After a short drive last night, we arrived in Washington, DC. We're staying at a very nice campground in College Park, Maryland, which is close to the Metro train station, and also to our luxury pet resort (the only local one) that Peanut is staying at while we visit the sites in the City.

We had to do an "interview" at the kennel last night when we got here, to make sure Peanut had the social skills to stay in the "open play" kennel where the dogs all roam together. He passed, so we were good to go, but it made for a late night.

We're looking forward to a fun time here in DC, but also to some downtime since we'll be here for 7 nights, and will be hanging out and doing as little as possible over the weekend.

Thursday Update:

We arose early, dropped the P-dawg off at the "resort" and headed on the Metro for the White House. We had a tour scheduled at 9:15am, and made it just in time. It was a great tour, and although you don't have full access to the house, it was very interesting to see this house of Presidents. Again, we were in awe to walk the same steps as so many dignitaries and Presidents. Faith especially loved the Red Room, and my favorite was the dining hall, specifically the inscription which is actually a prayer from John Adams that is engraved on the mantle.

Expecting rain for a few days (it's pouring now), we headed to the National Zoo to beat it, and couldn't have timed it better. We spent the afternoon at the zoo, then headed back for a little R&R in the hot tub.

Friday Update:

Today was a great day! We started the day early with a tour of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, and saw where they print the paper money for our country (they also have a facility in Fort Worth, TX.) It's a pretty extensive process, and we learned a lot. The most interesting thing I learned was that they no longer print any denominations above $100, so if you have a $1000 bill laying around, one sold recently for $1.2M.

We had some time between tours and stopped over at the National Holocaust Museum. This was an interesting and harrowing experience. We were amazed to see the horrors that the Jewish people experienced, and saddened by what Hilter did to the world. The museum provides a great opportunity to learn what the Holocaust was all about.

The afternoon was spent on a staff-led tour of the US Capital (courtesy of Denny Rehberg's office), and it was another great experience. We got to see the "under belly" of the US Capital, and how the Members get from their offices to the House, we got a full tour of the US Capital (which is an awesome building, btw), and then we got to sit in the gallery of the House of Representatives, watching the proceedings. We also found this interesting, but also a little irritating watching our elected officials acting a little like kids at lunch. The Speaker was attempting to get things to order, and everyone more or less just ignored him and went about their visiting, talking on cell phones, etc. I was not impressed with the overall behavior, but it's possible I just don't know how it works. Despite this, though, we really enjoyed our time at the capital.

Our last stop was the Air and Space Museum. We didn't stay as long as we wanted, I had to get back for a conference call, but we're planning on returning on Sunday for another visit. The kids really liked the "what makes it fly" part of the museum, which is all hands on stuff. I liked that too actually.

We're taking tomorrow off from sightseeing, we'll be here at the camper. We've got some laundry and other stuff to do, and just don't want to get up to an alarm.

Tuesday Update:

We ended up changing our schedule a bit and taking both Saturday and Sunday off completely from sightseeing. We spent the weekend just hanging out, doing laundry, catching up, etc. We enjoyed it a lot, actually.

Monday was spent on a whirlwind tour of many of the monuments and memorials in DC. We visited the FDR Memorial, the WWII, Korea, Vietnam Memorials, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, and the Washington Monument. We actually got to go up into the top of the Washington Monument, which was pretty cool, and high. You can feel it swaying when you're up at 500 feet. All of them are really interesting, but Michelle and I really liked the Korean War Memorial the best, it seems to be the most moving. We also visited Arlington National Cemetery and saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and JFK's grave. We were fortunate to see the changing of the guard as well, which is a very cool military exercise in precision. This was a free tour through the National Park Service, set up by our Congressman's office (thanks Denny!)

Tuesday was spent doing some "clean up" touring. We started at the National Archives and visited the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They have a huge interactive area in the Archives that you could spend all day in. We decided you really could spend a full day in each of the museums and areas. We headed over to the Museum of Natural History, which has some interesting exhibits, lots of cool animals to see there (ex-animals I guess I should say). The last stops were a second visit to the Air and Space Museum and the American Indian Museum. This was a full and long day, and we enjoyed it quite a bit.

Philly here we come!

Faith's blog:

This week we were in D.C. I had a great time. We got to go in the White House. That was my favorite part of D.C. It turned out that Bush, Obama and McCain were there as well. We didn’t seem them, though. I loved D.C. Bye!

Kenzie's blog:

We got to go in the White House!!! It is beautiful. Have you ever seen the “Portrait of George Washington”?We got to see the original! It was saved by Dolley Madison in 1814 when the White House burned down. We also got to go into the Capital Building! Almost all the representatives were there. We got to go into Denny Rehberg’s office. Too bad he wasn’t there.I liked going into the Washington Monument.We were at 500 feet.This stop was REALLY COOL!

Photos:

Washington, DC

Video: