second level (read: hothothothot).

Studying the map.

Peeking out the window at the White House

We didn’t see much Arlington National Cemetery from the bus which was okay.  Mike and I did a tour of it with my sister a few years ago and we knew the kids wouldn’t care anyway.  (I later found out that Matthew fell asleep on Mike pretty much the second they sat down in their seats upstairs.)

We drove through the Pentagon complex which was really interesting but the tour guide operator told us photos and video were prohibited on the Pentagon grounds so use your imagination.  LOL

After this quick bus ride, we caught the next bus back to Union Station, the Metro, and headed back to our hotel.  We stopped for a quick dinner (OMG, we were all starving!!!) and then the boys took a dip in the hotel pool.  I’m pretty sure the pool was the highlight of the day for the 7 and under group.  LOL

There was a little excitement because Ian lost his tooth and we realized we were completely unprepared!

Before we all went to bed, I snapped some pictures of the moon as we were seeing a “Super Moon”.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have a very pretty view and photos really didn’t convey how large the moon looked.

It was a pretty early night for everyone after the full day we had sightseeing.

Our summer vacation to Virginia and the Outer Banks started off like all road trips do:  with a stop at Tim Horton’s for breakfast in the car.  On our way there, I snapped this picture of Matthew holding his bug carrier and the little potato bug he captured.  The poor thing was dead before we made it to the hotel.

Ever since we invested in portable DVD players, the kids are pretty content on long road trips.  They watch movies, Ian plays video games, and I am able to read quietly.

Unfortunately, Matthew asked “are we there yet?”, “what state are we in?”, and “how much looooooooonger?” about a million times that day.  OMG.  I think the questions started about a quarter of a mile from our house.  That made it a long day.  (Thankfully, he didn’t do that on the return trip home.)

We stopped in North Huntingdon, PA for lunch.  There were a bunch of different restaurants but the McDonald’s there was really big and had an indoor playground so we decided to go there.  Little did we know, the McDonald’s was the Big Mac Museum Restaurant.  Apparently the inventory of the Big Mac had owned/still owned (I don’t know?) that franchise location.

It was definitely the fanciest McD’s I’ve ever seen.  It was all updated, had a museum in the restaurant and then a really neat playplace.

Big Mac statue

After our lunch break, we kept driving on and eventually got to our hotel.  Ian and Matthew were very glad to get to the hotel:

We took it easy that night since we had a long day and the next day was going to be long.