Washington DC Vacation Recap Day 4

On our fourth day of vacation, we headed back to the Smithsonian. This time, we were checking out the National Museum of American History. (Can you tell we're history nerds?)

Our first stop was the Star Spangled Banner display. It was a really great exhibit full of history of the time and of the flag itself. I'm sure I saw the flag when I visited D.C. as a teen, but I had forgotten how massive it is. We spent quite a bit of time just standing there looking at it. It's pretty amazing to think how many people have seen it and just what all it inspired. Pictures are not allowed in this exhibit, so I borrowed this picture from the Smithsonian to show you how the flag is displayed now.

Source

We visited most of the exhibits in the museum, but there a few that I was excited about seeing prior to our visit.

First was Julia Child's kitchen. I used to love watching her cooking shows on PBS on Saturdays as a teen. She was very entertaining and her food always looked so good.

Have you seen Julie & Julia? It's a good movie and Julie even visits Julia's kitchen at the end of the movie.

The other exhibit I was excited to see was the First Ladies. I love the First Ladies and all the history that goes with them. So of course, I loved the rooms filled with their clothes and personal items.

 This dress was worn by Helen Taft to the inaugural ball. The beading was amazing.

This was Mamie Eisenhower's inaugural gown. It's one of my favorite dresses.

The dress on the left is Hilary Clinton's and the dress on the right is Laura Bush's.

After looking at the pretty dresses, we had to go see some pretty shoes!

The ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz! I think they've faded quite a bit with age, but they're still sparkly!

Really funny story: I happened to check my phone after we had seen the ruby slippers and noticed that my wedding photographer had posted a picture of them that day. I left a comment and we figured out that we had been in the same building at the same time, but never saw each other! We kept an eye out for them but never did see them. What are the chances of that happening?

After the museum, we decided to take a walk and go see the monuments. Most of them are in a pretty straight line right there at the Mall, so we started walking.

The Washington Monument was actually first, but I showed you that the other day and we still couldn't go in it. The next monument was the World War II Monument. This is 3/4 of it. Behind me were more of those pillars you see across the way. Each one represents a state.

We then saw the Vietnam Memorial. We walked along it and looked, but luckily for us, we don't know any of the names on the wall. We are very fortunate that both our fathers came back from the war.

Here's the Lincoln Memorial. I don't think I went into this one last time. The stairs are a bit scary as there's no handrail and that always makes me nervous since I'm clumsy.

But I made it and it was worth it. I was really amazed at how big Abe was. You really can't tell just how big he is in pictures.

There's the Washington Monument. As you can see, the Reflecting Pool was totally gone. They are redoing it, so it was just a bunch of dirt and equipment. Not the prettiest picture, but oh well.

On our way back to the Metro, we spied the Jefferson Memorial. It was actually a bit farther out, so we decided not to walk to it. This was about the closest we go to it the whole trip.