Brief Intro
This has been a trip that Ethan and I have been planning for a few months. I went through hours and hours of trip research to figure out the Ultimate Trip Plan for DC. Originally we were going to do a massive week trip to North Dakota, but settled on DC because it is closer and we wouldn’t have to rent a car. This is a pretty long post, but I broke it up into 2 parts so hopefully that makes things better. I would’ve preferred just a single blog post, but this is about as long as the Norwegian Cruise blog. Anyways, this is my (and Ethan’s) story of one of the greatest Henry trips of all time!
I tried to write it every night on the trip and managed to get most of it down the day of, but not all of it is like that so bear with me here. Hope you enjoy!
Day 1: May 27, Saturday
Today I left the house around 6:50am and made it to the airport around 7:10am. Once I made it through security I grabbed a bite to eat at the Dunkin Donuts and waited for the plane.
I discovered the Founding Church of Scientology through the Atlas Obscura website and not really knowing what to expect I immediately booked a tour. Later after some thorough research I discovered that there is a lot of controversy around the Church. I was curious to see it for myself because I’m more of a see it to believe it type of guy! Ethan was heavily against the idea of going so I went alone. His loss! [Ethan’s Note: I dunno, I’ve heard so much sketchy stuff about Scientology, I just didn’t want to risk anything!]
The front desk woman was very nice when I walked in and wanted me to straight away fill out my contact information and how I heard about the church. I put down a fake home address because many many many people have warned not to put your real one, as well as my real cell phone number and email. Apparently if you buy anything or give your real mailing addressyou get added to a mailing list that is basically impossible to get off of. Look up ‘scientology mailing list’ if you doubt me. When I booked the tour I didn’t put that much thought into it and now I’m thinking what is the big deal if I do happen to get a few more spam callers added onto the dozen I get every week anyways?
The tour was semi-self guided. I say semi because I had a guide on a self guided tour. The information I got was both interesting in some aspects and kind of meh in others. I had to go from tv screen to tv screen and watch short films on scientology in a particular order. After each viewing my guide would come over and give out a bit more information and ask if I had any questions. Pretty straight forward right?
Sort of! See when I first walked in part of the questionnaire included what I thought I could find most useful in Scientology. Well “better stress management” is something that I actually need to work on so I checked that box. Ever since I checked the box the guide would try to sell me a book to help me on helping myself.
Generally the books varied on what film I was watching. For example: he recommended the Self Awareness book after watching the Dianetics film. You see, before coming here I went ahead and got the book from the library to read at home because I wanted to come in with at least a base level knowledge of what would be here. I found the book challenging to understand and so the Self Awareness book is another one by L. Ron Hubbard and it is supposed to be easier to understand. I mentioned that I thought I needed at least a small background in psychology to understand some of the phrases and he said that having even a base knowledge of psychology then reading Dianetics would make the book even more confusing than if I went into it blind. Huh
Anyways, I was there for about an hour and at the end I decided to not buy any books…however I did get a DVD. I had originally wanted the book for the souvenir drawer, but was super conflicted about actually buying anything, so I mentioned “I can’t buy it because I have no room in my luggage on the plane.” And he was like “Oh but the DVD would be a good fit for you since it tackles the stress issue plus it’s helpful for people who find the book hard to read and it wouldn’t take up mach room in your bag.” I couldn’t really argue with that logic so I got the DVD (with cash in the hopes that I don’t end up on the impossible to cancel mailing list).
That is my experience with the church of Scientology! Overall, kind of a pleasant experience (tour wise) and I got something for the souvenir drawer!
After the Scientology guided self guided tour I walked back to the hotel to drop off the souvenirs because frankly I didn’t want to carry a bunch of scientology pamphlets and stuff around with me everywhere. After I had a brief rest I made my way over to the Mary McLeod Bethune house. The original plan was to go right from the Church to the house tour, but because I was both early and I had the pamphlets I went to the hotel, which probably added 15 minutes to my walking distance. Not bad!
At the house I got a souvenir magnet, my stamp, and did the tour. Mary was known for being an activist in politics, women’s rights, and African American women’s rights. She used this house as a base of operations for the National Council of Negro Women even though the official Klu Klux Klan house was a few blocks down the road. That’s partly why this location was picked out to be the headquarters though. She also lived here for a few years and chose all the decorations herself.
