Melting in DC

We slept for almost 12 hours and woke up ready to hit the town! We ate a quick breakfast and grabbed iced lattes at the corner coffee stop and then took an Uber to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a balmy 35c by 10am, which actually worked in our favour. Hot, sweaty, and worn out tourists barely even looked at Lincoln so it was perfect to get close for some pictures! We also saw this great Lego exhibit where someone had built The Washington Memorial and White House completely out of Lego!

We walked over to the Reflecting Pool and looked out over the water towards the Washington Memorial before walking over to the Vietnam Memorial. We could not believe how many names were inscribed on the wall.

We had planned to catch our Hop On bus near the Vietnam Memorial, but because of Independence Day preparations, it wasn’t going to that stop. So, not to be defeated (after all we did overcome our terrible bus experiences in Rome) we walked to the White House. As you can imagine, there are many barricades and protests of all kinds happening. It was still pretty cool to see and bigger than I had imagined.

Just down the block was Renwick Gallery. It is a small gallery and the entire space was devoted to an exhibit about the art of Burning Man. The sculptures and costumes on display were a sight to behold! There was one room that was a temple constructed out of wood blocks and a man powered tin dragon and interactive trees that grew into different shapes when you stepped on a panel. It was a very cool show!

It was after lunch time, so we took the metro to E’nfant Plaza and walked down to the wharf. We grabbed a bite at the much talked about Shake Shack and enjoyed burgers and an incredibly thick and rich chocolate shake. There was a Milk Bar close by, so we popped in to get a piece of crack pie to share.

Refuelled, we waited to get on the Hop On bus, which then took us to see the Capital building (from afar, lots of 4th preparations are happening there at the moment) and then to the National Air and Space Museum, which is the second most visited museum in the world. (The Louvre is first.) There, we were able to see the real Spirit of St. Louis! We also saw a large exhibit about the Apollo missions, including a chance to “look inside” the living quarters of an astronaut in space. We saw another exhibit about the Wright brothers and their process to building their flying machine. Then it was on to the planes used in WWI and WWII, and the evolution of using planes in battle. After a quick tour through the gift shop where Evan bought a Neapolitan ice cream space bar and a magnet, we walked to the Hirschorn Museum of Contemporary Art.

We only had 30 minutes before the museum closed, so we made our way to the Barbara Krueger floor first and then up to see the Mark Bradford exhibit. We saw Bradford’s work at the Venice Biennale last year as he represented the USA there. We also saw other contemporary pieces including a very realistic looking sculpture of a large man and a condensation cube. Evan wasn’t allowed to go in one room due to mature themes. If only the security guard knew how many “jigglys” Evan had to see last year! Haha!

Before we knew it, time was up and we had to leave. We took the metro back to Arlington so we could cool down in our hotel before supper.Read more