A Monumental Day

Barrack's hut
see all photos »

Today was the day for the hop-on-hop-off trolley bus. We started late at 11am and got on the green loop just outside our hotel, which took us out through Dupont Circle, up through Embassy row, past the National Cathedral and then down through Georgetown. We got off near the Whitehouse and followed the crowds to take our photos out the front. It was a lovely clear day, so we decided to walk across to the Washington Monument – named after George Washington. On the way over, we noted that there were many joggers running by, and different groups of people playing touch-Frisbee on the garden areas.

Georgetown Houses
see all photos »

Up close the monument has two distinct colours, lighter at the bottom and then about a quarter of the way up it changes to a darker colour. Apparently even though the sandstone came from the same quarry, a delay due to the civil war and the financial limitations after it saw the sandstone mined after this time come out a darker colour.

They like to build big monuments here!

Washington Monument
see all photos »

After this we took a walk down the National Mall, past a number of the Smithsonian museums to get an up-front view of the famous Capitol Hill Building. We boarded the trolley-bus again and headed out to the Jefferson Memorial. Here we walked around the museum downstairs and learnt about the key place Jefferson played in US History, including his authoring of the Declaration of Independence. We then walked around to the Franklin D Roosevelt memorial, which has four open outdoor rooms, one for each term of office her served as America’s longest serving President.

Jefferson Memorial
see all photos »

We then continued around on foot to the Lincoln Memorial. This place was overflowing with people taking pictures of the big dude, sitting there looking over the long reflection pool down through the National Mall to the Capitol. It was lovely to watch the sun set. We ran to catch the orange line trolley bus that only runs every 30 mins, and headed back to the trolley bus welcome centre. With trolley buses only running till 5:30pm, we got back just in time to catch the last green loop trolley that dropped us at our hotel front door.

Washington Tidal Basin
see all photos »

We walked to the nearby Daily Grill restaurant where I couldn’t resist having the Australian rack of lamb. After sending it back because it was raw in the middle, they re-cooked my half-eaten piece and presented it back to my on my plate. Ugh. The second time it was cooked properly but I wondered what might have happened to it while back in the kitchen. With the temperature dropping outside we headed back to our room so Joe could fill himself up with drugs to try and improve his cold symptoms which don’t seem to be improving.