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Visiting D.C.

As perhaps you've read in previous posts, this summer we made a monster road trip back east--6000 miles.  So continuing with the saga...After we left Kirtland, we drove to Virginia to stay for a week.  One of the main reasons we went on our big trip was to visit our son and daughter-in-law who lived there for the summer while my son worked at an internship.  This was a little bit like coming home because we lived in this area back in the 90's when my oldest son was just a little boy.  We definitely enjoyed our time there.

On our first day, we saw the Museum of Natural History and I took my youngest two into the butterfly exhibit:


I don't have any good pictures of the lobby but my children recognized it right away as being in "Night at the Museum".

We saw lots of monuments (and did lots of walking!):

One of my favorite places to visit is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier but it does require a hike to the tomb.




Right by the Korean War monument, we saw a fox in the woods.  He was looking pretty skinny!

After our monument day, we went to the National Zoo and saw the famous panda which my youngest daughter thought was very cool:




While we were there, my husband left for a few days to go to a professional conference in Quebec.  While he was gone, we visited the Capitol building and went on a tour through our senator's office.  I enjoyed that personal tour which was surprisingly easy to get.  We called that morning and got in for the afternoon.  Back in the 90's, we just walked into the Capitol and walked around on our own but that is no longer possible for security reasons.



A highlight for me was meeting a young man who was the first companion for my son who is currently serving an LDS mission.  He is from this area and was home for the summer.  He had nothing but positive things to say about my son so, of course, I loved talking to him!

My 8-year-old thought the main reason we were there in Virginia was to go swimming:



We visited with my husband's former boss from when he worked at NIST.  That was a very enjoyable dinner.


Afterwards, I took the youngest two back to the hotel while my husband took everyone else to a Washington Nationals game. Sadly, the game got rained out. My 14-year-old son who is a big sports fan was really disappointed. That was our last night there so they couldn't go to another game.

Overall it was a fun visit.  But frankly, I hated the traffic which was quite terrible.  I read recently that the Washington, DC metropolitan area has the worst traffic in the country.  I'm a believer!  On the day we went to the zoo, they closed a major road as we were trying to leave and it was rush hour and it took almost three times as long to get home as it should have.  Ugh.

But we enjoyed our time with our son and daughter-in-law and it was nice to show our children all the sites they had never seen.  At the time I didn't love the visit because of the traffic. But as I look back at the pictures, I enjoy remembering it and I'm glad we did it.


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