Washington DC Vacation Recap Day 7

Our trip to DC was over and it was time to head home. But first, I wanted to make a small detour on our way west.

A few months before our trip, I was reading one my regular blogs when they talked about the Williams-Sonoma Outlet. It looked like heaven! A store full of bakeware and cookware all at discounted prices. I really wanted to go to one, but our closest outlets don't have it. But it turns out, there's a great outlet mall in Virginia and they have a Williams-Sonoma outlet in addition to other great outlets. I knew we had to go.

We checked out of the hotel in the morning and set the GPS for the outlet mall. About an hour later, we arrived. I didn't want to stay long because I was desperate to get home that day, but I just had to check out some stores.

First up, my hallowed place. The Vera Bradley outlet! I first went to the one outside Chicago and was disappointed with how small it was. I was pleasantly surprised to see that this one was a nice size and had a nice selection.



I took some sneaky pictures with my phone because I didn't want to be the weird girl taking pictures in the Vera Bradley outlet.



I didn't buy anything because I really didn't need anything. Plus, I knew the prices would be better at the outlet sale and it's a lot more fun to shop at the outlet sale.

Next up, we headed to the Williams-Sonoma outlet.



It was great! I wandered around for awhile looking at everything. I knew I wanted to get something, but I couldn't make up my mind.

I got this cheese slicer for my husband. We both pretty much suck at cutting cheese. I'm not sure why, but we just can't. This slices cheese from the block very easily and it adjusts to 3 different thicknesses. Is it necessary? No, but we like it.

I picked up these odd size measuring spoons too. They are 2 tsp., 1 1/2 Tbs. and 2 Tbs. Very handy for many of my baking recipes. I especially love the 2 Tbs.

We also picked up this Darth Vader spatula for a friend that loves Darth Vader.

Even though I wanted to stay and check out more of the outlets, I knew it was time to head home. So we hit the road and after a fairly uneventful drive, we arrived home later that evening. And with that, our vacation was over.

Washington DC Vacation Recap Day 6

On our last day in Washington DC, we woke up to a gray, drizzly day. It wasn't raining, but it was definitely a bit misty.

We took the Metro towards Arlington this time and got off at the Arlington National Cemetery stop. It was a quick walk to the visitors center, so no need to drive if you don't want to.

At the visitors center, we bought tickets to the Tourmobile tour of the cemetery. Admission to the cemetery is free and the Tourmobile tour costs $8.50/adult. Of course, you can also choose to just walk around the cemetery, but the tour is an easier way to get to the popular spots and it was one of the few things we paid for in DC.



Our first tour stop was the Kennedy gravesites.



We also saw the grave sites of Robert Kennedy and Edward Kennedy nearby. This area also provides a nice view of Washington DC. The nice thing about the tour is that they would drop you off and you could take as much time as you wanted at the stop. More trams would be by regularly and you were free to get on and off of them as you liked.

Also, the driver provided history and information about the cemetery as we were driving from one stop to the next. Our second stop was the Tomb of the Unknowns.



The tour is scheduled so that you arrive a few minutes before the changing of the guard. We watched the ceremony, but I didn't take any pictures. I wish I had though because I swear the relief commander looked like Dule Hill.

After the ceremony, we walked around to see some things that our tour driver had pointed out on our way to the Tomb. One of the things we looked at was the grave of Charles Frank Burlingame III. He was the pilot of the jet that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11.



Our driver had also pointed out the grave of Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier of WWII.


Also in the same area is the memorial for the USS Maine, a battleship that was sunk in Cuba in 1898, an event that led to the Spanish-American War.



There are also memorials to both space shuttle explosions in this area.

Our last tour stop was Arlington House, which was once the home of General Robert E. Lee. During the Civil War, the Union army began to use the grounds of the house as a cemetery to ensure that General Lee did not return to his house. It is now a memorial to him and you can walk through it. When we visited, it was being restored so the furnishings were not in it, but it was still interesting.

Since the house is on top of a hill, it gives great views of DC.



