Well, this week I was off to Washington D.C. for a tour of the White House. I went with my friend Jasper who was looking for an excuse to take a vacation and had a U.S. Airways Buddy Pass to use. This meant we would both be flying stand-by, which is not always a good thing......
We left Wednesday morning for D.C. and we had no issues with our flights. We took the bus to the metro station and then caught the metro to downtown D.C. It was pretty cool to walk out of the metro station and look down the street and just see the White House right there! It was kind of surreal. We walked the few blocks to our hotel (which was quite nice and cheap thanks to Priceline.com!) and got all checked in. It had been a long day already so we went out for a quick dinner and then it was off to bed. We had a big day on Thursday!!!
Our scheduled White House tour was at 9:30am so we were up and out around 7:30am so we could stop for Jasper's daily Starbucks fix and stop by the White House Visitor Center before heading over for our tour. Now you can't have ANYTHING with you in the White House so there are no photos inside. Sorry. They are kind of protective.
As we are walking to check in we see a line of about 200 high school students walking up to check in as well. I was like great....how did we get stuck on the high school tour??!! So we did our best to blend in with the kids. I started gossiping about the other girls just to start drama and Jasper began flirting with the boys. It was like being in high school all over again! : )
I'm just kidding. We left the kids alone.
Here is a view from the front of the White House. Notice the sharp shooters on the roof just waiting to fire!!
The tour begins at the Visitor Entrance with some photos on exhibit as you walk through. You are able to looking into the White House Library and Vermeil Room but you can't walk in them. The Vermeil Room has portraits of the recent first ladies including a famous Jackie O portrait. It was pretty cool. Then it was upstairs to the East Room, Green Room, Blue Room, Red Room, and then finally the State Dining Room. The tour was completely self-guided and it took us about 40 minutes. It was really cool to have seen everything you hear about ( I mean you always hear them talk about the Blue Room) and have seen in pictures but at the same time it was weird. I kind of felt like it was fake even though I knew it wasn't. It's hard to explain but I did love it and would enjoy doing it again! I highly recommend doing the White House Tour if you get the chance. It's awesome!
This is me and Jasper in front of the White House together. I of course had to represent and show my support for Obama! I was just happy to find a pink Obama shirt!! Thanks D.C. street vendor! : )
BTW....It's so funny how almost everywhere you go there are squirrels. I mean they are EVERYWHERE! It's just the funniest thing. I tried to feed this one some of my Chex Mix but he was cool. 
Once the tour was over we ran back to the hotel to get our stuff and we were off to hit the town. We decided to do a Double Decker bus tour so that we could get around easier. The bus took us to places like Georgetown, Arlington Cemetery, Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol. Here is a view of the Capitol. Not sure what they were doing to it that day but it was fenced off so this was the closest I could get.
This is the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. There is a solider that keeps watch over the tomb 24 hours a day. Each time he paces 21 steps from one end to the next, he waits 21 seconds and then he turns around and does it again. He does this for one hour straight (during the summer it's only 30 minutes) and they they change guards. It's quite a cool ceremony to watch and very official. It was very impressive how it's all done. This tomb is guarded 365 days a year no matter the weather.
This is just a shot of a few of the graves at Arlington Cemetery. It's quite a site to actually see all these headstones in person. There are so many that it's overwhelming at times. We were at Arlington Cemetery for about 1 hour and we saw/heard four different funerals. It was very sad. Sorry to be so sappy but it is a cemetery....
Here is John F. Kennedy's grave. He is buried with his wife Jackie and two of their children that passed away before them. Robert Kennedy is buried around the other side of the hill from his brother. He is the only grave with a wooden cross as a headstone and was the only evening burial that ever took place at Arlington.
This is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The black granite "V" wall lists nearly 60,000 names of those who were killed, missing in action, or held as prisoners of war. It was an quite a site to see so many names.
Here is the Washington Monument with the reflection pond in front of it. Now, let me tell you a little something about this reflection pond.....it's GROSS!! I think the water at Kiwanis Park is cleaner! Not sure this is reflecting much of anything anymore but that is the name of it so I guess I will go with it.
This is the World War II Memorial. It's very big so I could only get so much into my photo but it was a very cool design. Now this water was clean! : )
While I was there I said a little prayer to Grandpa Brown thanking him for his service.
This is the Lincoln Memorial. I just have one question for all the designers of these Memorials. Why all the stairs??? Gosh, with the sun and all the stairs to climb that gross reflection pond was looking very appealing!!!
This is one of the oldest houses in Georgetown. This was really my only photo of Georgetown. I mean it's a cute little town with nice expenses houses but it's really just a place to shop so nothing major to see from what I could tell.
By the end of the day we were exhausted, sweaty, and gross! After a fancy dinner at the local McDonald's we went back to the hotel to shower and go to sleep. After all we had another day in D.C. before our flight Friday night or did we????
