Day 5: May 31, Saturday
We started the day out with Greg’s coffee since Ethan needed his morning brew. This also made us one step closer to being a “Gregular”. [Ethan’s Note: Greg’s had an interesting cold brew made with a different type of coffee bean! Another new drink experience!] (Their rewards program). I tried a DMV, which is their version of a Fuller Cup Crowbrook Sunrise. It was pretty good and I promised myself we would be back. After a quick breakfast we walked over to the Old Post Office Museum. It is another National Park site.
Old Post Office Museum used to be the headquarters of the US Post office, the DC post office, and had a museum of all the things that couldn’t be sent in the mail that it had saved from over the years. Nowadays the historical part is mostly pictures and plaques of a bygone era and an elevator to the top of the tower. The rest of the building happens to now be a Waldorf Astoria hotel. [Ethan’s Note: The entrance to the Old Post Office Museum was next to the loading dock for the Waldorf behind the hotel…they didn’t let us go in the main hotel entrance!]
As you make your way up the first elevator you see a limited view of the atrium of the hotel. Once at the top you have real windows that give a fantastic view of super rich people having tea below.
There was one more elevator and suddenly we were on top of the 3rd tallest building in DC. The view was fantastic! I could see where I flew in at the airport, all the monuments, the Capital, and Jefferson Square. The layout of the buildings was much more interesting when viewed from above. At the top was a ranger who said the tallest building in DC was the Washington Monument. I mentioned that I tried to get tickets, but they were just about impossible to book in advance online and she replied with “Just stand in line at 6:30am tomorrow and you get guaranteed tickets.” I was not super excited at this idea and neither was Ethan. I considered what to do for basically the rest of the day.
Once we had our fill of the DC skyline we went back to ground level and walked to the Capital Mall to see the Smithsonian Castle up close before heading to the next part of the plan. Sadly it was temporarily closed so we couldn’t go inside, but being able to go touch a stone in it was good enough for me!
Next up in the day was the National Archives! I had gotten tickets for this online so we were able to skip the entire line of school kids, which was supremely satisfying. Also we were ahead of schedule by a lot so that was good too. [Ethan’s Note: The timed tickets were great everywhere, but this was the one place where the timed tickets actually allowed us to entirely skip a long line. It was SO satisfying.] Once inside we went through a fair amount of security then went to the museum.
The museum had a bunch of cool things such as the Emancipation Proclamation, an exhibit on sports, an exhibit on the Civil Rights movement (so a bunch of original documents / pictures), and the original year 1297 Magna Carta. This one completely wowed Ethan and me. [Ethan’s Note: It blows my mind that a document from almost 800 years ago is so perfectly preserved that I could make out the signature and wax seal of the king who signed it. Absolutely incredible.]
The main draw of the National Archives has got to be the rotunda and the gift shop. Just kidding on the gift shop… Anyways, the rotunda houses the Bill of Rights, Constitution, and Declaration of Independence. There were no lines so we could just cut everyone anytime we wanted to see something. [Ethan’s Note: The security guards made it clear there was no line, but it was amusing to see how people just individually started queuing into lines automatically. It happened so often the guards would have to almost break the lines up and disperse the people to other areas of the Rotunda!]
The Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence were so faded that it was challenging to see the writing on them, let alone read them, but the Constitution was pretty cool! It wasn’t as crowded as we thought it would be so we got good easy access to all the documents.
After visiting the gift shop for the souvenir drawer we went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and were met with a truly massive line. It stretched to the end of the block and sadly we needed timed tickets to enter. Big oversight on my part. Oops! Ethan almost turned around at the sight of the long line, but I persuaded him to keep going. He scanned a nearby QR code and got tickets for 3pm since my phone had low battery. The line attendant said that even though the line stretched around the block, everyone would get inside in about 15 minutes. [Ethan’s Note: I thought the line was for people without tickets. I was AGHAST to discover that was the ticketed entry line! We did see it move pretty fast when we were reserving our tickets, so I withheld judgement and pressed forward with the day!] With that we went the opposite direction to the Native American Museum to wait for our turn to wait in that glorious long line.