After the tour I made my way back to the hotel to wait for Ethan. His train arrived early, but he ended up getting to the hotel somewhat late because both the train was delayed and he took a wrong subway car. Not a big deal! [Ethan’s Note: I was technically in DC 45 minutes early, but we got stuck at L’Enfant Plaza waiting for a place at the station.]
After everyone was settled we headed to the National Portrait Gallery, which I wasn’t thrilled to go to. Before we went inside we got french fries from a Shake Shack nearby. After a brief lunch we went to the gallery!
It was really big and because of Memorial Day weekend it was busy. I was under the assumption that it would be as quiet as a library, but with all the school groups it was actually pretty loud. I didn’t really like that and neither did Ethan. [Ethan’s Note: The school groups were so obnoxious. It wasn’t their size, but the lack of respect for the art and other visitors that was so annoying. That was constant throughout all the museums we encountered groups at.]
We spent about 2 hours out of the 3 hours planned in the museum before I got bored and Ethan felt done. I did a few pretty loud sighs near the two hour mark and Ethan caught the last one. I found it pretty embarrassing and Ethan found it funny. [Ethan’s Note: It was hilarious. I know Henry doesn’t love art museums, but I really wanted to see a couple!] There were a few select paintings that I liked and many that I didn’t care for, but when we were done we left.
For dinner tonight we went to the Hamilton. Ethan got a Bento Box and I got a burger. Everything was delicious. (Except Ethan’s seaweed salad…heh). We also had a cocktail each plus a few Sprites for me.
After the Hamilton we went to the hotel bar, which was quite good. We each got whatever drinks we desired drinking wise. (although my tolerance is higher I think, so I got more….I’ll work on that tomorrow to make it fair.) At some point I might grab the strawberry cheesecake because I really like cheesecake now for some reason. [Ethan’s Note: The Dignitary, the hotel bar, was incredible. It had a great selection of whiskey and scotch as well as well made classic cocktails. Pricy, but delicious with friendly staff!]
Anyways, that’s it for today. Bye bye!
Day 2: May 28, Sunday
We changed the Official Plan!
No one ever changes the Official Plan on the day of the plan. You see, a lot of rain has been forecasted and so Ethan proposed that we do Capital Mall day on the sunny day instead of the rainy day. I was a bit conflicted, but had no real arguments against it and so I changed most of the daily activities around. Overall I’d say we were extremely lucky because everything seemed to work out mighty fine! [Ethan’s Note: I know Henry hates changing the planTM so I really appreciated the flexibility in not spending the one rainy day doing everything outdoors haha!]
To start things off I slept in until about 8:15am. While I was asleep Ethan went out and got a coffee at a local store. By the time he got back I had showered and was ready to go…until the proposed plan changed happened.
Once I decided we were good to go we set off towards the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial. It was an easy 30 minute subway ride away from the hotel. The memorial consists of a few statues and the gift shop. Unfortunately the gift shop was locked at the opening time of 10am and I was prepared to wait for it until 10:30am, but Ethan was not so we moved on.
Next up was the Holocaust Museum. Almost everyone I talked to before the trip happened mentioned this specific place and said that we just had to go so I booked the tickets about a month ago. This was good because it would’ve been impossible to get them today I think.
While waiting in line for the elevator that started the tour, a small child in front of us in line asked a staff member “why is the building shaped like it is?”. The inside of the museum is shaped as if it were a concentration camp. I hadn’t really noticed until I heard that. Ethan has been to a concentration camp in Germany and he said it was like a camp over there. [Ethan’s Note: It was a moving experience. I’m fortunate enough to have experienced the real thing, and I can say this was as close as you can get within the context of a museum. It was a sobering experience.] I’m not going to go through the entire history of the Holocaust in this blog. You can do that on your own time after reading if you so choose.
The tour was self guided and started in the elevator. Once at the top we joined an endless long line of other people in the museum. It started out with really dark lighting with videos of what US and British soldiers saw when they discovered the camps. Right after that we went through a timeline of events starting from the birth of the Nazi power in Germany.
