The Capitol - A Whistle Stop Tour

Similar to Philadelphia we intended on doing a whistle stop tour of Washington DC, the nations capital. We left the RV park we were staying in and continued south. We chose to avoid the tolled route which brought us through the middle of Baltimore which I was happy to do after watching The Wire for the past couple of months. We headed for a Metro stop a bit out of the city but not too far so that we could hopefully park for free but still not have a massive journey to get downtown. We chose Fort Totten and it turned out to be perfect - we got a parking space less than a mile from the station and 8 stops had us down at the mall. The first thing that struck me when we left the RV the first afternoon was the humidity, it was killing me. I had sweat running down my face by the time we reached the platform. Thankfully the train had A/C and I was able to get it under control before we left the train at the Smithsonian stop.

We got off and went up to ground level and the first thing that struck me was the open space and the view to both the Capitol building and the Washington monument opposite it, seperated by about a mile. In between this mile is a series of museums of the highest calibre, called the Smithsonian museums. They are all free and are too numerous to mention, let alone visit. We chose the Air and Space Museum and headed there. I really enjoyed this museum and I think Emer did too. They have amazing exhibits at it including the original Wright Brothers plane, the Apollo 11 capsule that they returned to earth on and loads and loads of other history making flying vehicles hanging from the roof. They have an area with ballistic missiles, you can walk through a mock-up of the living quarters from the original international space station. They also have a great animation showing all the flights over the USA during a 24 hour period showing the job the various air traffic controllers have to do. We spent a good few hours here and then headed back out onto the mall.

We were hungry at this stage so strolled to Chinatown as we hadn't had good Chinese in a while. We stumbled upon a place where the chef was making fresh noodles in the window. It was amazing to watch the chef start with a ball of dough and constantly stretch and spin it until the noodles appear, seemingly out of nowhere. We went in and were brought to our table. Through the seating area to the back, up a set of stairs and seemingly to an upper floor of an adjoining building. We were sat at a table for 8 at which we looked quite small. We ordered our food and another couple were sat at the other large table in the room. A few minutes later 3 people were sat opposite the other couple and they shared the table so we expected it to happen to us soon. Our food came and as expected a family of 3 were shown to their seats opposite us. We got chatting to them as we ate and discussed our trip and they recommended places to us to see as we continued south. We finished before their food came and the bill was left in front of us. The father of the family immediately took it and insisted on paying it for us. We were shocked at the generosity shown after only a few minutes chat but it really is something we have noticed along our travels and has not been an isolated incident.

We left the restaurant still amazed and strolled around for a while. We walked down to the Capitol Building with its iconic dome roof, the White House (or at least the safe area in front of the front portion of the house), Ford's Theatre (where Lincoln was shot) and The Washington Monument. The latter two buildings give out free tickets for tours every morning so we planned to go to them the following day to get tickets and tour them. It was late enough at this stage after all the walking so we headed back to the Metro (via McDonalds for a caramel sundae) and took the train to the RV. The Chicago Cubs were in town and the game had just finished so the trains were slow and full so it took a while to get back but get back we did and we headed to sleep after watching an episode of The Sopranos.

We got up early the following morning and took aMetro back to Smithsonian stop where we joined the queue at the base of the Washington Monument. The monument is the tall slender grey one much like the one in Phoenix Park but you are able to take an elevator up the inside of it for what I was informed to be an amazing view of the city from 555 feet. We waited in the queue for a while and got tickets for 8.30 so we had alot of time to do and see other stuff in the city. We walked to Ford's Theatre and got free tickets for that walk through as well, this one for 12.30. We went and got some breakfast and then came back for the tour which was quite good. There was alot of information about Lincoln's life in the basement which we had already seen during our visit to Springfield in Illinois so we weren't that interested in that. We headed up the stairs and into the refurbished theatre with the presedential box where John Wilkes Boothe did the deed. A park ranger came on stage and talked us through that fateful day and about the life of Boothe which was quite interesting. After the tour we went across the road to where Lincoln died, in an inn room. It described how the power was passed to the Vice-President and the various important people who came to visit Lincoln during the night while he lay in the coma before passing away in the morning.

From here we went back out onto the mall and walked past the Washington Monument down to the collection of monuments by the iconic water pool (the one from Forrest Gump where she hops in and shouts to him). The first one we met was the World War II monument. It contains alot of stars over a pool with two fountains falling into it on either side and is quite nice. We continued on to the Vietnam Memorial which is quite a sombre place. It is a black granite wall with the names of all the Americans who have died or are missing in action since the start of the Vietnam War. The number of dead is staggering and seeing each single name in relation to the whole wall emphasises the devastating loss of life. We then walked up the steps to the stunning Lincoln memorial. As you walk up the steps you cannot miss the large pillars of white rock all along the entrance. As you reach the top of the steps you get to see in the room for the first time and see the imposing figure of Lincoln sitting in a chair. The quality of the stone statue is incredible and I really enjoyed seeing it. As we left the room we were treated to a stunning view down the whole length of the mall all the way to Capitol Hill.

We still had some time before our Washington Monument tour so we crossed the river over to Arlington Cemetary. This is the national cemetary where the war casualties were buried until it ran out of space. It is a massive cemetary with acres and acres of white headstones as well as large graves for the very important. The most famous of these is probably John F Kennedy's and the eternal flame. We viewed this beofre climbing the hill to the tomb of the unknown soldier which is constantly under guard. On the hour every hour the changing of the guard ceremony takes place - we managed to see the last one of the day before the cemetary closed which was great. It is an amazing experience to see the routine performed with military precision with the large crowd present staying quieter than Thomond Park when Ronan O'Gara is taking a kick. We were asked to leave the cemetary after the changing so we made our way down the hill to the exit and out to the subway which we took back to Smithsonian stop to the Washington monument where we relaxed before our tour started.

The tour involved going through an airport style security check and then queueing for the elevator to bring us up 550 feet to the internal observation deck. The view was nice from there as the sun was going down and the last embers of purple remainded on the horizon but the viewing windows were quite dirty which made the view cloudy. It was a pity but it was free after all. We enjoyed the view for a while and then headed back down and to the subway back to the RV. We had one more stop we wanted to make before leaving the city and that was the Iwo Jima monument - the iconic image of the 4 soldiers pushing up the flag. We drove the RV there and had a look and took some photos. It's quite a big monument, alot bigger than either of us expected. After that we drove through the darkness south on I-95 and stopped at a rest area for the night before our next visit.