The Epic Vacation, Days 12 and 13

Day 12 – There is so much to see in D.C., I don’t know why we didn’t plan a whole week for it!!  We were caught in traffic downtown and as it turned out people were being stopped and the road being cleared so that the Presidential Motorcade could go through.  Katie said that Obama was going to Camp David, so maybe we were seeing the vehicles coming back after dropping him off, or maybe he was coming home, I don’t know.  But it was kind of fun to see it go by.

We hunted down somewhere to park and went to the Natural History Museum.  The dinosaur and ocean exhibits were cool, but the stuff on the second floor was what really gripped the kids.  We saw the Titanoboa, a massive 48 foot long prehistoric snake.

 We saw the butterfly exhibit and the insect zoo.  And all three of the kids were absolutely enthralled by the minerals.  They liked all the funny shapes and colors of the different minerals.  They liked learning about the way volcanoes work.

 They loved playing with the big hunk of magnetite that had been given a permanent magnetic charge when it was struck by lightning.  I actually had to tear them away to go and have some lunch.

Jeremiah had the joy of running back and forth to park the car and bring us lunch and bring the car to me and park the car and feed the meter…it ate up a lot of his day.  He was a trooper.

Cole, Katie and Aiden waiting for a turn in the airplane.

After lunch we went to the Air and Space Museum.  Some of it the kids really liked, some of it was not so enthralling, but I think they could have spent hours in the special children’s exhibit about how flying works.  There were all sorts of hands-on things to check out.  There was a stream of air that you could levitate a beach ball with.  You got to step on a scale and see how much you would weigh on the Earth versus Jupiter, the moon and one other planet.  There were tons of different things to explain all the physics that combine to make flying possible.  The kids absolutely loved it.

For dinner we drove out to Manassas to visit one of Jeremiah’s old mission companions.  Our kids played with their kids and we visited and ate and had a really nice time.  I enjoyed getting to know Rick and Amy, and I think that if we lived closer to each other we could have a great friendship. 

Day 13 – Katie and Greg headed into town before us.  Anna wanted to get some bridal pictures taken at the Jefferson Memorial so they went off to do that while we finished getting ready to go. We drove past the Iwo Jima Memorial on our way into D.C.  I didn’t realize that statue was so big!  Jeremiah wanted to take the kids to see the Lincoln Memorial so I dropped them off and drove around a bit and then picked them back up again.  We met the Richards in the parking lot for the Jefferson Memorial and picnicked together there. 

Then we went to the American History Museum.  Katie recommended that we catch a “show” that was starting not long after we got there, so we looked at the transportation exhibit and then went up to the second floor and sat down where they had a lunch counter on display.  An actress dressed in a cute dress from the 1960’s told us about the non-violent protests that were staged by people demanding an end to segregation.  Then four people, randomly selected out of the audience but including Katie and Jeremiah, got to go up front to pretend to be protestors at a “white” lunch counter.  Everyone in the audience was to crowd around them and try to intimidate the protestors.  Jeremiah said that even though no one was dropping cigarette ashes down their shirts or spitting on them or swearing and calling names, that it did help him to appreciate the tiniest bit what it must have been like for the four students that sat down at the Woolworth’s lunch counter and asked to be served on February 1, 1960.  It was a good choice for how to use our time and we were very glad we experienced it.

We saw the exhibit where the original Nauvoo Temple sunstone is.  Jeremiah took the boys to see the Thomas Jefferson exhibit and Nyah and I saw the First Ladies Dresses and the Star Spangled Banner.  That flag is huge!  

We hurried on up to the National Zoo but got there too late to see much.  We hustled down to the panda exhibit and got to see them for a minute before the building closed.   We had fun watching the cheetahs.  Other than that we visited with Katie and company before saying goodbye.  I am so grateful that we got to spend a few days with Katie and her family.  That was a blessing for me.   It was fun to see Anna in D.C., too, even thought it wasn't that long ago that I saw her at home. 

We got back to the hotel and let the kids go swimming before going to bed.  It was the perfect pool because the shallow end was only three feet deep and Aiden could play without having to hang onto the wall, and the deep end was only four feet deep so even though the other two roamed the whole pool they could still keep their heads above water.  They had so much fun playing, and I didn’t get anxious about them drowning themselves.