Washington, DC: Metro Edition

I know that I've been obnoxiously slow getting pictures and stories up here. I'm kind of beyond apology by this point, so I won't even bother. But before I finish up with our last day of photos, I want to be sure to acknowledge one of my favorite aspects of the entire trip, which was the Metro. I wish Raleigh had a Metro system. I wish Orlando had one - if they had I might have never left. It does not take long to get used to the quick, inexpensive, convenient and (historically) safe subway system of Washington, DC. After one trip, we pretty much knew how to use it, although I had to constantly refer to my (now very worn) Metro map to verify my lines and stops. Between the two of us, for four days in the city, we spent $40 on the Metro and still have a few dollars left over. It may seem like a lot, but we really rode the Metro a lot, and all over the city. It was wonderful to essentially not have to worry about what the cost might be. Whenever we went anywhere, we pulled out the map and looked to see if there was a Metro station between us and our destination that might make the trip shorter, even if only a single block.

After all is said and done, I think that the Metro was probably my favorite single thing about DC. I loved every part of it, from the above-mentioned convenience and economy, to the design. I don't know when my fascination with architecture and building design was started; I do believe it to be a relatively recent development, but I might have always had it. Regardless of when my love buildings and structures manifested, it was in full swing in the DC Metro. The stations are amazing. I'm sure that they are absolutely nothing to those who are used to them, but to me they nearly blew my mind. I could not believe that such amazing structures were public use and I was using them! Since they are primarily made of poured concrete, they had a kind of permanent quality, as though they had always been there. Beyond the concrete, there were few embellishments - maps, signposts and some dim lighting were about it.

Absolutely amazing.

I would have taken some more pictures, but I didn't want to look like a tourist. At least, I didn't want to look like too much of one. Besides, there are implicit rules about privacy and eye contact on the Metro, and taking photos felt like a little bit of a violation. I took these photos in a relatively quiet station late in the day.






At the other end of the transit spectrum, I want to mention how much fun it was to travel with our TomTom. It isn't a perfect piece of technology by any means, but I can't even imagine a trip through a city like DC without something like this. Isn't it funny how a brand-new piece of technology can so insinuate itself into our lives that we can't even imagine how to manage without it. There were times when we were walking around the city and I wished I had access to the internet. The old-fashioned paper maps just weren't cutting it for me and we wanted to find a restaurant - not a particular restaurant, but a good one. And we were hungry and tired and didn't want to just trust to walking and stumble across someplace. Which is what we ended up doing on our first night out and it was kind of a disappointment. We learned our lesson and that night in the hotel, we made sure to find places to eat lunch and dinner for the rest of the trip.

If the Mark of the Beast comes with a GPS and Wi-Fi internet connection, the apocalypse can't come soon enough!

Washington, DC: Day 3 - at the zoo

Day three was spent at the zoo. Apparently, Wednesday is bring your screaming children to the zoo day. I nearly had a meltdown when some kid was loudly smacking - pounding - on the meerkat glass. That was the tipping point, but was preceded by hours of shrill children. It kind of sets my skin on edge just thinking about it. I eventually calmed down after a sweet, well-behaved child (I had truly forgotten that they actually existed) offered me some unsolicited help finding a hidden chinchilla.

I have to say that, as an animal lover, I was very impressed with this zoo. They clearly put a lot of time and effort into making the animals as comfortable and sane as possible, very often to the inconvenience of the viewing public. There were plenty of places for the animals to hide from the sun and searching eyes of millions of visitors.

The zoo was pretty much all we were able to accomplish on Wednesday. We had an opportunity to catch up with an old friend for dinner - we took the Metro (more on the Metro in a different post) to Virginia. I realize that DC isn't actually a state, but it still amazed me to travel by subway all the way out of the city and into a different state. I'm easily amazed.

Washington, DC: Day 2

Day two was all Smithsonian, all the time. The museums opened at 10:00 am and that was exactly when we walked in the door. Day one was American History, day two was art. We started at the American Art Museum and worked our way through, stopping off in a few sculpture gardens. With so much to see, we had to breeze past some of the art that didn't hold much interest for us. It's true and shocking, I know, to hear that there is some art that does not interest us. There are reasons too numerous and deep to get into here, but we barely gave the Renaissance art a second glance. And after a while, art starts to look the same - the same subjects, the same poses, the same stories. Not that they aren't fantastic on their own, but so much exposure has a sort of numbing effect. In a way, that was a good thing, because it allowed the gems to stand out.

Unfortunately, we did not find those gems until the very last hour. We have to go back on day three for more of the National Portrait Gallery, which is our favorite museum so far. We also visited the National Air and Space Museum. And although we didn't spend too much time there, we took a disproportionate amount of pictures there. I don't take much pleasure in photographing artwork, but airplanes and spacecraft... that's another matter entirely!


























My only real complaint with blogger is that it does not facilitate captions on photos. You just have to imagine what I wanted to say about the photos.

Day three will start with the zoo. There will be pictures!

Washington, DC: Day 1

After a heartbreaking goodbye to our dear dogs, we hit the road for Washington, DC. It still amazes me that we live close enough that we can drive to a real destination in less than five hours. The last time we visited DC we came in on a train. We talked about doing that again, but ultimately decided against it for practical reasons. We did, however, leave our car parked at our Bed & Breakfast. More on that later.

The entire point of this trip was to shuffle around Smithsonian museums, and that is exactly what we have done. We arrived in DC at 2pm, and after getting checked in, unwinding and regrouping from the drive and relearning the Metro system, it was 4pm by the time we actually stepped into our first museum, the National Museum of American History. Please enjoy some photos!










More pictures to come!

Going to DC!

Hey all - we're going to Washington, DC on Monday. You should expect to see pictures. But we would love to send out postcards if we can get addresses. So... you should email me your correct address and then you should expect a postcard taken all the way from our nation's capital to your mailbox.