In the line of people Ethan and I passed by lots of text on how Hitler came to power, the political speeches, and a few videos of him during his most evil fanatical moments. The next floor was all about what it was like for the Jewish people at this time and then what the mass transportation of people was like. They had a real train car in the exhibit that was used to take people to the camps.
From the time we came out of the elevator to the start of the third floor we were in the middle of what must’ve been about 100 school kids in neon green t-shirts on a field trip who were pretty rude. (They kept pushing people out of the way to stay with the group and such although it didn’t really bother me so much). Luckily by the time we got to the end of the third floor we had gotten ahead of them and the atmosphere was back to a nice quiet and sobering experience.
On the second floor there was a replica of a warehouse and the beds that prisoners would sleep on. One of the stories on video was of a woman that was at the camps. She remembered that when sleeping there were 5 people to a bed and when someone had to turn over, they all had to turn over because the room on the bed was so tight. Also in the replica building was a casting of a gas chamber door.
Working our way down we next went through more of how the German expansion was going / war efforts. Eventually at the end there was an exhibit on the end of the war, what the allies found at the camps (the videos of that were shocking and I’m not sure I could handle the clips very well if they were in color), the world’s reaction to what the Nazi’s had done, and the Nuremberg trial(s). Overall it was a really impactful experience to walk through slowly in a long line like that. It was as if we were being herded through a camp.
After the Holocaust Memorial Museum we headed to the Washington Monument as it was basically next door. We had decided to walk just about everywhere because taking an Uber would’ve been extremely expensive. During our walk over Ethan asked a police officer why the road was blocked off and he said that it was for a veterans motorcycle parade. It was Memorial Day Weekend after all! We would just have to keep our eyes peeled for the spectacle.
I had decided that it was impossible to get tickets to go up into the Washington Monument so we instead just walked around it. This was my day to collect a lot of the stamps in the DC area for my national park passport book. Ethan enjoyed waiting for me each time I perused the gift shop at places. [Ethan’s Note: I’m used to the requisite gift shop stop everywhere haha! I remembered it from the Rushmore trip, nothings changed there!]
Right after the obelisk we walked our way through the World War 2 Memorial. I have a bunch of relatives in the family tree who were in the Pacific theater of the war and so I was curious if their names would be there, but it turns out that there aren’t any names on the monument. There is also an option to stick your feet into the fountain in the middle, but I thought that was a potentially risky idea given that so many unclean feet were also in the water.
Every day in DC is leg day I thought as we made our way through the Constitution Gardens, past the Vietnam Woman’s Memorial, and Vietnam Veterans Memorial. We both were pretty hungry and remembering a promise Paul to have lunch everyday we stopped at a nearby refreshment gift shop for a quick snack. (I usually don’t stop for a real lunch on road trips.) [Ethan’s Note: Plus we were usually saving room for an exciting dinner!]
Right before we stopped for a snack we hiked over to the road to see the motorcycle parade! It was really cool to see so many veterans honking their horns, waving, and showing off their patch jackets / motorcycles.
Towards the end of the snack session right after the motorcycles a parade of semi truck cabs came roaring by honking their horns. They were all covered in patriotic wraps and such. I had never seen such a thing before and it was very cool!
The Lincoln Memorial is a “must see” on any adventure into the capital of the United States and so that’s where we went next. It was nice to not have to walk up all those marble steps in the rain since it probably would’ve been really slippery. This was thanks to Ethan proffering the suggestion to switch things around earlier in the day.
The inside of the Memorial was as crowded as ever so I didn’t spend a ton of time gazing at Lincolns famous giant statue. After a tight squeeze through the gift shop we headed to the Korean Veterans War Memorial.
Right before walking back down the steps I grabbed an epic picture with the reflection pool and an unintentional photo bomb by another visitor.
The Korean Veterans War Memorial is just about the only thing I remember from my 8th grade trip to DC many years ago. I really like this collection of statues because they look so lifelike. We wandered through it to get to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
This memorial is relatively new and it features a bunch of supersize rocks with words carved on them. The half sculpture of MLK on one of the stones was really well done I thought.
