Day 2 - Cherry Hill, Maryland
Friday 6/29/2001
Excursion: Washington DC
Today we had decided to go into Washington to do some sight-seeing. We tried to get up very early, but we were so sleep deprived from yesterday's travel and the preparations before the trip that we could not bring ourselves out of bed until 9am. We ate breakfast and walked over to the bus-station by 10:15am. Today the Metrobus was free due to the smog like conditions they had.
Taking the Metrobus from the campground to the Metro (subway)
It was warm and muggy. We rode into the subway (click here for their website), took the Green and then the Red line and got off at Union Station downtown DC. That is a very nice station. We had pre-bought tickets for both the Metro ride and for the Tourmobile, an open bus you can use for seeing parts of DC (click here for their website).
Riding the Washington DC subway
While the Tourmobile is not air-conditioned, it is open and there is a nice breeze coming through the bus as it drives between stops. It stops by a number of land-marks. You can get off the bus and take the next one.
Riding by Union Station with open windows in the Tourmobile
The buses go 20 minutes apart. Our first stop was to get off by the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. We had not planned that but Isabella insisted as the bus drove by it. There is a bus stop just outside the building. Very convenient.
Getting ready to visit Smithsonian museum of Natural history.
Entrance is free. We looked at several exhibits they had on display. The dinosaur exhibit is definitely a draw magnet for kids. There were also many other different ones. At about 12:30 we were hungry and decided to eat at the cafeteria they have down in the museum basement. We got a table immediately even though the place was almost packed. The food is not cheap there, but food is not cheap anywhere in DC so it did not matter much. We had already saved money by not taking the most expensive tour-bus from the campground into the city. It was a nice break. After food we continued to wander a few exhibits and then headed outside. You could really feel the difference between inside and outside. It was hot and muggy outside. By luck, as we walked out of the museum, a bus had stopped right in front of it. We got on and rode over to the Washington monument. Unfortunately, the elevator was broken so you could not take a ride up. We walked towards the reflecting pool and the Lincoln memorial.
Taking a sip of water in the hot sun. Karl got his hat soaked in cold water.
The kids stopped to see a few ducks along the way. In some places they have water fountains you can drink from. That is very nice.
Looking at ducklings on the way to Lincoln memorial
The Lincoln memorial is quite impressive, with the marble pillars and steps leading up to the actual statue of Lincoln inside. There must have been 200-300 people up there, taking turns to have their picture taken in front of Lincoln. People were also sitting on the stairs in front of the memorial, looking towards the reflecting pool and the Washington monument. Quite a sight. It was definitely a hot day. We drank a lot of water. Somehow Isabella disappeared from us when we explored the monument. She had told Erik she was going to go down and look at the ducks. We interpreted that as being the ducks in the reflecting pool. We looked for her for a while, in ever greater circles. After a while I gave up and talked to the Park rangers to report her as a missing person. They dispatched information out to other rangers in the park area. We continued looking. One of the park rangers got onto his police motorcycle and rode off on the walking trails. Only 30 seconds after leaving us we could see that she had found Isabella, who was walking towards us. I thanked the park ranger for his help. Isabella had apparently gone off to the other pond, by herself, to visit the other ducks we walked by earlier. She did not realize that she had exposed herself to any danger.
Karl posing in front of gigantic statue of Abraham Lincoln
We got back onto the Tourmobile and rode back to Union station. The sky had clouded over a little bit and we had a few raindrops come down. We got down to the Metro for our ride home. We rode the Metrobus for the last part back to the campground.
The White House, which is rather small compared to buildings around it.
It takes about one hour from Union Station back to the campground. It was late afternoon when we got back. We prepared an early dinner; we bbq:d some steaks. Yum. I called Vincent to see where he was. He was on his way around Baltimore!! Great. His plan was now to tour Washington tomorrow, to take advantage of the day where he did not have a site down in Myrtle Beach.
Before going to bed we hooked up the trailer and got ready as much as we could to pull out in the morning. The kids really wanted to go into the pool again, so Lilly took them down for a quick dip. I went to bed. We set the alarm on 3am.