And you can see the Pentagon from here.



This is the side that was hit by the plane on 9/11.

On the way back to the visitors center, we drove by this grave.



That's the grave of President Taft.

After the tour, we took the Metro back to DC to check out a few things we hadn't seen yet.



Like this house. In front of that door in the middle, there were a bunch of people in suits, but they were too far away to tell if there was anybody important.



We walked up closer to get a better look.



We then walked over the White House visitors center and wandered through their exhibit on the history of the White House.

We did some more walking and just looking at things before taking one last ride on the Metro and head back to our hotel.



After dinner, we packed up and rested for our big day of driving back home. But first, we have a stop to make.

Washington DC Vacation Recap Day 5

After spending the past couple days mostly inside at museums, it was time for a change. On our fifth day of vacation, we headed to the National Zoo to spend the day outdoors.

I love going to zoos, so I was excited about our destination for the day. We took the Metro to the Zoo stop and then it's a short walk of a couple of blocks. It's uphill though so it wasn't the easiest walk, but we saw lots of interesting buildings and homes and it was a nice day.

Once we arrived at the zoo, we dove right in. The National Zoo is the only Smithsonian facility we visited that did not provide free paper maps. You could buy one for $2, but we elected to skip that option. They do have signs with maps posted around the zoo, so you don't get lost, but it would have been nice to know where we were all the time.

The National Zoo has a nice variety of animals and we took our time walking around and visiting all of them. As I said, the weather was nice that day and it wasn't crowded at all.

Here are just a few of the animals we saw that day...



Elephants



Pandas! I was very excited about the pandas since this is only 1 of 4 zoos in the United States to have pandas. They were very cute and I took lots of pictures. Sadly, most of them didn't turn out well due to the poor lighting and the fact that pandas don't like to pose for pictures. We spent a lot of time watching this guy eat and we even made a second trip back to the pandas after we saw all the other animals.

 

Owls! The zoo actually has several different breeds of owls which was exciting because our local zoo only has one barn owl.



Orangutans - These guys were being very playful and entertaining.



Lots of lizards and other reptiles and amphibians



Lions and other big cats



And of course, Red Pandas! I took tons of pictures of this baby red panda and his parents. But again, poor lighting and movement meant not so great pictures. I spent a long time watching him explore and play. The red pandas are in a temporary exhibit in the Giant Panda's building while the Red Panda home is remodeled.



Sadly, this is probably the closest I'll ever get to touching a Red Panda.

I mentioned before that we tried to avoid buying food at the museums because it was horribly overpriced. We did get lunch at the zoo because we needed to keep our strength up for all the walking we were doing and there wasn't any place outside of the zoo to eat. (That we knew of anyway.) The food was typical zoo food, but it was what we needed and we got souvenir cups to take home.

After the zoo, we took the Metro to Dupont Circle in DC. Prior to our trip, I had been researching places to eat and I looked into some cupcake shops. One of them was called Hello Cupcake and it sounded good. My friend Tricia had been to DC a couple weeks before our trip and she checked it out. She recommended them, so we decided to visit and pick up some cupcakes to enjoy later.

The shop was really cute and they had a good assortment of flavors. We got 4 different flavors to try. It was really hard not to eat them right then, but I did manage to get them back to the hotel safely.



Our flavors were...

Peanut Butter Blossom - Chocolate cupcake topped with peanut butter frosting and a chocolate kiss. M picked this one. The cupcake had a great chocolate flavor and was very moist, but the peanut butter frosting was a bit rich for my tastes. I did like them together, but it was a good thing we split this one!

Heart of Darkness - Devil's food cupcake topped with chocolate ganache-based frosting and real chocolate chip sprinkles. OMG, this was good! I LOVE chocolate and this delivered. The frosting was thick and rich. Luckily I had snagged some bottles of milk from the free breakfast and stored them in our fridge. I definitely needed milk to help wash this one down. Only eat this one if you are serious about your chocolate.

