Wednesday, April 25, 2018

White House - Museum of American History - National Archives & Museum of Natural History

Finally a day that we could leave the truck parked out front and uber into DC. It was a wet and foggy morning, with a bit of drizzle, but thankfully not raining. We were dropped off at the White House, which we were not touring, just walking by. All those million school children we saw yesterday, were at the White House and I nearly got lost in the midst of them trying to take pictures. I found it interesting to see all the security up on the roof of the White House!

From there, we were making our way back to the Smithsonian District, passing more monuments along the way.

This is the Eisenhower Building and I again felt like I was in Europe! The French Prime Minister was visiting DC, so their flag was flying along side the American Flag. 


Still making our way to the Smithsonian District, we walked behind the White House, 
which is just as beautiful as the front.


One thing I noticed is that in D.C. there are words of wisdom inscribed on many buildings. Words of wisdom from wise from past presidents of our nation that more people need to take notice of and apply to their lives...this one from George Washington reads "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair - Washington"

Each one of these buildings had an inscription from a President under the American Flag!

We finally made our way to the Museum of American History and it was both fun and interesting to see - especially the fun memories from our childhood! 



I took this photo for both Patti and Lindsay - it's Clara Barton's 1st Red Cross Ambulance

I think my favorite in this building tho was the Presidents wives ball gown display

Melania Trump's Inaugural Ball Gown

Laura Bush's Inaugural Ball Gown




We left there, and stopped at a park bench for some snacks, where Steve made friends with a local beggar, before heading to the National Archives.


There was no photography allowed inside the National Archives, but here is a photo of the building. It was incredibly interesting to see all the historic documents in the Archives!



After leaving there, we walked thru an Art Garden as we made our way to the Museum of Natural History, where we were greeted with this huge elephant.

I loved this museum since wildlife photography is one of my most favorite hobbies!











This place was huge - 3 floors of Natural History!!


...along with gemstones!




After making our way back to the Live Butterfly exhibit, since we somehow missed it, we found out there was an additional fee to see that - it was getting late, we were tired and hungry and the price of the exhibit was ridiculous, we all agreed it wasn't worth spending the money to walk thru something that we could do in Chattanooga! So we found a place to sit and relax while Patti googled for a local Italian Restaurant. Most places were either closed or ridiculously expensive, so we decided to get our Uber and head back to the house and decide what to do about dinner there.


After arriving back at the house, Italian sounded really good to all of us. Laurie was reading the guestbook and saw several guests had mentioned a local organic market that was only a mile or so away, so suggested that we head to the market and get food for dinner. Patti suggested we leave the guys at home (great idea!) and us walk to the market since it was so close. So we grabbed a tote bag and started walking, using Laurie's Waze app to get there - lol! It ended up being a lot further than 1mile - I would guess more like 2 miles! 
The organic market was amazing and made up for for the long walk there! We grabbed a cart and started loading it up with all kinds of goodies, not really putting much thought into the fact that we had to carry all this stuff the 2 mile walk back! haha! We must have been hungry b/c that little cart was pretty full! We loaded the stuff into 2 fairly equal bags, in which each of us carried one (really heavy bag) and got back to the house as the sun was setting. I think the guys were kinda worried about us being gone so long, but we had a blast and plenty of laughs as usual! LOL!

Patti got right to work on a delicious pasta sauce, using many of the spices found in the well-stocked kitchen and boiled the penne, while Laurie worked on the garlic bread. Scott got fancy, finding some candles and set the table!
We made the best Italian dinner, complete with fresh parmesan cheese - I don't think we could have done better anywhere else! 

We discussed our route for tomorrow as we head back to TN, and decided to head to Asheville, NC and do a quick drive-by/walk-by the Biltmore Estate and spend the night somewhere in Asheville.

After dinner and discussion we had another wild game of cards before heading off to bed.

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