2016 - Washington Day 2 (Washington)

The goal today is White House, Washington Monument, maybe a museum and deal with the memorials tomorrow. I had originally planned that we would do Arlington, but due to weather, we will likely postpone it for tomorrow since it is supposed to rain today.

Metro station in Washington D.C., a lot of them look like this 

Yup, they built AROUND those two houses

We walked to the local Metro station and the system works fairly straight forward as long as you know how to do a bit of reading. It looks like it is only in English though (or I missed the language options). $2 for the reloadable card and you just pay per use. It is based on distance and I think we hovered around $2 for most trips. The cost does change based on distance as well as time of day (rush hour vs non-rush hour). You will need to tap in and tap out to get in and out, so you can't actually use one card for multiple people which is a bit disappointing. In the end, everyone got a $10 card, which has $8 loaded onto it. There is a little screen on each entry/exit gate to show your balance and if you don't have enough to pay at the end, there are booths set up inside where you can just add the difference. The system works pretty well.

Beignets at Founding Farmers

With our reservation at Founding Farmers, we made it at 9:30, however, the reservation only means that you can come, you still need to check in and wait for a table. We ended up being seated at 10:00am and we finished by 11:00am which seemed pretty quick even though the server told us that it would be slow due to how busy it was, and it was really busy there.

Steak and eggs on the left, Founding Farmers Breakfast on the right

I ordered the steak and eggs and Allison got the Founder's Breakfast. The food was really good and I would suggest coming here, especially since the meals were actually very responsibly priced. The steak and eggs was $14 and the founders breakfast was $9. You can find their menu on their website and they serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Make sure to get a reservation because it is pretty popular.

Cookies!

After breakfast, we stopped by Captain Cookie & the Milkman down the street for a snack. $7 got us half a dozen cookies which worked well since there were 6 of us, so we got one each. Price-wise, I'm not sure I would recommend it. The cookies were okay.

White House

Look closely, that's a metal tree!

Next stop, The White House! We walked down and as we were approaching it was raining quite a bit, so we just ended up taking some quick pictures and headed to the National Air and Space Museum. We noticed that all museums have line ups and learned that it was due to the security check which means that you are basically going through x-ray machines and metal detectors. Don't be scared about the long lines, they do move fairly quickly. We were there for about an hour, was there from 12:45pm to 2:00pm. I thought it was a good museum, however, if you are here for actual planes and space items, it is a bit of a disappointment. I thought that it would be more like the one that we visited in Ottawa recently, but this museum had less planes than that one did. I guess I can't complain since it is free.

National Air and Space Museum

National Air and Space Museum

Why does nothing fit me!!

When we finished, it stopped raining and we headed east to the Library of Congress. The building is very nice looking inside and out. Make sure to check out the main library which is located on the upper level. Worth a stop for sure and it is free. We spent probably 30 minutes there.

Library of Congress

Library of Congress

Library of Congress

Hank's Oyster Bar is where we went next for a snack and we got there at 3:45pm which means Happy Hour! We ordered oysters and wings and a lemonade. The oysters and lemonade were nice, the wings were just regular buffalo wings. Oysters were only $1.25 each, so cheap! Worth a stop for some cheap snacks, Mike said the beer was cheap there too.

Wings on the left, oysters on the right

Walked to the nearest Metro station and took it to the National Museum of American History which surprisingly has some very neat things. Note that this museum doesn't have x-ray machines, so they had to hand check all bags which made the line really slow. Make sure to do some research beforehand about the exhibits. I didn't know anything about it, but they do have a lot of neat things there like the original United States flag or the First Ladies dresses. We were here from 5:00pm to 6:30pm. Depending on what you like, you can be here for awhile.

Waiting for the bus (or plane, what am I looking at?)

I guess I shouldn't be a public speaker

We walked to Jaleo for dinner and the restaurant is known for spanish tapas. The cost adds up quick and cost us $55 USD per person but we were very full by the end. Some things that we liked were the brussel sprout salad, the steak, and potato salad. I thought the food ranged from okay to very good, however, it isn't a place that I would recommend (mostly due to cost). Our table however was pretty neat, it was a glass table placed on top of a Foosball table, so you can place while eating.

Our dining table

Potato Salad

Brussel sprout salad on the left, cheeses on the top, hams on the right

Salmon

Mushroom Paella

Roast peppers and onions with bread

Shrimps on the left, crochets on the right

Squid

Roasted potatoes

Lamb on top, ham and cheese rolls on the bottom

Steak

Chorizo wrapped in potato

On the way to the Metro stop to return back to our AirBnB, we stopped by Red Velvet Cupcakery for a quick cupcake and Allison enjoyed it. It was a bit more expensive than usual, but Allison said it was one of the better red velvet cupcakes she's had. We then headed AirBnB and called it a night.

Tomorrow, we visit the Memorials.

