Welcome to Washington!

Here we are at the Lincoln Memorial, one of the best known monuments in Washington.  The statute and the building that houses it are very impressive!  It is at the end of the Mall, which is a long park, or green space that runs for about 2 miles in downtown Washington.  Most of the monuments and museums are found along this area.  We are staying at Cherry Hill Park, which is only about 8 miles away from this area, but by the time we take the city bus from the campground, to the Metro train that takes us into downtown, it still takes about an hour.  We have been warned that driving in DC during the day is pretty scary, and there is not a whole lot of parking, especially for a big truck!  We have met 2 other couples from Calgary who are staying here as well!  That is pretty neat, as we are seeing less and less license plates from Canada.  

We have been to see a number of the monuments and memorials on our walks.   We spent about 4 hours at the Natural History Museum. The Smithsonian Museum is actually made up of 15 museums in and around Washington.  The best part is that they are all free!!!  There is so much to see at each of them, though, it is pretty overwhelming.  Even I am starting to get a little museum-outed.  (Yeah, Yeah, that's not a word, I know!)  Still, we have to try to
see as much as we can while we are here.

Yesterday we stopped by at the Canadian Embassy - that is where we found the red couch!  It was really cool to be sitting on Canadian soil for a few minutes!!  Of course we managed to pick up some brochures for school on US/Canadian relations while we were there, just so we can write it off as a business expense. (ha ha ha)

We also visited the National Archives where we saw a copy of the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constititution.  While in the gift shop, we had a strong urge to slip a copy of the Declaration into our jacket, but we did not (Movie reference - who knows where that is from???)

The Air and Space Museum took up the rest of the day!!  A truly amazing collection of aircraft, space craft, and tons of hands on activities to teach all the related concepts.  There were at least 4 different school groups there (bad timing on lunch by us, but still was quick because they have the infrastructure to handle it) and the place is so big, you could hardly tell.  I can imagine how busy it would be during the summer though. 

 The kids (and us) continue to learn a ton, I just hope we can retain most of it.  That's one of the few negatives about this kind of a trip - everything is all squished together in one big experience - I just hope we will be able to spread it out and remember it all once we are done!