Day four in DC

Our fourth and final day in DC was just as amazing as the prior three. This town packs a bunch into a relatively small area. We could have spent two weeks and still not seen it all, we will definitely be coming back in the future.

I had neglected to mention in the past posts that one of the most surprising things about DC to us was how friendly the people are, without question the most hospitable and engaging place we have been thus far. We certainly didn’t expect to find the friendliest place to be a city much less and east coast city.

We started day four with a visit to the National Archives building. This is where many national treasures, records and documents reside. Arguable the three most important are the original Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They were difficult to read and are somewhat deteriorated but absolutely remarkable to see firsthand the work of our fore fathers.

Our next stop was a close up look at the Capital building which is again enormous, lots of big buildings in this town. No tours of the interior were available but we did get an unexpected treat. I approached a security guard and asked if there was a good place for lunch and she directed us to the Capital cafeteria in the House office complex. The food was really good but this isn’t a place too many visiting tourist find this place is very large but what impressed us was the buzz of interns, assistants, lawyers and the other folks that make Washington function…thousands of young up and comers it was a rare find.

After lunch we continued to walk around the Capital building and arrived at the Library of Congress. This building takes the prize for the most impressive interior with millions of tiny hand placed, hand painted tiles lining the entire vast ceiling. While you can’t go in to the functioning library there are two museums covering significant world and US history. Tomas Jefferson’s personal library, the largest of the time and Christopher Columbus and George Washington’s personal handwritten journals we just some of the amazing things on display. No pictures were allowed in these Museum’s but there are a few of the interior.

The next stop was the Supreme Court, while impressive it was our least favorite. Some amazing sculptures and historical decisions were on display. This is not much of a tourist stop but we were glad have seen it.

Finally we happened past the newest museum called Newseum are were told by some locals that it is the hot spot so we stopped in. They have eight sections of the Berlin Wall with a very nice narrative. The 9-11 display was really well done complete with all the news coverage as it was happening from local stations in NY to the antenna that was on the towers. Lot’s more to see but we are spent.

Hope you all liked the pics of DC, off To Richmond to visit family.