This museum was just a short walk from the Smithsonian and had no line! We were pretty hungry and so we decided to get lunch first. It seems like at most of the DC museums the cafe takes up the entire floor it’s on. This cafe had all freshly made and somewhat more healthy options than the Capital cafe. Ethan was very pleased with the chili even though he wasn’t 100% sure of the ingredients. [Ethan’s Note: It didn’t kill me, so it was a good lunch! The other interesting thing was that several of the stations – including my chili station – were focused on dishes made only with foods native to the Americas!] I got chicken tenders, fries, and ketchup. Yum! It was all very tasty.
After lunch we started with the best museum visiting method: start from the top and work your way down. The top had a lot of history about the Native Americans and westward expansion. Almost every story went like this:
- Natives were on the land first. They had been here for as long as anyone remembered and no one so far had bothered them. Eventually the U.S. showed up.
- Negotiations happened. The U.S. negotiated for land that would help grow the U.S. nation in exchange for money or other things. All seems to go well.
- Treaty happens! Hooray! An agreement has been reached. (Secretly most often than not this was a treaty with a bunch of loopholes or just outright lies that greatly benefitted the USA.)
- *The USA breaks the treaty* What a surprise! (In reality the treaty rarely ever lasted very long according to the exhibits)
- The aftermath. Usually the USA takes the land, moves whoever is on it further west, and lives happily ever after until they start over again from number 1.
From my understanding this is generally what happened every time and it was pretty devastating for everyone except the expansioners (I know that’s not a word). The USA usually sent the Native Americans to the middle of nowhere where they had nothing. Not even soil to plant crops. Although they always seem to make things work out ok somehow.
Ethan interrupted me in the middle of my plaque reading to wave me over to the railing overlooking the atrium. There was a presentation on a native drum ceremony. (I’m not sure what to call it.) The guy on the bottom floor did a very exciting show with a drum! Very cool. With that we headed to the floor below.
The 2nd floor was mostly about how Native Americans are/have been perceived over the years. Mostly stereotypes and racism in society. They had one film where the museum (I guess? I’m not sure) went out and asked a bunch of random people in DC who they thought Pocahontas was. It was honestly pretty interesting that most of them knew her from the Disney movie. That was about 90% of the film. We spent less time on this floor than the one above.
The bottom floor was filled with all kinds of NA art. I didn’t find this floor particularly interesting because I’m not a big fan of art museums to begin with. [Ethan’s Note: I loved this floor. Artifacts are cool and all, but modern(ish) art with a Native American interpretation? I was there for it!] I think that this museum absolutely deserves a visit if you have the time!
We had a few minutes before our tickets to the Air and Space museum so I decided we should visit the rose garden outside of the botanical gardens we had visited the day before. On the way I got an ice cream from a nearby ice cream truck. Mmmm it was very refreshing.
The rose garden was very fun because I didn’t get mobbed by sugar hungry bees. It was nice to just walk through a park with a bunch of pretty plants and talk to Ethan about whatever was on my mind. There are always about half a dozen things on my mind at once so there really isn’t ever a shortage of things to talk about.
After the rose garden it was finally time to get in line for the Air and Space museum! [Ethan’s Note: The line stretched the length of the building and started to wrap around the corner. Absolutely insane.] I must say…this was one of the biggest let downs of the trip. Right behind Fords Theater, but we will get to that later. I was expecting a vast hanger of military, space ships, and aircraft. (That is called the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center and it was 30 ish miles away.) What I got was just like the mission in the Division 2 that I have played so so so many times. First off there are soooo many people that it is hard to get a good view of something before you are ushered out of the way. For example I barely had time to snap a picture of the plane cockpit before I was out of time and had to move on.
When we walked by the Planetarium Ethan was interested and went to ask about tickets. I initially thought it was a waste of time, but quickly changed my mind soon after when I discovered we had seen everything else.
In theory the middle of the room has the best seats, but in reality it doesn’t matter because they are all equally uncomfortable and hard to see out of without distorting your neck. The presentation was all about how the universe formed, the big bang, and dark matter. Very interesting I thought! Ethan liked it too! [Ethan’s Note: All I remember from the film was that dark matter is everywhere in space and its discovery was an accident! It was fascinating, but waaay to technical for my non-astrophysicist brain to handle lol.]