Prima Donna - Chocolate cupcake topped with strawberry buttercream frosting. M's pick. This one was all M's. I tried it, but the strawberry buttercream frosting was too sweet for me.

You Tart! - Lemon cupcake topped with lemon cream cheese frosting. My favorite! As much as I liked the Heart of Darkness, this one was tops for me. The fresh lemon taste was refreshing and not overpowering at all. The frosting was delicious. I savored every bite of this one and I crave it all the time. This made me realize just how much I love a good lemon cupcake.

We only have one day left in DC, what will we do next?

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.

Washington DC Vacation Recap Day 3

After eating our complimentary breakfast and catching a ride to the Metro, we were headed back into DC on our third day of vacation.

It was Saturday and our first destination was the National Mall. It was the first day of the National Book Festival. I had been wanting to go to it ever since The Pioneer Woman wrote about it last year. I had no idea such a thing even existed until she wrote about her experience presenting at it. I love books and I love free things, so this sounded like it was right up my alley.

We got off the Metro at the Smithsonian stop and once out of the station, we were in the middle of the mall. Immediately I was awestruck by the sea of white tents in front of me. This was big!

We started to wander, trying to get our bearings. A friendly volunteer handed us a booklet that had a map, all the schedules, and information about all the authors.  Unfortunately, there weren't really any authors I was dying to meet or listen to, so we did end up skipping the talks and signings.  However, we did head for the Pavilion of States. Ree had talked about this last year and it sounded interesting.

On our way to that tent, I stopped to peek into the Children's tent to see who was talking. It turns out, Julianne Moore was being introduced. I confess I didn't even know she had written a children's book.

Bad phone picture, but I swear that's her!

We also stopped at a tent when we noticed everybody in the crowd had a big blue bag. Turns out, they were being handed out for free courtesy of C-Span! M and I both got one and they were handing out bottles of water courtesy of Target.

Anyway, we moved along to the tent housing the Pavilion of States. Every state and territory had a table in the tent. I picked up a US map and every table stamped their state. It was pretty fun to go around and collect all the stamps. Plus, most every table had free things to grab. Mostly just bookmarks, stickers, pencils, etc. Luckily we had that big bag to stuff things in!

After the tent, we headed to our other destination for the day, The National Museum of Natural History. This museum is a lot like the Field Museum in Chicago, so I didn't think we'd spend much time here, but we actually did. They have lots of dinosaurs and fossils, which M loves and the Field doesn't have

I also liked the dead animal displays a lot better than the Field's. The animals were posed in lifelike poses and with animals they lived with in the wild.

I love this guy, he looks insane!

We were also very interested in the gems and minerals displays.

This is the tube used to rescue the miners in Chile. They had a great exhibit about that.

Here's the Hope Diamond. It's blue, but it's hard to get a good picture of it. It rotates and everyone crowds around its display case.

When we were done at the museum, we walked towards the Washington Monument and took some pictures. The Monument was still closed since it was damaged in the earthquake so couldn't go up in it.

The Smithsonian Castle across from the museum. Here you can see the tents from the Book Festival and the crowds. Of course, I didn't take pictures of the actual Festival.

Looking towards the Capitol. Again, you can see the crowds and tents here.

Afterward, we were starving, so we headed to one of my favorite southern restaurants, Fuddruckers! I was craving a burger and it hit the spot. After that, we headed to a shopping center that had a HomeGoods. You know it's my favorite store and since we don't have any at home, we must go to them when we travel.

And I found something I really wanted.

What's that I spy? Is that...

It is! A Vera Bradley Yellow Bird lamp! My husband even said, "Is that Yellow Bird?" I wanted to hug it and take it home with me even though it's the wrong colors for our living room.The birds would have been perfect and I would have been fine with black and yellow instead of black and green.

Sadly, the price tag was not huggable. $80 is about $40 more than I'm willing to spend on a lamp, even a Vera Bradley lamp. Although the original price was $250 so $80 was a good bargain, but I just couldn't justify it now matter how much I wanted it. So, I left without the lamp.