A Monumental Weekend

The Rust Party of Three spent Memorial Day weekend in Washington, D.C. on our first family vacation. It was my fourth time in the nation's capital, Victoria's first, and Elaina wouldn't tell us whether she had ever been before.

We've been saying for a couple of years that we needed to take advantage of our proximity to DC while we're living here in NC (only 4.5 hrs drive away), and we're proud to have followed through on that.



Victoria scored a very nice (3 1/2 star) hotel at a low price via priceline ($80/night!). I was leery of what this $80 hotel might be, but was pleasantly surprised. The only issue: parking. The hotel charged $28/night for parking, but we found a spot when we arrived Friday night that was on the street directly in front of the hotel. The front desk assured us this was a safe, legal, and prime location to leave our car until Monday when we would be leaving.

By Saturday evening we had a $30 fine from the District of Columbia for using that street parking.

That ticket didn't spoil our weekend, though.

Saturday morning we started working the National Mall, visiting around half of everything it had to offer in one day! Sights seen included:

• George Washington Monument (from a distance, no desire to battle the swarming masses at its base just to peak inside)
• The White House (We had Elaina looking her most adorable in case Barack needed a photo holding a baby)
• World War II Memorial (Our favorite! This beautiful memorial didn't exist when I had last been to DC. Victoria, Elaina, and I especially appreciated the shallow pool where we joined the other tourists in cooling our feet--very welcome after trekking around the Mall in the warm May sun.)
• Lincoln Memorial (A little crowded but that allowed us to better hear passers by claiming that Elaina was "the cutest baby ever!" We didn't disagree--they were just being as honest as Abe)
• The Smithsonian Castle (Arrived here at about 2:40 and hadn't had lunch yet. We ate at the Castle Cafe which ended up being the most expensive meal of the trip.)
• Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden [Modern Art] (Here we saw a very large, very naked man. See photo album for more details.)
• The National Air and Space Museum (I had enjoyed this on previous trips, but it was way too crowded with kids this time. We spent more time waiting in line to get in than actually in the museum.)
• The National Gallery (Another quick visit where we learned that Victoria doesn't like paintings. We all, however, enjoy Gelato and Sorbet which we had in the Gallery's lower level cafe)
• Union Station (We finally found the Prez! He was standing in front of the MyBarack gift shop and had achieved another historic first: the nation's first 2-dimensional President! By this point Victoria was not speaking to me, not because of anything I did, just because we were that exhausted. We ate dinner here and checked out a couple of gift shops. Elaina got a shirt that says "First Lady" and I bought a White House staff coffee mug.)

After a quick Metro ride and short walk we were back at the hotel examining our parking ticket and saying not-so-nice things about the hotel's front desk staff. Victoria and Elaina went straight to the room and I took the car for a spin looking for a parking garage (got to see historic Dupont Circle in the process!). I found a semi-private garage where the attendant agreed to let me park for two nights for $6/night (quite a deal I thought...until Monday morning).

Sunday we were less ambitious in the number of places we visited:

• Holocaust Memorial Museum (My second time here, definitely harder to fully appreciate and be respectful when you're carting a baby who likes to giggle and mumble at highly inappropriate times. We went through a little more quickly than other folks as we were trying to keep Elaina from being too distracting to others. Still, a very somber experience.)
• Museum of American History (one quick visit prior to Holocaust Museum tour and a return post-Holocaust Museum to see the First Ladies exhibit)
• Museum of Natural History (This was as crowded as the Air and Space Museum had been, so we just did a quick in-and-out to see the Hope Diamond. Victoria said it wasn't quite as impressive as she had expected...her perspective is probably distorted because of the massive rock she carries around on her wedding band)
• The Capitol / National Memorial Day Concert (This was another highlight of the trip. We got to sit on the Capitol Steps and take in the nationally-televised PBS concert honoring America's veterans and current service men & women, particularly the disabled vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan)

Monday, our plans of a few quick drive-by's before hitting the road to head home were thwarted by the parking garage which was closed when we showed up to retrieve the car. Arrgghh... the garage I was promised I could stay in until Monday was closed for the Memorial Day holiday... with our RAV4 locked inside. Arrghh....

After an extra 1.5 hours of phone-calling, being forwarded around, giving directions of which parking station we were locked out of, and waiting for the Garage company's employee to show up; we finally had our car ("and our health" I kept reminding Victoria).

We drove through the GWU campus and through the Georgetown area before heading to Mt. Vernon, which Victoria wanted to see before heading home. By the time we got to Mt. Vernon the rain and the frustration of not being able to find the homestead (and the residual frustration over our locked up car) forced us to simply ambandon the Mt. Vernon idea.

Home we went.

Lessons learned:

1. Always, always pay for hotel parking in big cities
2. 6 month olds are much more portable than four year olds (we had to restrain our laughter when strolling by families with little kids who had plopped down on the sidewalks, tired of walking around in the heat.
   "My feet hurt from walking, Dad!"
   "That's why we bought you this! [shaking a razor scooter with anger]"
   "But my feet hurt from pushing it.")
3. There's no way to do ALL of DC in one weekend, even a long weekend.

Note: the title of this post comes from Victoria. (I feel compelled to give credit since I'm currently taking Intellectual Property Law... although I did just learn that titles are rarely trademarkable or copyrightable...).