Weekend In Washington DC...

Over the weekend I drove down to Washington DC with my mother for the Cherry Blossom Festival.

We left super early on Friday morning thinking that we'd hit traffic and what not, but we didn't so we got into DC hours before we anticipated. We found a parking garage and started wandering. We ended up having lunch in Chinatown at a place called Asian Spice. It was so yummy!

After eating we hit up the (Smithsonian) National Portrait Gallery and looked at everything they had before walking across the street to go on a three hour Segway tour of the city through City Segway Tours.

We got to see the Capital, White House, the Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Pennsylvania Avenue, the Smithsonian Castle, the National Archives, National Galleries of Art, the Vietnam Memorial, WWII Memorial, Korean Memorial, etc. while rolling around on our Segways -- True story, every time I'm on a Segway I sing "Riding Dirty" by Chamillionare.


Once the tour was over we went to find our hotel and check in. We found the hotel (Capital Skyline Hotel) relatively quickly and decided to go up to our room and relax for a bit before heading out for dinner and calling it a night.

Saturday we got up, decided that we were gonna leave the car behind and walk DC -- The hotel we were at was a fifteen minute walk away from the Capital Building. Our first stop was the Cherry Blossom Parade on Constitution Avenue. It was a parade, so it wasn't particularly exciting -- Nothing like going to Pride or the Halloween Parade in New York City obviously.

So after watching for a bit we decided that while everyone else was watching the parade we'd head over to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. It was really neat. We got to see Kermit and Dorothy's ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz (1939) and other randomness.

Once we saw everything we were hungry so we walked around until we decided on eating at Capital City Brewing Company. After lunch and futzing around we headed back up towards Capital Hill and we went to visit the Library of Congress. We looked at the exhibits and bought things from the gift shop before heading back to the hotel to rest before going back out for a haunted tour I had booked for the evening.

Before going on the haunted tour we tried to have dinner at a restaurant that the Segway guide had recommend but the place was packed. So we drove around, parked and started looking for something to eat. We didn't find a sit down restaurant that we wanted to eat at so we ended up eating ice cream before walking over to the meeting spot for the tour.

The actual tour was nice for the $30.00 I paid for us to go on it. It wasn't awesome like the one Justin and I went on in Philadelphia, but it was a decent way to spend an hour and a half.

When it was over we just drove back to the hotel because we were both tired from our long day of walking around.

Sunday morning we woke up early to drive over to DuPont Circle to have breakfast at the Mansion on O Street. We got there thirty minutes earlier than our reservation so we wandered around and ended up finding a farmers market. After seeing what was available we headed over to the mansion.

The breakfast there was nothing special but that isn't why we went there. We went there because the mansion is comprised of five brownstones that have sixty-one hidden doors throughout the property. If you have a meal there after you're done you are free to wander around. So we ate a quick meal and spend a good hour or so wandering around looking for hidden doors and at all of the randomness throughout the place. It was like this crazy magical place. I loved it.

When we were done wandering we decided to drive over to Arlington to see the National Cemetery. While we were there we caught the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider and just looked around.

Once we had our fill we started the drive back up to New York. The drive shouldn't have taken more than five hours but we got stuck in traffic in New Jersey so it took us forever to get home. The worse part about the whole thing was that I hadn't eaten anything since 10:00am, so I was starving. It was terrible.

Eventually we got into New York and we stopped at a fast food place to get something to eat. Unfortunately instead of a peaceful in and out the dude behind the counter found the need to hit on me and ask my mother if I was available. She said no and we ran away.

I cannot tell you how happy I was to get home after that evil ride through New Jersey.

Overall I had a great weekend and I very much so enjoyed going to Washington DC with my mother.