Capital (Ad)Ventures

I have many fond memories of Washington D.C. My family visited during the Clinton years and Daniel’s sister and brother lived here for a while after college. After studying American history with the kids over the years, we were very much looking forward to taking them on their first trip to our nation’s capital. There’s just nothing like seeing the monuments, the Capitol building, and the White House in person. And not to mention, the chance to ride the Metro! We found a great campground near the University of Maryland that had bus station right in the campground that would transport us to the nearest Metro station.

For our first day out, I decided to take the Metro all the way to Alexandria so we could explore Old Town. It was a beautiful day for strolling the cobblestone streets, dining al fresco, and doing a little shopping. The walk from the metro was a little long, but at least it was scenic! I thought we would be able to hop on the free trolley that runs through Old Town, but evidently that only operates on the weekend.

After such a long walk, the priority became finding lunch. Got to keep the morale up! King Street is the main drag through Old Town and the very end by the marina is blocked off to traffic and all the restaurants have tents and tables set up for dining outdoors. We chose an Italian place called Mia’s and joined the crowds of people enjoying lunch in the sunshine.

After lunch, we walked down to the marina to see the boats. There is a really cool, old ship called The Providence that offers tours, but alas, not on the day we were there.

After a stop at Pop’s ice cream, we spent the rest of the afternoon shopping before catching the Metro back to College Park.

For our next DC day, we decided to take the Metro to town and check out the International Spy Museum. Unfortunately, the Smithsonians were still closed but a few independently operated museums were up and running. The International Spy Museum has a very cool theme and we had a good time using the interactive kiosks to complete spy initiatives. The museum is organized very well and we were able to learn about the evolution of espionage over the centuries. I was interested to learn that George Washington is considered America’s original spymaster. Cornwallis was quoted as saying that a large reason America won the war for Independence is because the British were “out spied” by Washington.

For our last DC day, Daniel was able to join us for a full day of touring around the National Mall. We started at the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial and the FDR memorial, both of which Daniel and I had never explored. We both agreed they were among our favorites of the day! We were also able to visit the Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, and World War II memorials. After the Lincoln memorial, we stopped to have a picnic by the reflecting pool. We were so surprised that no one else was sitting on the grass that we stopped a ranger to ask if it was okay. (It is!) I guess we were the only ones with the idea on that day!

We did walk over to the White House, but you can’t get very close or see very much due to a large wooden fence around the perimeter. Pretty disappointing! Our first visit with the kids might not have been all that I hoped it would be (thanks COVID), but we were still able to do and see quite a bit. I can’t wait to take them back in a few years and fill in the gaps from what we missed.