We were lucky enough to leave the boys with friends and family. Icing on the cake: we left Dan's cell phone home too. Let me tell you, friends. That was the best idea ever.
We tried to cram as much into each day as we could. There was so much we wanted to see and not nearly enough time to do it all.
The first day we took a chartered bus to Mount Vernon. What a lovely place! We were lucky enough to be there on a day that was not crowded. And the weather was perfect too. It was calm and peaceful there.
Meeting George and Martha
The backside of the Mount Vernon Mansion. (the front side was covered in scaffolding and plastic)
The slaves quarters
George Washington was known as a "fair" slave master in his time. As long as they worked hard all day they were fed, clothed, and given a place to sleep.
All of his slaves were freed when he died.
We spent most of the morning at Mount Vernon and saw much of the grounds. We could have easily stayed for several hours longer viewing more gardens, the farm, and the amazing exhibits at the new museum, but we had to catch our tour bus.
On our way back to the city we drove through the historic old sea port town of Alexandria where George Washington had a town home. We stopped at Christ Church. The very church where George Washington attended when he was in town, as well as Robert E. Lee.
This is the pew where the Washington family sat.
That afternoon we took the Metro down to the Nationals Baseball stadium for a baseball game. We were accosted by ticket scalpers as we exited the metro station. We tried to fend them off the best we could as we made our way to the ticket booth to buy cheap tickets. As we were approaching the ticket booth with the last scalper at our heels a nice gentleman approached us.
"I have two extra tickets if you would like them. They are just going to go to waste. You can have them for free."
After realizing that this guy was for real, we thanked him and took his two extra row 12 season tickets. 
Despite the downpour, and the fact that the Nationals lost, we had a great time.
After the game we headed back into the city to Union Station to get some dinner and catch another bus for a night-time tour of DC.
At this point the rain was getting worse. And we got soaked as we tried to take pictures of the White House.
On our tour we also saw the Capitol 
Iwo Jima 
the Lincoln Memorial (which is really hard to photograph in the dark)
the Vietnam Memorial (again, hard to get a good picture in the dark)
the Jefferson Memorial,
and many others.
By the end of the day we were soaked and exhausted. We took the metro back to our hotel, ordered a pizza and crashed for the night.
*This is only a fraction of the pictures we took. If you want to see more, talk to me in person.
2 comments. . . I Love Comments!:
that looks like a fun trip! My husband has never been to DC and I would love to take him (especially since he was a history major in college)!
Washington DC was and excellent choice. It was on of my favorite stops on Heritage tours. So much to see. Looks like a fun day. Very cool pictures.
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