Upon leaving we went back to the hotel to figure out what to do next. Ethan promised to go see the Watermelon House if I carried his A & S museum gift shop bag back for him. Deal! That’s where we were off to next. I never mentioned this location to Ethan so he was a bit confused / not happy to go and find out. [Ethan’s Note: I was mostly just confused, but it was towards the direction of dinner, so I was down to explore it!] Kind of like how Mom felt when she went to see the World’s Largest Strawberry with me. Hahaha
The watermelon house is up near Ben’s Chili Bowl and it’s a house with a massive painting of a watermelon on one side. It just so happened that I got to meet the owner/artist of the house! His name is Wade and he is quite possibly the greatest fruit painter of all time. He said that this wall has had 1 million pictures (geotags) of it and shared around the world. Very cool! There was also a fence with bananas and kiwis painted on it across the street in an alley so you can bet that’s where we walked to next. Overall, totally worth a visit I’d say.
Dinner was at a place we had walked by on our trip to the watermelon house. It’s called El Sol and it’s a small hole-in-the-wall Mexican food restaurant. We got margaritas and I got fajitas while Ethan got chorizo, carnitas, and chorizo and potato tacos It was all delicious and this was by far Ethan’s favorite meal he said. The corn tortillas I got were so good that I didn’t bother criticizing them like I usually would. (I’m a flour tortilla fan). Well, that just about wraps up this day!
Day 6: June 1, Thursday
Today I woke up at around 6:20am and walked over to the Washington Monument visitors center to get same day tickets. Both Andrew and Paul said it was worth it so that meant I had to go at least try to get them. I got there around 6:50am expecting to be first in line, but I was second! The first guy was very nice and we talked for about 25 minutes until the next guy showed up.
The three of us talked in line for about 2 hours and we covered all sorts of things from their DC experiences so far, to broken tibias, and finally lab births once Ethan showed up. It seemed like mostly Dads showed up to wait in line for their families (who were sleeping in). Ethan came at around 8am to wait the last 50 minutes and he loved it! [Ethan’s Note: I enjoyed the wait! Interesting conversations for sure! Henry also neglected to mentioned that although I slept in, I did bring him breakfast in line haha!]
When it finally came time to get the tickets I got the 9am ones! It seemed virtually impossible to get online tickets so I had all but given up on seeing the observation deck. The security at the base of the monument was quite possible the most secure out of every building including the Capitol tour.
The elevator up was relatively fast and soon Ethan and I were at 500ft! The first visitors of the day. The views were stunning and I’m so so so glad we went. [Ethan’s Note: Not only were the views stunning, but we didn’t have to push anyone out of the way or feel pressured to only look for a few seconds! There were only maybe 10 people at the top with us!] At the top is also a mini museum on the monument with stuff such as the lightning rods, aluminum top cap, and some plaques.
On the way down we got to see some of the cool tribute stones sent in from the US states that existed at the time. Although all the states are featured in there since they could send in stones at a later time. Massachusetts sits at around 70’ off the ground. Source
After the monument the plan was to visit the Renwick Art Gallery (another Smithsonian affiliate). We were kind of running early and so I decided to go to a coffee shop called Swing’s. Earlier Ethan tried to go, but couldn’t get in due to an updated time schedule…much to his dissatisfaction. [Ethan’s Note: I thought they looked cool online and saw their hours lined up with when I needed to be at the monument….taped to their door was updated hours which didn’t work for me. Devastating.] I got a lemonade. On the way we just missed seeing the Presidential motorcade which was also devastating.
Right after Swing’s we walked to Renwick and got there at 10am. Since we got in right when it opened that meant there we essentially had the gallery to ourselves. Renwick seemed to have more native alaskan and Inuit art. Most of it was uninteresting to me, but Ethan liked it a lot. [Ethan’s Note: I’ve come to the conclusion that I just really enjoy modern art.] Once again our time was vastly overinflated and so we left early.