2016 - Washington Day 1 (Washington)

Today we begin our 4 day roadtrip to Washington, DC from Thursday March 24 to Sunday March 27. We rented a minivan with Costco Travel this time which was the cheapest option and good to know for any future roadtrips and we booked a place in Columbia Heights area for our stay from AirBnB. This trip will be with Mike, Seiji, Harold, Sue, Allison, and myself.

Our initial departure got delayed due to freezing rain the previous night and we ended up beginning at around 5:00am instead of 4:00am and we ended up leaving at 5:30am once everyone was together and after our first pit stop at McDonald's. While Mike took the first driving shift, I fell asleep, but apparently hwy 401 was really bad and we didn't make it to the border until 8:00am. The border was quick, there were no other cars in front of us. The border officer asked a lot of questions, but in the end, we went with no issues.

Bob Evans was where we ended up at for breakfast at 10:30am in Erie, Pennsylvania. The food was nothing special, I would likely not return here. Service was a bit slow, but I guess somewhat expected for a table of 6. During breakfast, we decided to go to Grove City Premium Outlets instead of Leesburg since we were nearby and it would mean that we could take a break now versus continuing our long drive to Washington.

Sunshine skillet on the left, Mini Sampler on the right

We arrived at Grove City at around 12:30pm and walked around until 2:30pm. The mall was not very busy and the deals were normal and not that great in my opinion. Everyone but Seiji and myself got something there. This is our third time here and I think we may not visit again (or we are just unlucky and never find much here).

With a brief stop at a McDonald's to try their mozzarella sticks (which were surprisingly good for $1.19 USD), we made it to the AirBnB location in Columbia Heights at roughly 8:10pm. I noticed that this route had a lot of tolls which totaled $24.75 USD. This BnB was interesting since they operate with a lockbox and we never saw the owners at all. They gave us the code and we were good to go. The place was nice, three floors with three rooms and two bathrooms. Surprisingly one of the few streets with free street parking in the area and it is a short 10 minute walk to the nearest Metro station.

After we settled down, we decided on a place for dinner nearby, which unfortunately did not have seating and we ended up at The Red Hen for dinner. We ordered the sweet potato hummus bruschetta, the saffron paccheri with duck leg regu, and the wild mushroom. The mushrooms were really nice, the bruschetta was okay although too much cheese in my opinion and the paccheri was okay. It was cooked well but I don't think I like al dente that much, however the duck ragu was nice. We got to the restaurant at 9:30pm and finished by 10:30pm, fairly quick service. I would recommend it.

Bruschetta on the left, paccheri on the top right, mushrooms on the bottom right

Headed to CVS after for some snacks and then the Jefferson memorial area for a peak at night. The places look nice but it would be a long day if we continued, so we called it a night and decided to try to come back out at night on another night. We ended up back at the BnB at 12am making it a really long day. The drive to Washington wasn't too bad, however, driving within Washington is pretty bad. Bring a good GPS because the street lines don't really make sense to me. It was very difficult to drive around, it is doable, but it would drive me crazy along with everyone else. On a side note, the roundabouts here actually have LIGHTS in them, what's the point of having a roundabout at all?

Tomorrow, we visit the National Mall area and see what we can and finish up the following day with the things that we missed.

Past POIs - Washington Monument

During our trip to Washington D.C., a must see is the Washington Monument. While I felt that we just snapped some pictures and moved onto the next point of interest, it was pretty impressive to see.

Pierre L'Enfant was the person responsible for designing Washington D.C.'s streets and green space and in his plan, there was this space set aside for something to commemorate the first president of the United States, George Washington.

Work began on the Washington Monument in 1848, designed by Robert Mills, and was funded by a private group of individuals who had a vision of a 600-ft tall obelisk built with Egyptian style and surrounding it would be 30 100-ft tall columns. However, by 1854, the group of individuals could no longer fund the project and went bankrupt and after this, for almost 30 years, the monument was only partially built with a height of 156-ft.

It was later that Congress took over the project and in 1876 work continued and it was completed in 1884 under Thomas Casey and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. They altered the plans a bit, making the Monument 555-ft tall in the end and replacing the 30 columns with a ring of flags. At the time of completion, it was actually the tallest building in the world!

If you look carefully, you will actually see the two phases of the project since you can see the change in colour in the Monument. It you like, you can actually go up the Washington Monument, to do so, you can order tickets online for free but with a $1.50 service charge per ticket or you can go line up at the lodge and hope to get tickets on the day of. When we went, we were told that they were out of tickets shortly after they opened, with people starting to wait in line as early as 6:00am! We didn't end up going up the Monument, but it is definitely worth a stop and it is hard to miss since a lot of the things that tourists want to see will be in the area.

Since its completion in 1884, it has undergone several restorations including the replacement of the interior elevator multiple times. Visit the official site https://www.nps.gov/wamo/index.htm for more information.

Come back next Friday for another Past Point of Interest!