A well rounded D.C. experience

It was a full day of travel to get from Boston down to Virginia. We set up camp about 12 miles outside of Washington D.C. in Mclean, VA. with couch surf hosts Paul and Lois. Lois and Paul are super cool people! It was so nice to hang out for the week and enjoy their company and Lois' delicious cooking.

For six days we traveled into D.C. and saw the sights. Paid for parking a few times and parked outside of the city and biked in a couple times.


Washington D.C. has so much to see and do that we don't feel bad at all that we did not see it all, we saw plenty for one visit. The Museums on the Mall are amazing! We saw amazing art, airplanes and a lunar lander, ancient stuff, money being made, the holocaust museum, Kermit the frog, the botanical garden and Julia Child's kitchen.

Thanks to Marisa we got approval from the Gov via our congressman to tour the White House and the Capitol. The White House is something you should definitely see for yourself, its opulent.

We have been known to run a little late from time to time (every time) and that was not a problem at the White House. As long as you have an appointment you get in, the Capitol on the other hand is not that way. Fortunately for us you can just go into the visitors center and get a tour anyway, but the day we went to do that we were not prepared for the rain. There was a 90% chance of rain this day and when we parked the sky was dark, but no rain yet. We left the umbrella in the truck and walked out of the garage and it began to sprinkle, by the time we walked to the capitol building it was pouring. A mad dash back to the parking garage to get the umbrella resulted in complete drenching, there were sheets of water flowing over the sidewalks and our legs were soaked up to the ankles. It felt like there was puddles in our shoes. Naturally our next stop was the closest attraction, not the Capitol but the National Art Museum.

We did get to the Capitol later with a friend and his senate staffer friend. It was a reunion for our friend Mike, Arie, and Vic, who were all former college room mates--it was nice of them to let us tag along. The Capitol was incredible! The walls and ceilings were covered in fresco's, fancy chandeliers, marble statues, intricate iron banisters...and a trolley connecting the senate side of the capitol to it's center.

The library of congress was similar with frescos, mosaics, murals and marble everywhere. The reading room looked amazing! But is apparently only open to the public two or so days a year, otherwise you have to put in a request to use it if you're not satisfied looking at it through the glass of the observation landing.

On Saturday we woke up at 6:30am, got ready, drove to a park outside of the city and biked into the "rally to restore sanity and/or fear." It was awesome, lots of people with amusing and ridiculous signs, lots of people. We were sort of in the front middle section and it looked like there were people all the way to the Washington Memorial. The music guests were pretty random and awesome, the stand up was ridiculous and at the end verged on the serious side, and called for people to be sane and vote.


The rally wound down at three or so and we biked back to the truck and headed back to the house for a post rally nap, which turned into us watching a movie. Lois and Paul got back in the evening and we borrowed a couple of their spare costumes and headed out, a leopard, a caveman, little red riding hood and the big bad wolf in grandma's pajamas. The Halloween party was pretty incredible! Excellent music, great decorations and food and pretty much everyone in costume. We partied and fell asleep in the car on the way back at around 4am or so.

We've spent the last day and a half recovering and are fixing to get on the road and get headed to the Shenandoah mountains, it's been a while, but we're going to try our hand at camping again!