DC - Sept 2017 - Days 5 & 6 & 7

September 3, 2017

International Spy Museum

My name is Carol, Carol Liu…I was a spy for the day at the International Spy Museum! There was an admission to get into the museum, but we were able to find a $3 off per person at the hotel we were staying at. It was $21.95 for adults.  We spent about 2 hours at the museum, our friends spent 4 hours.  Your ticket does allow you to leave and come back.  When we left, there was a line forming outside of the building, so I would recommend going early if you plan to go.  Some of the popular items to check out include the Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger, the lipstick pistol, and the spy pigeon.

We had lunch next door at the Shake Shack. It was a bit of a line, but it was a convenient location. After lunch, we headed over to the Smithsonian American History Museum. The highlights at the American History Museum include: the Star-Spangled Banner and the invention hall.

After spending a few hours there, we met our friends at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. I find the Air & Space Museum incredibly boring, but the guys just loved it. The museum is home to the largest collection of air and spacecraft in the world.

Dinner ended up just being at the Capitol Bistro, which was in our hotel. There was a buffet option and we did that, it was decent ($23/person).

September 4, 2017

Union Station

The morning started with saying farewell to our friends. They had taken the Amtrak Train from Charleston, SC.  In the future, they said that would not take the train – long ride (7 hrs. and once getting off the train they felt like they were swaying back and forth).  We had a little bit of time to spend at Union Station before the next door Smithsonian of Postal Stamps opened.  Union Station is a pretty building but there were a lot of homeless people in that area. The Postal Museum actually ended up being a lot more interesting that we had expected. The highlights were the “Jenny” stamps (stamps that were misprinted – for sure watch the video about it!), you can select six cancelled stamps to take home with you, mail a postcard, and learn about how mail is moved. We ended up spending more time that planned at the museum, about 2 hours.

Besides food options, at Union Station, not much else was super close by, so we decided to venture to the area near the capitol building were lots of options showed up on TripAdvisor.  We decided on We the Pizza. It was a neat little place where you can buy pizza by the slice (I had the BBQ one and it was good). We also tried the garlic knots – yum! 

After lunch, we headed to the United States Botanic Garden. For some reason, I had expected this place to be really large, but in reality, it did not take much time at all to make it thru the place.  There were some really neat plants!

"The Castle" Smithsonian Building

Next stop the Smithsonian Institution Building, also known as “The Castle”, the first Smithsonian museum.  The museum was a great place to figure out what Smithsonian has the most stuff you would be interested in – lots of touch screen options.  In general, there were not that many things to see in this specific Smithsonian.  Based on the touch screen, we had missed quite a bit of stuff at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, so we headed back over there for a few hours. Leaving the museum, we headed over to the Chinatown area.

Chinatown

The previous day we had waited too long to figure dinner out so we made reservations earlier in the day for a place called Plan B Burger (also called b DC Penn Quarter), again based on a recommendation from a friend.  The place was not very busy and the food was great!  We had tried to get a reservation the night before but there was like a 2-3 hour wait. The restaurant is next to the US Navy Memorial Plaza.

September 5, 2017

Time to head back to Michigan… We had a few hours to spare in the morning, so we headed back to the Air and Space Museum, since there was some stuff that Mike did not get a chance to see.  Noon was our hotel check-out time, which just happened to be about the time we needed to head to the airport.  We took the Metro to the airport, checked our bags, and got thru security really fast. The line to check bags was longer than the security line.  We had lunch in the airport terminal at a place called Good Stuff Eatery. It was really good!  Our flight home was delayed about 20 minutes due to incoming storms. The flight was a bit longer since we took a different route than normal and it was pretty smooth right until right before we landed.  All in all it was great trip!  Of course, we need to go back and visit again – a few National Park sites were closed for remodeling. One thing that we did not do during our visit was take advantage of the Bike Share – it seemed like a great idea and we saw lots of bike stands around. If you are visiting DC you might want to check into that to get around to places.

DC - Sept 2017 - Days 3 & 4

 
September 1, 2017

Jefferson Memorial

Back on the Big Bus, we headed to the Jefferson Memorial. For the most part, we had the entire place to ourselves. We spent probably about an hour there before hopping back on the bus and heading to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. The site was interesting. It was divided into 4 different open air rooms, each representing an elected term. There was a lot of water and quotes incorporated into the design, for sure worth a visit.  Next door, to this memorial is the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial. The monument again is unique, with quotes and the memorial kind of cut out and pushed out of the wall.  Another nearby site the DC War Memorial.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial

Upon recommendation of the Big Bus Tour guide, we had lunch in the Ronald Reagan Building. It was an excellent choice – there were many options!  We did have to go thru security to get into the building, but the line was pretty much not existent!

Martin Luther King Jr.
Memorial

After lunch, we visited the visited the Old Post Office Tower, which you access thru the Trump Hotel.  The clock tower provides nice views of the city. The elevators do not hold many people, so be prepared to wait. Lucky us, there was not much of a wait when we arrived.

We checked out a place called Elephant & Castle for dinner – it was good! The dessert was not quite as good as the night before, but for sure worth it for dinner. 

A view from the Old Post Office Tower

Since the bus pass included the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum we decided to check it out. It was our first time in a wax museum, it was not quite as creepy as I thought it would have been.  This particular one was mostly about the presidents. I probably will never go to a wax museum ever again, unless it is free.

September 2, 2017

Capitol Building

The day started with a visit to the Capitol.  I had reserved tickets online. Once thru security, you can redeem the email confirmation for a real ticket.  The tour started with a video and then everyone was divided into groups.  The tour guide that we got with was really good – informative but funny! The architecture is for sure worth the visit. From the capitol, you are able to take an underground tunnel over to the Library of Congress, doing so means you get to skip the security line. The Library of Congress is another beautiful building that is worth a visit.

Capitol Building Dome

Library of Congress

We went over the Union Station for lunch. There were quite a few options, just nothing much sounded good to me. I ended up getting a wrap of some sort that was just okay.

The afternoon was spent at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum where the main highlights included: the Hope Diamond (not as big as you might think), an 80-foot dinosaur skeleton, a life-size model of a blue whale, and a prehistoric white shark.

For dinner, we checked out a Mexican place called Oyamel Cocina Mexicana which translates a type of fir tree that monarch butterflies winter at.  It was a small plates type of place. We were told it would be an hour wait, but we got in before that. There was a cupcake place nearby (Red Velvet Cupcakery) that we purchased cupcakes from for dessert. The Mexican food and cupcakes were both tasty!