Ethan said that that you can’t have a trip to DC without seeing the White House! [Ethan’s Note: I think I’m in the majority when I say that. Our hotel was only a few blocks from it! How can we spend an entire week there and not see it!] The walk over from Renwick was easy since the White House is next door. There is a ton of security obviously, but pretty much anyone can walk up to the front fence and look in. There was also a sort of anti government protester and a guy tying to get a whole crowd of kids to dance. Haha you always meet interesting people at the gates of official buildings.
Ford’s Theatre was about a 14 minute walk east. It turned out that actual theatre where Lincoln got shot was closed, but that was fine since I had tickets to the Peterson House where the bed he died on was. We proceeded to self tour it with a few other families inside. The bed looked about the same as any old bed in a NPS house tour.
The display cases where artifacts were displayed were almost all empty, which was a bit disappointing. In a separate room they had a bit about what happened to Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth. He basically shot Lincoln, was shocked at everyone’s reaction, then fled south and eventually was caught. We finished the tour by going down a pretty cool spiral staircase to the bottom floor, which housed another gift shop. On the way outside we turned and saw another school group about to swarm the Peterson House at 11:30 and I just can’t imagine 100 kids inside such a small space. It would’ve ruined the moment for us. [Ethan’s Note: We got so lucky. If we had entered when we were supposed to, we would have been swamped by a school group.]
Nearby was the Navy Memorial. They had a stamp at the Ford’s Theatre and so I decided that we should go visit! It was surprisingly really cool. I expected a statue with a plaque, but this place also has a massive museum and some memorial (pictures) inside. We were completely alone inside, which I thought was wonderful.
The guard said that the plaza outside was sometimes used in military demonstrations and marches. Sadly there wasn’t one today, but maybe I should return for such an event?
Before hitting another art gallery we decided to get lunch at a nearby Mexican place. I kid you not…the corn tortillas at MI VIDA (actually spelled like this) were the best I’ve ever had and that is saying something because normally I dislike corn tortillas. As Ethan said “The food was delicious and nutritious!” [Ethan’s Note: I got a tuna crudo with serranos that was so delicate and balanced. Yum!] After lunch we went to get some gelato for desert. It was rather expensive at $7.50 for a small cup of it.
The last building on the official plan was the National Gallery of Art. I wasn’t thrilled to go, however Ethan was so off we went. The first building you see has a lot of paintings by well known people such as Van Gogh and Claude Monet, but I thought the stuff on display was overrated.
Instead I liked this nice dog painting. Meanwhile Ethan was mystified at why I walked past the Monet bridge painting without a second glance. You can google all the Monet paintings by typing in “Monet paintings”. [Ethan’s Note: Yeah but seeing it in person is so much cooler.] You can’t just find this epic dog painting so easily. [Ethan’s Note: I just googled cool dog painting and found a dozen cool dog paintings.] Yeah, but seeing it in person is so much cooler.
We sort of split up about 45 minutes later. I wandered the East Building and Ethan the west. The east building housed a lot of art that I would consider boring. Modern art, sculptures of random stuff, and paintings of a single color. I actually thought that the design of the east building itself was more interesting.
It is a tower that has a bunch of interweaving rooms that I could easily get lost in. So I put my AirPods in with Armin Van Buuren playing and off I went wandering. I saw a painting of rust, a splatter by James Pollock, a charcoal of the Capitol Building, a blue rooster statue, went down a spiral staircase, saw offensive / amusing cartoons of Richard Nixon, and the famous Calder Mobiles! It took me a little over an hour to make my way through.
[Ethan’s Note: I ended up spending a lot of time wandering around the West Building. Most of my time was spent in the Impressionism wing and the 1600s Dutch rooms. Besides modern art, I enjoy those styles as well. Degas, Cezanne, Rembrandt, etc. They also had large rooms dedicated to Degas’ studies in movement and form which he executed in small wax figurines. The Gallery had close to 30 original wax statues! There was also a small but fascinating exhibit on Dante’s Inferno and the impact it had on art and sculpture!]
After 3.5 hours at the art museum we went back to the hotel to rest for a bit and brainstorm what to do next. Ethan had found a place near our dinner spot that had mini golf. Swingers! I had done that with Philip and Liz in NYC on my last trip to New York. Basically you drink cocktails, listen to a DJ, and play 9 holes of golf. Ethan was initially hesitant to go based on the price, but in the end we decided to go because why not?