By this point it would’ve been impossible to miss seeing the Thomas Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin unless you were focused on a few dead fish floating in the water. [Ethan’s Note: That’s a pointed comment to me lol. I couldn’t not focus on the stinky fish floating in the water!] The plan was to walk along the basin past the FDR memorial to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial and so that is what we did next.
I’ve already been to the FDR home in upstate New York so I’m well aware of him using the wheel chair to get around, but the statue of him seemed like a good spot for a BB8 picture. Here there were a lot of water reflecting pools and another larger statue of him with a different statue of Eleanor Roosevelt nearby.
On our continued walk we walked across the Ohio Drive bridge and looked up to see THE Marine 1 helicopter fly past. This is the official presidential helicopter so it is totally possible President Biden was inside, but it’s sort of impossible to know. It seemed likely given there was a secret service police car sitting on the bridge with an agent staring across the basin. [Ethan’s Note: Whether it was the President, VP, or whomever, it was a weirdly surreal experience to be a passive observer in our nation’s security in action.]
My pictures of the classic view of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial were much better from across the basin than up close because of the construction going on at the memorial. Despite all the work we were still able to go inside and see the tall statue of Jefferson standing proudly in the middle of the room. This was the last stop of the day so after enjoying the memorial for a moment Ethan and I planned out what to do next.
We decided to go see the White House visitor center even though we couldn’t get a tour to walk inside the house itself. I had tried to get tickets 58 days in advance, but I was unable to get a spot. Darn! Anyways, to get into the visitors center we had to go through some airport style security which was a bit surprising. (Maybe the White House tour group meets inside?).
The visitors center gave me a good idea of what the WH is like. I’ve been to many national park houses and so I generally have a good idea of what the WH is probably like, but in actuality I really have no idea because it is just so different! There were relics from previous families in the museum as well as testimonies from people such as President Joe Biden and First Lady Michelle Obama (there were others, but I missed the first half of the video).
After the WH visitors center we went back to the hotel to rest for a bit. So far we had walked around 8 miles! Ethan walks very fast, which is surprising because I have longer legs. When walking through DC I’ve noticed that it is fairly empty despite being a largish city. The sidewalks are clean, there isn’t much traffic, and there aren’t a million pedestrians. I keep finding myself comparing it to NYC, Dallas, or Boston. I think the more skyscrapers there are the more chaotic it is. Also the cross walks are generally timed at 30 – 60 seconds, which I found very helpful.
We went to a nearby Founding Farmers & Distillers restaurant for dinner. My Juicy Lucy burger was fabulous! Ethan got an almost boneless chicken with a side of veggies and grease. The house made lemon / lime soda was also just as amazing as the burger! For desert I got a donut for Andrew! (Except I ate it for him)
After dinner we went to the Morris American Bar to round off the night. We both got the Bartender’s Choice, which turned out to be really good. Ethan especially liked the pineapple + cucumber combo. [Ethan’s Note: I like craft cocktails. What stuck out about Morris American is that their combinations were unique. It’s rare to see truly unique drinks these days, and they impressed me!] After the bar we came back to the hotel and ended the day. Looking forward to a long rainy day tomorrow!
Day 3: May 29, Monday
Today we woke up sort of earlier and went to breakfast at the hotel restaurant. I’d say but worth it bc an average meal for 2 was $60 + tip. 😐 [Ethan’s Note: They did have a VEGAN egg, which I thought was pretty neat! I’ve never seen that at a restaurant before! $7 for an “endless” carafe of coffee is pushing it though.]
Right after breakfast we made our way to the Smithsonian National History Museum. I have never been and neither had Ethan so we were both excited to go. That is we were before we saw the absolutely massive line that almost stretched to the next block.
That went pretty fast and once in we went to the 2nd floor. We went through the skeleton room and Egyptian rooms first. There were skeletons of many neat creatures such as a crocodile, alligator, cow, and even a turtle!
Next up was the gem room, mineral room, rock room, and insect room. (Sponsored by Okin Pest Defense ironically). They had a black widow on display! I had 2 of those in my room at Philmont and we learned in that exhibit that Ethan is in the arachnophobia club.