This is the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. There is a solider that keeps watch over the tomb 24 hours a day. Each time he paces 21 steps from one end to the next, he waits 21 seconds and then he turns around and does it again. He does this for one hour straight (during the summer it's only 30 minutes) and they they change guards. It's quite a cool ceremony to watch and very official. It was very impressive how it's all done. This tomb is guarded 365 days a year no matter the weather.
This is just a shot of a few of the graves at Arlington Cemetery. It's quite a site to actually see all these headstones in person. There are so many that it's overwhelming at times. We were at Arlington Cemetery for about 1 hour and we saw/heard four different funerals. It was very sad. Sorry to be so sappy but it is a cemetery....Here is John F. Kennedy's grave. He is buried with his wife Jackie and two of their children that passed away before them. Robert Kennedy is buried around the other side of the hill from his brother. He is the only grave with a wooden cross as a headstone and was the only evening burial that ever took place at Arlington.
This is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The black granite "V" wall lists nearly 60,000 names of those who were killed, missing in action, or held as prisoners of war. It was an quite a site to see so many names.
Here is the Washington Monument with the reflection pond in front of it. Now, let me tell you a little something about this reflection pond.....it's GROSS!! I think the water at Kiwanis Park is cleaner! Not sure this is reflecting much of anything anymore but that is the name of it so I guess I will go with it.
This is the World War II Memorial. It's very big so I could only get so much into my photo but it was a very cool design. Now this water was clean! : )While I was there I said a little prayer to Grandpa Brown thanking him for his service.
This is the Lincoln Memorial. I just have one question for all the designers of these Memorials. Why all the stairs??? Gosh, with the sun and all the stairs to climb that gross reflection pond was looking very appealing!!!
This is one of the oldest houses in Georgetown. This was really my only photo of Georgetown. I mean it's a cute little town with nice expenses houses but it's really just a place to shop so nothing major to see from what I could tell.
By the end of the day we were exhausted, sweaty, and gross! After a fancy dinner at the local McDonald's we went back to the hotel to shower and go to sleep. After all we had another day in D.C. before our flight Friday night or did we????Friday morning I got up early to check us in for our flight and I notice that most of the seats were booked now with over twenty stand-by passengers listed on most outbound flights to Phoenix! I'm thinking "what the heck is going on? It didn't look this bad last night." I decide that we needed to just get to the airport to see if we can get on any flight. So much for day two in DC!! : (
However, before I left DC there was one more thing I HAD to do!!! Yep, that is right, I wanted to demonstrate my First Amendment Right to everyone and show them who will be living in the White House after this upcoming election! You guessed it.....OBAMA!! Now I know the paper is small but I was kind of scared with all the the security so it is what it is! : )
After the quick stop by the White House it was off to the airport. After missing three possible flights to Arizona we were able to get the last two seats on a flight to Columbus, Ohio that would then take us to Phoenix. We hoped. After touring the Columbus Airport for four hours (which I must say is much nicer then the Regan Airport) we finally got confirmation that we could get on the flight and we were on our way home!
It was a great quick trip to Washington and I would love to go back because there is so much to do and see. Anyone planning a trip I recommend at least five days to be able to really see everything. However, I got to do what I went there for so I was happy. I will go back for sure when my guy Obama is living there!!
More to come!
xoxo
8 comments:
hahahaha, LOVE the last picture!! Wish I could have been there with you (no kids, of course)... Sounds like you had a blast :)
Great post! I am glad that you had fun in D.C. How do you have a self guided tour of the White House? WTF is there security all over the place? And call me dense but what is the blue room?
BTW, I can not believe you ate at McD's. Don't you know that part of this 8 week traveling means eating in new places??!! So disappointed. You better eat somewhere crazy in Memphis...
Yeah, Golden it was a lot of fun and I would love to go back. You can leave the kids with your Mom and me and you can go back! : )
Security is in every room and they have guns so it's easy to keep the crowd in control. I mean you can't really touch anything.
The Blue Room is the room that is used by the President to receive guests. The White House Christmas tree is also placed in that room.
Also, as for my dinner choices...Japser and I ate at a very chic DC place the night we arrived in town so we did try something new. We even had fried green tomatoes! Mcdonald's was a desperate move because we were hunrgy and tired! I will try to be more creative in my future trips.
I would love to go to DC with you. Everytime I go to VA with Adam I ask him to take me down there but we never go. So when this wedding nonsense is over, I will go with you. And I also agree with Poo Head....you do need to start eating a new restaurant for each city you go to....you can have two blogs. One for the places you go and the other for all the cool restaurants you eat. Who knows.....you could end up with your own show!!!!! Where in the world is LB eating?
Ummmm.....I'm fat enough right now I don't think I need to have an eating show!! I will do my best to eat at new places. I did eat some place cool in DC. it was just one day that we ate McDonald's! Plus it was cheap and after spending $30 on dinner the first night it was nice to pay less then $7! : )
Stacey you crack me up....where in the world is LB eating, lmfao. I would watch that show.
Way to represent and rock that pink Obama tee!
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