The actual golf was great! However, we were basically the only people playing so out of our 90 minutes of time allowed on the course we were only there for about 20 minutes. Heh! I won though so that’s all that matters.
After golf we went to dinner at this awful restaurant called ‘Bon Chan: Asian Fusion’. I’ll save my detailed review for Google Maps. The food itself wasn’t bad, but Ethan had other thoughts. Anyways, we won’t be going back. After dinner we went back to the hotel to pack and get ready to leave on Friday.
Day 7: June 2, Friday
This was our last day in DC! I woke up around 8:30am and proceeded to do a load of laundry in the hotel guest laundry room. Meanwhile, Ethan finished packing his stuff. Our trains weren’t scheduled until about 3pm, but we checked out of the hotel around 10am anyway and left our bags with the hotel bellman.
I thought it would be cool to get another DMV sandwich from Greg’s coffee shop, but they were all out so I got a different one. They ended up tricking me with healthy whole wheat bread though! Yuck!
I think it was Ethan that suggested we visit one more gallery: the Sackler Museum! So off we went. It is located near the Smithsonian Castle and Hirshhorn. Apparently the Sackler’s were awful people according to Ethan, but the museum wasn’t about them. [Ethan’s Note: I’ll spare the details, but the Sackler family is the family who ran Purdue Pharma and helped create the opiate crisis in America. Awful people.]
This place showcased art, pottery, and history from Ancient China. It was pretty interesting I thought. It was also super hot! There was also a small exhibit with some buddha stuff.
The original plan was to Uber to Union Station, but Ethan was adamant that we walked. So back we went to the china town station and I will still argue that a duffle bag still outshines a roller bag even if you walk a mile from the hotel to the subway station on a 95F day. Since we were roughly 2 hours early we got lunch first. I got a Jersey Mike’s ‘giant sub’ and Ethan got the usual 3 plastic containers with lettuce and a patty from Wendy’s. I thought it would be neat to try out the Amtrak Metropolitan Lounge, but sadly my business class ticket didn’t work. I needed first class. At 2:55pm I said goodbye to Ethan and went to await my train. Soon it was here and I was speeding north towards my next adventure!
After Trip Comments
Henry: I’d say this is one of the greatest trips I’ve ever done and I got to go with one of the best people in the world: Ethan! We saw as much as we possibly could in 7 days. I was in charge of the trip planning and Ethan was in charge of the restaurant reservations / bars. The hotel turned out to be a great choice! Marriott Marquis in Washington is situated in the perfect location: close to a subway stop and in the heart of downtown DC. There were a few things that I simply couldn’t fit into the plan and that’s ok! Even though I was a bit anxious about a major change of the Official Plan (mid trip) I think it worked out fine. Until next time Ethan!
Next time in DC I will see everything I missed this time and maybe the cherry blossom bloom. Not sure when that will be!
Ethan: What an incredible trip! I was just there for the ride in terms of what we saw, but I felt like we did everything we could have possibly fit into a week in DC. Bonus points for planning it on Memorial Day weekend, so we could see the parades and celebrations in DC! High point was either the Washington Monument (thanks for waiting in line, Henry!) or The National Gallery of Art. Hotel was amazing, 10/10 recommend there! Food was hit or miss and generally more expensive than it should have been. Drinks were either good or great, no real bad drinks the entire trip!
Trip Stats:
- Miles walked: 70mi (around 142,600 steps in 7 days)
- Hotel stay: Marriott Marquis Downtown DC
- Trip phrase: “Devastating!”
- Ethan walks very fast
- National Park Stamps added to passport: 30ish (12 actual national park stamps + 18 extras)
- Busses taken: 0
- Ubers taken: 0
- Taxis taken: 0
- School kids seen: millions
- School kids in museums: every museum except: Renwick and Native American Museum
- Henry left with: 1 duffle bag and a backpack
- Ethan left with: 3 bags and a backpack 😉
The Acela was not the end of the adventure for me. Stay tuned!