DC – Day 3

Learning from our mistakes, we set an alarm and arrived at the office at a much more reasonable hour.  I got some work done while BK had some meetings, then we grabbed a late lunch with BK’s guys at Capitol City Brewing.  From there we called it quits for the day and strolled over to the Smithsonian museum of American History – this particular spot has the fun stuff like Dorothy’s red slippers, Abe Lincoln’s Top Hat and Julia Child’s kitchen.  It also has the Star-Spangled banner, which is a little nuts to think about and actually see.  it’s HUGE!  another surreal experience.

We rested briefly back at the hotel before heading out for a nighttime bike tour of the monuments.  We visited a few of the same spots we had walked by the previous night, but it was useful to get the extra info and history behind each spot.  For example, the big FDR memorial is actually 4 “rooms’ each representing one of his terms as president.  The new MLK memorial is a gift from Greece but made in China.  And at Lincoln the night before I walked right over a very small stone that marks the spot where MLK gave his “I Have a Dream” speech – tonight I stood in that spot and imagined the thousands of folks gathered on the mall at that time.

Rounding the corner we saw the monuments I hadn’t seen yet:  Vietnam, which is tough to see at night since it’s all black stone.

the fairly new World War II memorial, which is also very large:

the Washington Monument, which you can see from everywhere and can’t get too close to currently as they continue to assess damage from the August earthquake:

 

and I finally saw the White House.  Our hotel is only two blocks from the place but it was quickly about to be one of those jokes that I went to DC and never saw the White House.  phew…

Speaking of our hotel, it’s a W and as mentioned in a previous post has a great rooftop bar.  So on the weekends, it becomes a pretty hip spot to be.  After dropping off our bikes it was late but we needed food – we couldn’t find much nearby that looked appealing and the bars at the W were overflowing with hipsters, so we took our uncool selves upstairs and ordered room service to end the night.  It was actually pretty good…

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