Adventures in DC - Day 7

"I love history because when you strip away all the social and political aspects, it's really just a bunch of fun stories."

-- Duff Goldman

Trip Totals:

Walmart Trips Made: 6

McDonald's Diet Cokes Drank: 5

Horse Trailers Seen: 5

Itinerary Changes Made: 4

Times John Made Fun of Lauren's Navigation Abilities: 2 

 

Today's Itinerary: Explore Washington DC 

Leasons Learned: 

1.) Another day in DC, same weather, still HOT

2.) Lauren can only take so much history in one day.

3.) Lauren and John can only do 27,000 steps in the day before they are both tired of walking

What a busy day and we both can feel it in our tired feet, legs and backs. 27,000 steps in a day in the heat is quite the distance to cover. We hit all the major attractions, White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, Korean War Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, US Capital and the National Mall in general. We covered a bunch of the museums as well, Smithsonian Air and Space, Natural History, American History, and Holocaust Memorial.  

We met up with one of my friends from Findlay for lunch and Lauren was kind enough to let us talk Warhammer 40k, while she enjoyed her Chinese food, Candy Crush and air conditioning.

Day 6

“The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American.”
~Thomas Jefferson

Trip Totals:

Walmart Trips Made: 6

McDonald's Diet Cokes Drank: 5

Horse Trailers Seen: 3

Itinerary Changes Made: 4

Times John Made Fun of Lauren's Navigation Abilities: 2 

Today's Itinerary: Travel from Greenville, PA to Washington DC 

Leasons Learned: 

1.) It's summer and it's HOT

2.) John is responsible for getting everything ready, Lauren is responsible for getting Lauren ready.

3.) Still summer and it's still HOT

4.) Lauren gets a little green when she hasn't eaten much, is super hot and trapped inside a wobbly hot metro train.  She made it though.

5.) Yup still HOT

What a jammed pack day! And boy are we tired, the trend continues of packing way to much stuff into these days and not enough sleep. Looking forward to getting a chance to sleep in one of these days. However that won't be tomorrow as we have another busy day planned. 

Thanks to Lauren's sister's boyfriend (Ryan) we got to visit an amazing bakery shop with some very tasty donuts. This small detour let us drive on a very familiar highway, US 30. Which was a road we used when we traveled back and forth between Indiana and Ohio, we also used it when visiting Lauren's parents. So it was nice to see a familiar road with some new scenery. 

The (Original) Pie Shoppe

Along our way on US 30 towards Washington DC we came across 2 historic sites, one was Ft. Ligonier in Pennsylvania. I ran across the road and took a quick photo.  The other historic site we discovered, and this one we stopped and visited, was the Flight 93 National Memorial. An extremely moving and powerful memorial, reliving that event with the news clips through the news clips and audio recordings of passengers calling in from the phones on board is an experience we won't forget.

Ft. Ligonier

Panoramic view from Memorial observation deck

 Zoo time! We made it to Washington DC and headed off to the zoo to start our time here in the nation's capital. Breaking news! It's summer and it's HOT! We almost died... lol. We had limited time so we really hussled to see as much as we could in about the 2 hours we had before all of the indoor areas were closed. If we wanted to see the animals we had to make it to the indoor areas because the animals were smart enough to be in from the sun and heat, only us silly humans were running around in the heat.

Washington DC Rough Draft

I've been working on a rough draft of the major stops we plan on making on this coast to coast adventure. The first of which is our day and half stop in Washington DC. This stop is a little bit easier because the dog and cats will be staying with my wife's parents back in PA.

One the half day we will be stopping at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park for the afternoon and evening.


One our only full day in DC we are hitting the major destinations The White House, Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Washington Monument,& United States Capitol. We will finish off the day exploring the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

This will be my first time going someplace and heavily relying on subway mass transit to get around an area, so that should add to the excitement and adventure.