Travel Log

As promised, here are pictures from the rest of my trip to DC. I'm sure anyone who has already been to Washington has pictures of themselves, in these exact locations, looking just as stunning, haha.

After Melly's shower on Saturday, we decided to drive by the temple (which I have always known as the second prettiest one, second only to San Diego of course :) It was beautiful and we were there when the sun set, so we were able to see it in light and dark. Beautiful.
These were the trees off to the side. I visited at the perfect time, all of the leaves were gorgeous!
After that, we decided it we would drive through DC and see all the monuments lit up and get a feel for where we wanted to visit when we went back on Monday. We mostly drove around but did decide to get out at the Jefferson Memorial and walk around a bit. Thomas Jefferson, to me, has always been the president with the same birthday as my mom :) It was awesome to read all the quotes on the walls of the building and realize just how amazing our nation's history is. It really was inspirational.
Sunday was Patty's birthday. We had a delicious dinner and ended with Snickerdoodle cupcakes. Good work with the cupcake stand Patty...glad you have tools even though you claim you don't cook!Monday morning we went back downtown and saw the rest of memorials and some museums. Hello Mr. Lincoln.
Washington Memorial...the only thing I could think of was Forrest Gump when I saw this :)The WWII memorial has each state written on a column. California, still my real home.
And, I didn't want to offend my current home, so had to get a picture with that one too.
Then it was off to "the mall" which isn't a mall at all but we were able to walk to everything we wanted to see from there. Melly and me in front of the capitol building.Air and space museum. Here is the large tin foil machine that landed on the moon, yes, landed on the moon. Crazy stuff... Looks like a mechanical spider made of colored aluminum foil.
Smithsonian...Museum of Natural History. I had just done the natural history museum in New York earlier this year so we made this a quick trip. Had to stop and see the Hope Diamond of course. I thought most of the other gems in the room were prettier, but obviously not as famous
And, a little shout out to Grant. We missed him :( A meteor named "Grant" at the museum.
Staring into the largest crystal ball without a single flaw! It was pretty cool.
The next stop was the Archives. It was hard to get pictures in here because no flash photography was allowed and we were told about a million times before they let us in, so we made sure to follow the rule. It was really cool to see this. We just went to the Rotunda (seen in National Treasure) where they keep many of the documents. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, Magna Carta, etc. This experience actually made me feel like I needed to brush up on my 5th grade US History! Maybe I'll take a refresher course before I go on "are you smarter than a 5th grader."
Finally, what kind of trip would be comolete without a little shopping (ok, more than a little!) Trying on shoes at Nordstrom. Hope those Sperry's are still treating you well!!!
Sorry for the lengthy post, just had to sum up 5 days of picture taking in 1 post.