The second stop of the day was the Hishhorn art museum, which you might know of as one of the safe houses in the game The Division 2. [Ethan’s Note: Henry mentioned The Division 2 once in this blog. I probably mentioned it half a dozen times per day haha! We both really enjoy the game, and it has a fairly realistic map of DC city center!] Getting there was a piece of cake and we immediately went to try to get the timed entry tickets to the exhibit. Luckily for us we got them! All we had to do now was wait about 20 minutes for our time.
Taking an escalator up to the next floor we first viewed the Purple exhibit which featured…some bottles hanging from the ceiling. Coooool! Going further into the exhibit was a movie projected across 6 massive TV screens. The videos played were all about the great purchase of the state of Alaska and what life was like while living there.
We spent a few minutes there then went to a different exhibit about…I’m not really sure tbh. There was writing on the walls, floor, and ceiling! The content was kind of all over the place and actually really interesting.
Continuing into the next room we saw a collection of Chinese art from various time periods. I found this not as interesting since I couldn’t really understand the intent behind most pieces.
Finally it was some to see the main timed entry exhibit! Yayoi Kusama was the artist of the special exhibit. She grew up in a well off, but difficult household in conservative Japan. She was introduced to the pumpkin by her grandfather and loved them bc they seemed ‘friendly’. This is supposed to represent the way she saw pumpkins maybe?
The infinite mirror room was really cool! Although I couldn’t figure out a good way to not have my phone in the picture. Bummer! It was also quite stuffy in there.
The second interior mirror room was a lot darker and featured these rotating disco light thingys. Ethan really liked that room. [Ethan’s Note: I don’t know what it was. I felt lost, but comforted. It was a unique feeling that the artist was able to translate to the viewer. It was modern art well done.]
The rest of the museum was a mix of nudity and contemporary art. There were somewhat interesting sculptures and ones that took hours to comprehend the meaning of. Eh the top two floors weren’t really my cup of tea.
After the Hishhorn art gallery we walked to the Gordon Ramsay Fish and Chips for lunch. It was in the complete opposite direction of the DC Memorial Day parade route (which was starting in 30 minutes). So we did what the average tourist would do: walk away!
It was drizzling every so often while we walked over to the wharf area where the restaurant was. I’d say between the wait for the food, the lack of seating inside, the somewhat subpar food quality, the drizzle / downpour of rain, and missing the start of the parade…it was a very disappointing lunch.
After we finished eating we began to walk back towards the international spy museum. I did manage to get tickets for that, but unfortunately for us our 3:30pm tickets only worked at 3:30pm. So here I am waiting for the start of the tour with Ethan! Who is happily enjoying the wait too.
At 3:30pm the call came over the loudspeaker that it was time to go! We took an elevator up and got our assignments in the briefing room. This is an interactive museum so the way it works is that you get a classified alias and go try to be a spy in the museum. Everyone’s goal is different and mine was to find the safe house of a terrorist organization. Along the way I learned all about secret gadgets, disguises, and staying hidden.
The spy artifacts in there were also really cool. There was a pigeon with a camera on it, a snake camera, a dead drop rat, and a few more cool things. Also a really interesting lighter camera, which also could function as a working lighter. There were ex-CIA short documentary films about spying and anonymous deep cover spies talking about what they do everyday. Throughout the entire museum we were still on our individual missions. This was by far totally worth the $26 tickets I think. After Ethan and I finished we made our way back to the hotel since we had missed the Memorial Day parade. (Probably a good thing because it was pouring when the parade started.)
After a while of mental back and forth I decided to go to Ben’s Chili Bowl for dinner. I went to the original famous hole-in-the-wall restaurant on 1213 NW Washington St.. I found thins place after quite a lot of research into the best eatery’s in DC and it just so happens that it is a favorite of Pauls as well.
Paul said to get a “half smoke with or without chili, chips, and a lemonade” and so I did! I went for the chili option since I’ve never had a chili dog before and french fries instead of chips. The place sort of reminded me of Cupp’s in Waco, TX. Ultimately Ben’s Chili Bowl was a wonderful place to get dinner! I didn’t get to see Ben though. That about wraps up this day!
Day 4: May 30, Friday
The first thing of the day was the Library of Congress. It is located near the US Capital and looks similar to many other federal buildings. I decided that today was my day to navigate so I whipped out my phone and proceeded to get lost and make us late on the Official Plan. Ethan took over and we made it to the Metro and then the Library. [Ethan’s Note: “Getting Lost” is a bit of an over exaggeration. We lost maybe 5 minutes of travel time. No big deal.]
