Day 1:
I woke up in Maryland that morning at my friend Mellissa's place, gathered all of my stuff and we drove the hour to downtown/Capitol Hill DC. I had looked up good breakfast places in DC and came across Ted's Bulletin-a diner type of a restaurant with the theme of being an old 40'sish era Newspaper. The menu was on a newspaper, the bathrooms had doors with frosted glass and a person's name-stating it was their office, Some Like It Hot was playing on a big TV screen on the wall, yellow and black diner booths and seats lined the room-the decor was ON POINT. The big draw was that they made their own homemade pop tarts! I had Nana's Beer Biscuits and Sausage Gravy, which was delicious! Sweet and savory and yum! The pop tarts were pretty good, but not wonderful-they needed more filling-not enough blueberries and cheesecake in my blueberry cheesecake pop tart! Aside from that, I highly recommend the place for breakfast-it was fun and yummy!
We got of at the Archives stop and hurriedly walked to the Hart Senate Office Building where Grassley's office is on the first floor because he is one of the most senior Senate members (since 1981)-so he gets a nice, big office :) We had a small tour group of Iowans (and a few Missourans) and were led by a young Iowan going to school at George Washington University. He only graduated high school in 2013 and already had a job in Grassley's office-pretty impressive! He took us through all the "back ways" and underground passage to get from the senate buildings to the Capitol. We even got to ride on the little underground trolley from the Senate buildings to the Capitol, quite fast and a short trip! While on the tour (a very speedy, one hour tour) we were taken all around the Capitol through the visitor's center, the Old Supreme Court Chambers, the Old Senate Chambers, the crypt, and the Rotunda. It was pretty cool. It was a shame however, that we went on a Friday when Congress/Senate were not in session, but then you could actually go into the current chambers. Seems a little backwards, right? The Rotunda was my favorite part (besides the underground tram) because of the paintings depicting major events in American history. A neat little tidbit is that the artist who painted the paintings in the Rotunda painted himself in a lot of them, always facing in the opposite direction as everyone else because he didn't like the government.
We woke up at the crack of dawn (normal time for Laura and early for Em and I) and got ready, then had our continental breakfast. For a budget place to stay, the Days Inn was pretty great. Clean, good continental breakfast, and really not that difficult to get into the city. We hopped on the bus, then switched the metro and got off at the Smithsonian as the first stop of our day was the Washington Monument.
We arrived at the Washington Monument early so that we could get tickets for the first trip up at 9 AM. So we get there and there is a MASSIVE line. We stood at the end of it, but then started piecing together that this may be a line for something else. Yesterday I had remembered hearing someone say in passing that there was a huge concert on the Mall (The National Mall is the big patch of green that many of the monuments stand on and the museums surround) for Earth Day. We asked someone behind us just to be sure and then went in search of the real entrance. We finally found it (the same entrance as the festival), but there was no line! We got right in an grabbed our tickets for nine. Did I mention it was a gorgeous day? High was 80 and it was sunny :) We went inside and up in the monument which was really exciting for me because last time when I visited it was closed for construction. We went up the 555 ft. 5 in to just about the top and saw some great views of the city, Virginia, and Maryland. It was also awesome because they had some maps/views of what each direction looked like and it oriented us-so we knew that over in this direction were the Jefferson, FDR, Korean and MLK memorials, and so on. SO happy we went early to this because it would have been hell to get through there when the Earth Day festivities were underway.
Next, we decided to walk in that direction towards the tidal Basin and the many monuments around it. Alas, peak bloom for cherry blossoms was not even a full week before, but as I discovered in my research that peak lasts only about three days :( Afterwards the trees are basically completely green as all of the blooms fall off. This is mostly what we saw around the Tidal Basin (the place where the highest concentration of blossoms are planted). On our walk over (it was kind-of on the way), we saw the WWII memorial and saw our first of many Honor Flights visiting. So glad and amazed that there are still veterans of WWII alive and that they are able to have trips like this. Also on the way to the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial, we saw some pretty flowers-such vibrant colors- so we posed with them, of course!
Then we finally arrived at the Jefferson Memorial, which looks a lot like the Lincoln Memorial from the outside with the large columns and such. It was pretty cool, but for reasons I can't explain, I get why it's the memorial that people forget to mention. Then we continued our walk along the basin and visited the FDR memorial. I remember this one from last time having running water in parts (that's about all I remember-ridiculous), but for some reason it wasn't cascading down everywhere that it should have been which was kind-of disappointing. But something I didn't remember about it was just HOW big/long the memorial is-it was quite impressive! I also liked the homage to Eleanor Roosevelt as when I was little and in TAG we had a "Night of the Notables" where we had to dress up like a notable person in history and have a presentation and booth all decorated about them-I chose Eleanor. Once we got to the "end" of the memorial we realized that it was really the beginning as it moves along according to his different terms in office. Oh well, we got the gist of it ;)
We eventually headed to Second State a bit early to see if they could get us in before our 6:45 reservation. We arrived and they weren't busy at all, which was great for us because it meant they COULD seat us early, yay! I had picked Second State because it seemed to be one of the "it" places right now with great reviews and a yummy drink list. It's "theme" was Pennsylvania. A weird theme, yes but it means they had pierogies on the menu and Wigle Whiskey and that was all I needed to know to sell me on it :) Let's be real, I picked Second State for the pierogies only. I felt a little uncomfortable in the restaurant because although I applaud my effort in finding a swanky place NOT full of tourists, it meant that us dressing like tourists (tennis shoes, water bottles in tow, sweaty, sunburned) was not quite up to par for the restaurant. Oh well, they didn't treat us any differently and we still really enjoyed our experience. The ambiance was excellent and the food and drink were top notch (or at least what I had). What did I order, you ask? The pierogie appetizer of course, as well as the mushroom bruschetta because of my new-found obsession with mushrooms. Popcorn was given to us at the beginning instead of bread or chips and it was definitely hitting the spot as well. I also bought a cocktail called the "Second Statement" which had Wigle whiskey in it. I am obsessed with Wigle because I knew them when they were just babies in the spirit world. Haha no really, when I lived in Pittsburgh three years ago, my friend and I stumbled upon this small distillery in The Strip District. They had no one there visiting, and the samples of their basic whiskeys were free! The next time I visited about 8 months later, they had tables and chairs, tours, fun cocktails, their tasting was NOT free anymore-but contained whiskey as well as rum and gin, and they were BUSY. They literally grew from practically nothing to SOMETHING really fast. So I love supporting them, and they've finally made it to MA now and it makes me very happy :) After dinner, we picked up a bottle of wine and a bottle of beer to take back to the hotel where we relaxed, gossiped some more and watched a bit of TV.
We woke up quite early again because we had yet another relatively full day. After grabbing breakfast at our hotel, we got on the bus to Pentagon Station and then walked around the Pentagon to the 9/11 Memorial. Luckily we arrived and were able to finish seeing the memorial before a huge busload of teenagers got there to visit it. It was an interesting memorial- uniquely designed, stark, but moving. As we were leaving though and the kids were moving in, they were walking all around it and sitting on the memorial pieces and Emily was *this close* to yelling at them like the responsible adults we have come to be. It was a little weird that we have gotten to that age now, that we want to harp on disrespectful children, but it's true.
Heading back to DC had been on my list for the East Coast for awhile, and I am so glad that it worked out for me to join two of my closest friends in a trip there. I had a blast walking, learning, eating, catching up with friends, and getting sunburned (just kidding on that last one).