Day #4 started with a 2-hr bus tour of the National Mall. Drove around various sites from US Capitol to the Monuments past National Archives and various National Museums – very nice, scenic and picturesque. Kid #1 & My favorite – Lincoln Memorial (pictures on next day). Kid #2’s favorite – Washington Memorial.
While the sites were great, we were getting impatient to step out and start walking…. Our 1st stop – National Museum of Natural History. Very informative and a unique experience. I would say pretty much at the same level of its contemporaries like the Field Museum in Chicago. Needless to say kids were very impressed. The best part – The “infamous” Hope Diamond.
Random tips for DC sight seeing:
1) DC National museums are free but the bag check line is huge. It takes only 20-30 mins and the lines move fast – but it is still mins out of your day.
2) there is a lot of walking between sites and museums. Beware if you have younger kids – we did ~15k steps every day.
After the museum came time to see our friends and family. We hadn’t seen them in almost 10 years. It is surprising what kids remember – both kid #1s remember that when kid #2s were born, kid #1s went to stay with each other…. That was their 1st ever sleepovers at 3 or 4 years of age. Lol.
An impromptu conversation about not walking more led to boating at The Tidal Basin. It was fun for the kids – as we let them do all the pedaling and driving, while I was just the photographer.
In the evening we were supposed to go on an evening bus tour. But just like any other DC attraction it was over booked and we were a tad bit late…. So instead of compromising on bad seats we decided that we had had enough for one day and we will do the night tour next night. So what did we do – had a picnic at The National Mall.
On our way to our hotel we had an epiphany. The IRS headquarters is right next door to The Old Postmasters head office. The new owner of the building – The Trump International Hotel. Talk about ironies.
Fun experiences of 2 kids and their dad 