To get in I had booked an online timed ticket about a month ago. Since I messed up navigating earlier that got us there right at 10am when it opened. That was also when all the school groups for our time showed up too. We both had a lovely time waiting in line.
Once inside the Great Hall I found out why it was so impressive. Everything seems to be made out of marble and is so elegant that not even a top tier congressman would walk out feeling disappointed. The major draw was the famous reading room so that’s where we went first. Since Ethan hates long lines he was the first to doubt we’d make it inside the Main Reading Room. To get inside we got green circle stickers.
Each person in line got 2 minutes inside the main reading room. It is a huge circular chamber that you can go read in…assuming you have a reservation. The library staff at the door told everyone to look with their eyes and not their lips when entering. It was surprisingly really quiet inside given that it was super loud with all the kids just steps outside the doors.
I thought this would be a perfect place to look into my family tree a bit. Or maybe that was the National Archives. There were a few people reading in there and one woman on Zoom. (Kinda wondering how that worked since you can’t really talk on the call.)
After leaving the reading room we went upstairs to explore whatever was up there. Since we were close to the capital we got a great view of that, but what really stuck out was a mosaic of the goddess Minerva (aka Athena) leading up to the balcony in the reading room. The balcony was probably a 30 second visit, but we got another amazing view of the inside dome.
The last thing to do was look for the staircase that Paul mentioned. We checked literally every long hallway, the Jefferson library, a room with an authentic George Gershwin piano in it, the reading room, and the Great Hall. I was sure Paul meant a staircase with mythical status so I was a bit surprised when it turned out that we had walked up it about 30 minutes before. Ethan made this moment hard to forget. [Ethan’s Note: The main hall had a massive marble staircase flanking both sides of an entrance into the main hall. 90% of the building was off limits to visitors. I was almost positive the mythical staircase was the main hall staircase, but we did explore everywhere only to realize it was! As much as I ribbed Henry about it, it was cool to explore those other exhibits we probably would have missed otherwise!]
After our self tour of the library we took the tunnel to the Capitol Visitors Center. It is a very long tunnel. There was no line to go that way vs entering from outside so I considered it a win.
There must’ve been hundreds of school children inside the visitors center and so therefore it was very loud. The first thing we did was scout out the gift shop. There are a few stores and it seemed more efficient to go before the tour. I got a post card and a small patch for the souvenir drawer. After that we went to the reservation line to check in.
We were an hour early and it just so happened that the checkin lady could put us on the 11:30am tour. That was fantastic news! Being even an hour early on any of my plans is huge. The tour started in the orientation theater. Ethan, myself, a few members of the general public, and about 450 students were all in the theater.
After the film we were broken up into 4 groups. Everyone got headphones that were similar to the ones that Ethan and I got at the Mammoth Site except they weren’t as ancient and looked cooler. The only drawback was you couldn’t swap tour guide audio if you didn’t like your guide. Our guide was about to go on vacation so she said she was very happy that day. (Heh)
The tour was quite possibly one of the most underwhelming tours I’ve ever been on. Our group was one of about 10 that were all touring at the same time. Each group had about 100 people in it, hence the headphones. The first stop was the historical column room. (Or crypt for short). This is where we learned that each state is allowed to send in two statues of their choice and that room is the oldest in the Capitol at around 200 years old.
We then headed to the old House of Representatives. This is the original house before it was expanded to 435 members. Eventually there were too many members for this room and so a new one was built and this was turned into a statue storage room. Statues are allowed to be changed out every 10 years if congress approves the state application. The next room was the famous rotunda.
The rotunda is where the paintings of the revolution are, as well as the Pilgrims, Pocahontas, and Columbus. This is usually the place where Presidents lie in state when they pass away.
Also in this room is the painting of George Washington on the ceiling. He is among the greek gods and was considered a god himself by many, which is why he is probably pictured there. That was the last part of the tour so we walked back past (Speaker of the House) Kevin McCarthy’s office to the visitors center. Once back Ethan had to go back to the gift store for a second pass because I had breezed through it so fast earlier.
