A couple of weeks ago Cliff and I were able to take a quick weekend trip to Washington D.C. and New York. We have friends that live in Virginia so we stayed with them and they were our tour guides for the weekend.
On Saturday we headed to Mount Vernon to a see the home of George Washington. We spent quite a bit of time walking the grounds, looking at the different buildings and watching cooking demonstrations. Aside from the house there is also a working farm and a distillery. We left cold Chicago in hopes of actually seeing some sun in Virginia and Washington D.C. But no such luck. I think the weather was actually worse!
After Mt. Vernon we had an amazing lunch in Old Town Alexandria. We meant to take pictures of our food but we scarfed it down too quick! After lunch we stopped by a pub for a drink… or two. Of course, no trip is complete without a trip to the candy store. Although Cliff claims to not like sweets, he sure does like candy. He bought all kinds of candy that we don’t typically see. Like those little wax pop bottles filled with juice. I prefer baked goods over candy, so the next stop was a bakery. I got a lemon bundt cake and it was super good.
Later that evening we headed to D.C. to see the Lincoln Memorial at night. As we were leaving we noticed there were security guard type people standing between each column of the Lincoln Memorial. Turns out President Obama went to the Lincoln Memorial to make a speech. We missed seeing him by minutes. Maybe next time! Cliff wanted to get a picture of the Washington Monument and the reflecting pool but it was under construction. It seems like everywhere we go is under construction! I guess we will just have to visit again.
On Sunday we got up bright and early and went to “The Mall” to see all the monuments and memorials. Once again, there was no sun. But it was 86 degrees in Chicago! We walked from the Washington Monument to the WWII Memorial to the Vietnam Memorial, to the Lincoln Memorial to the Korean War Memorial to the Jefferson Memorial to the Franklin Roosevelt Memorial and back to the Washington Monument. All in all it was about 18,000 steps! Our favorites were the Lincoln Memorial, the Korean War Memorial and the Roosevelt Memorial.
After all that walking we were ready for lunch! We headed to Chinatown to have lunch at Matchbox. We ordered sliders, soup, salad, and 2 pizzas. And we ate it all. Everything was so good.
After eating all that we still needed some dessert! First we hit up a cupcake place and we got 1/2 a dozen cupcakes. We got peanut butter/chocolate, lemon/coconut, cookies and cream, red velvet, carrot cake and vanilla bean. We were saving those for later though because next door to the cupcake place was a gelato place. I ordered lemon and coconut and I think Amanda and Kyle ordered pistachio and chocolate. We had lunch and now we had dessert so we were ready to start walking again. Plus, the sun finally came out!
Next we headed to the Capitol to take a quick picture. Then we went to the sculpture garden. Luckily for Cliff and Kyle they serve beer at the sculpture garden. So we took a break and had a few beers. For our last stop we went to the old post office. I think this is kind of a hidden gem in Washington D.C. You can take an elevator to the top of the tower and there are great views of the city. For some reason we decided to take the stairs part way up. Whose idea was that anyway? The best part is that it is free and we only waited in line for the elevator for about 2 minutes. I would definitely recommend going there if you are ever in the area.
After that we were pretty exhausted so we headed home and ate our cupcakes! Thanks Amanda and Kyle for being such knowledgeable tour guides. We never would have known what all those statues were if it weren’t for you guys! We can’t wait to visit again!
