Day 101: Supreme Court, National History Museum, and Nighttime Monuments (10/21/2010)

Today I got up at 9:15am. I went down to the continental breakfast and brought a pile of stuff back to our room. Then I went back to bed until 10am. We had breakfast, and I worked on the blog until noon. We weren’t in a huge hurry to get into town today because we planned to stay late to visit all the monuments lit up at night. We left the hotel around 12:30pm and walked to the metro because the shuttle wasn’t at the hotel at the moment. It took us about twenty minutes to walk. We were on the metro and on our way around 1:15pm, and in town by 2pm. We took the metro to a different station today: Capitol South.


We walked from the metro to the Supreme Court building. We arrived just in time to join the 2:30pm talk in the court room. It was interesting to learn the history of such an amazing building. The architecture and design of the building is truly amazing. I loved the Supreme Court building. It seems like a fitting place for the highest court of the land to work. I simply felt inspired by being in the court room with its marble pillars and four sculpted reliefs.


Next we walked to the National Archive. We went inside and browsed some old documents from our nation’s history. We decided to skip the viewing of the Constitution because there was a 20 minute long line.

We went to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum instead. We arrived at 4:30pm and had one hour to look around before it closed. We perused the dinosaur fossil section, and the ancient sea fossil section. It is a vast museum with many interesting things to see, so we plan to go back tomorrow to see more. At ten to closing, we were rudely ushered towards the nearest exit. We weren’t allowed to even finish reading the sign we were on at the time! The security guards probably really hate tourists, hehehe.




We made our way back to the WW2 memorial. I actually really like this memorial. I think it has a nice, contemplative design, and like it’s historical reference to both theaters of the war: Pacific and Atlantic. We waited at the monument for the free 6pm Ranger talk about the ‘Battle for Moscow’. It was very interesting, and our two rangers were very amiable. It would have sucked to be in either Hitler’s or Stalin’s armies.

It was dark when the talk was over. My plan for sightseeing until dark worked perfectly! The only downside was that it was very cold, so we were now freezing our asses off! It was very nice to see the Washington monument lit up, and the Lincoln memorial. The WW2 memorial was also very nice in the dark. I took pictures of them all.



Next, we walked to the FDR memorial. It was very different from the others. It is just an expansive area fashioned out of natural rocks and with lots of waterfalls. The other memorials are very Greek in style. We enjoyed it’s uniqueness. Then we continued to walk around the lake to Jefferson’s memorial. It is in the Greek style of the other impressive memorial and buildings in the Mall area. It was a nice memorial, very large, very impressive.




Our nighttime tour of the monuments over with, we headed for the metro. We took the metro back to Franconia-Springfield. We arrived there about 9pm. Then we walked back to the mall that we had passed on our walk this morning. We stopped in Target to buy train ride supplies: Dr. Pepper and chips. From there we walked to the nearby Silver Diner. It was a bit pricey but all of the food was locally grown or produced. I like old fashioned Diner type restaurants. I had a turkey cheeseburger, and Davin had a regular cheeseburger. We split a chocolate shake. It always amazes me that when you split a shake you get two full sized glasses. How one person could essentially drink two shakes is beyond me!

It was a short walk the rest of the way to the hotel. It was damn cold outside so we high tailed it back as fast as we could. We got back to our room around 10:30pm. Then I worked on my blog until bed at 12:30am.