By this point we were both really hungry so we decided to go have lunch in the Capitol cafeteria. I got my lunch of a pulled pork sandwich, gatorade, and a cupcake while Ethan talked over his allergies with the GM / Allergy Manager of the facility. [Ethan’s Note: The allergy manager was good, but INTENSE. It was a bizarre experience talking to him, but I felt safe with my food choices, which is honestly all that matters for me!] After everything was taken care of we wedged ourselves somewhere at a table with the school kids and ate fast. We were saddened because lunch turned out to be an incredibly mediocre experience.
The last thing to see on Capitol Hill was the Supreme Court. This place has a massive stone staircase that is a great photo op. We ran up to the north entrance to get in for the self guided tour soon after pictures. Much like the Library of Congress the Supreme Court building seemed…empty. Don’t get me wrong! The vast marble hallways were very cool.
We saw the main entrance hall, the very interesting spiral staircase, a museum, the gift shop and the gate to the court room. The main draw of coming here for me was to see the courtroom! Unfortunately there were kids in there at a lecture so we couldn’t get in. The last thing to do was walk down the front steps! We got absolutely blinded by the sun outside, although the shade of the entrance helped ease our suffering a bit.
The last thing on the list was the United States Botanic Gardens. It was a short ish walk to the gardens from the courthouse and we passed by the Capitol Building on the way. Before seeing the greenhouses we went to the Bartholdi Fountain. It seemed like a good thing to see as a tourist, but turned out to be kind of a let down as there wasn’t really anything to do. Plus it was extremely hot.
The gardens were interesting because each one had their own climate despite only being separated by a single sliding door. We walked though the main room, which seemed sort of like a tropical jungle. It was super humid and as we were walking the catwalks up above we decided to quickly swap to the hot desert glass room.
It housed a bunch of cacti and other hot outdoor plants. I thought this was the most New Mexico / Arizona one. Soon after we hit the regular fruits / veggies room, the summer plants room, and the educational room. They were growing a few Carolina Reaper Peppers in the veggie room!
The gift shop was nearby so we went there before heading out. One thing I was looking forward to was getting laundry detergent so I could use the washer at the hotel. It turned out that I didn’t have enough clothes for the trip after all! (I’m doing a back to back Washington DC / NYC trip.)
First we tried a CVS close by, but over shot it by a block so we went to the liquor store first. You see, Ethan is from North Carolina where the alcohol stores are state run so that means both less variety and higher costs. In DC Ethan could grab whatever he fancied then bring it home on the train. [Ethan’s Note: I know it seems like a weird stop, but the government run ABC stores we have in NC are tough to navigate if you’re looking for obscure/collector bottles. In DC, I was able to find “rare” bottles at retail price, which is basically unheard of in my pocket of the South.] I had no such need since Massachusetts doesn’t care about what is sold.
After getting our souvenirs we tried the CVS around the corner, just to find that the detergent didn’t come in small enough portions (I was going to do one load). I found more success at a Walgreens about a 15 minute walk north. Once back at the hotel I neglected to write the blog and instead got ready for dinner.
Ethan had chosen the Capital City Brewing Company, which I can only describe as awful. Rather than drag you through why that is, I think it would be best to move onto one of the best bar experiences ever at the Allegory. [Ethan’s Note: In short, the service was average, the food was average, the ambiance was terrible, and the prices were too high.]
This bar made the best bar menu in North America in 2023 and Ethan was super excited to try it out. It sort of has speakeasy type vibe and everything has an Alice in Wonderland / Jabberwocky theme to it including the drinks.
I got four drinks: Looking Glass, Mad Hatter, Jabberwocky Parte Dos, and a Beat of The Drums. I would’ve gotten more but I didn’t want to go bankrupt at $18 a drink. [Ethan’s Note: As mentioned above, I love drinks that push the known boundaries. This place did that very well, utilizing uncommon ingredients in unique drinks. They’re passionate about their craft, and it showed. Worth every penny spent.] They were all so good! That was the last thing on the plan for the day so with that over we went back to the hotel.
This is the end of Part 1 of the Washington DC trip blog! Stay tuned for Part 2 on Sunday at 2pm!
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