Day 28 – Washington, D.C.

After our short drive, we start out at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. We’re actually at its second facility, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, on the outskirts of DC near the airport. Here we’re most impressed by the Lockheed Blackbird (world’s fastest aircraft), the Concorde (expensive, commercial supersonic transport), and the Space Shuttle Enterprise (a prototype that flew but never in space). We also go into a control tower to watch planes take-off and land, and listen to and watch real air traffic from New York’s tower.

Afterwards we find the campground. For the next 4 nights, we’re staying at Cherry Hill Park, the closest campground to DC. It is a mini-city in itself. It’s definitely the skimpiest site we’ve seen so far, but it hardly matters as we’re only here to sleep. Then we’re off to the metro feeling like completely stupid tourists. Even though Greg and I together assess how to use the machine to get our farecards (and parking credit), we still hold up the rush hour crowd by taking 10 minutes to figure out the procedure.

We board the metro for our 30 minute ride to the Mall, and I’m realizing that the kids have come all the way across the U.S. to get their first real taste of public transportation. The ride is uneventful as you can’t see much in the tunnels – but my ears feel the pressure of the changing elevations. As we walk back up to street level, I ask Jeremy and Christopher, “Are you ready for this?” We step out and immediately see the Archives, the Old Post Tower, and the Capitol. Everywhere we look is an old building with its own story to tell. And for the rest of our day, time passes quickly as we rip ourselves away from every view and site, and even return to each for more!


We take a walking tour of the monuments with DC by Foot. We go to the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, and the war memorials: Vietnam, WWII, and Korean. I never would have predicted this, but Jeremy and I are most stirred by the Korean War Memorial. At dusk, the 19 stainless-steel soldiers are eerie, and make us vulnerable to receive its message “Freedom is not Free”. We get our comic relief at the Lincoln Memorial. It’s our version of Night at the Museums “this is the United States of Do-Not-Touch America”. Kate, Christopher and I walk up the historic steps to see Abe, and are startled as the ranger yells at Kate, “little girl, no running”. My strict rule-following Christopher takes a quick step to stay by my side, and the ranger replies, “young man, that means you too.” I can’t help but laugh out loud at how ridiculous the ranger is by assessing their child-like stride as inappropriate! We’re all laughing, and decide to videotape his next victims – boys who excitedly step up the stairs and are promptly told to go back down and walk. They instinctively jump back down which really sets off the ranger. We have it all on tape, and you might just see it aired on the next America’s Funniest Videos! Still feeling silly, we have to completely restrain ourselves from running into the Reflection Pool, recreating the scene where Jenny yells “Forest!”

It’s 10pm and the last thing we do before we leave for the night is walk by the White House. There’s a party for Congress still in full swing on the back lawn. Time sure does change things. No longer can you drive right up to the iron fence surrounding the compound. Now we can only walk up to a barrier – not even allowed to walk up to the fence. And what we don’t even realize is that we’re lucky to have made it this far … earlier in the day the tourists were held further back in the middle of the park. We watch as the barrier is lowered to permit entry for a black SUV with a smiling, waving politician. We all have a bitter taste in our mouths as I break the bad news to the kids … our request to tour the White House has been denied – even though we’ve submitted it 6 months in advance, exactly as we are supposed to. The explanation I was given was that “this administration” is denying most requests – and thus, we feel our 1st direct impact of President Obama taking office, and his supposed “open administration”. Kate very naively replies, “but don’t they know we drove here all the way from California just to see the President!”