Washington DC, Part 1

My friends, is there ANY doubt as to where we are? We left Philadelphia and drove to Washington DC, with the entire LoLo Clan in tow. We deposited our bags in the hotel rooms we had arranged for the family, and caught a train for DC proper.

Side note - have you any idea how hard it is to find a parking spot at a train station in the DC metro area? Really. Hard. At least, it is during business hours. Consider yourself warned.

Side note, two - if you are going to be riding the train several times in a day, for sight seeing purposes for example, make sure you get an unlimited Day Pass. This saved us a bundle. Also good to note - you MUST purchase one of their little metro cards if you want to get your car out of the park and ride you left it in. Oh, and make sure you park in the "Park & Ride" portion of the station, not the "Kiss & Ride." We were confused at first as to why a parking lot would be called "Kiss & Ride". BECAUSE IT'S NOT A PARKING LOT. It's a loading/unloading zone. Hence...KISS 'em goodbye AND go RIDE on the train! (Because anyone nice enough to drive you to the train station deserves a kiss and hugs in cars are just awkward.)

Moving on.

Aunt LoLo with the Washington Monument.

Our train brought us almost directly under the monuments we wanted to see. On the first (scorching!) day we headed off towards the Washington Monument. (We left the other direction for our second day.)

(L-R: Siu Jeun, Lo Gung, BBJ, MaMa, YehYeh...oh, and the Washington Monument)

(Up close and personal with the Washington Monument!)

(I copied another gentleman to get this shot: I had my back to the corner of the monument, pointed my camera straight up and *click*. Then I rotated my picture in my photo editing program, and voila - perfect shot of a really tall monument.)

After we had hiked up to the Washington Monument, we came back down the hill, crossed the street, and went to the WWII Monument. BBJ was happy to go take pictures with the water. (There may have been some splashing involved!) I found a cool place in the shade to feed Siu Jeun.

I saw something very scary while I was feeding him. A woman in a hurry, rushing down the shady path next to me, dragging a four year old boy along by the hand. She was calling out a name that sounded REMARKABLY similar to my own daughter's name. Finally, she found what she was looking for - across the busy street that divides the two monuments was her daughter. She looked to be just about BBJ's age, and she was holding a stranger's hand. The couple that had her had obviously realized she should not be alone, and were looking around for her mother. In her relief, the poor woman forgot to hit the "pedestrian" button at the crosswalk, and so had to wait quite a while before she could cross over to retrieve her daughter. (I could hardly believe it when I saw the Good Samaritan Couple let go of the toddler's hand and walk off, after they had made sure it was the toddler's mother on the other side of the street. I would have waited until the mother crossed the street....but the couple looked young, and dating and...like they didn't know that leaving a two year old at the edge of a busy road was a bad idea. At least they watched out for her until her mother could find her!)

(At the edge of the reflection pond near the WWII Memorial. That's the Lincoln Memorial behind me.)

(The path connecting the WWII Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial, along the reflection pond. There was a rather LARGE youth leadership conference going on in DC while we were there, and the students were out en force while we were gawking at the monuments. One of the girls, who looked to be from Japan, saw BBJ pushing her own little stroller down the path and flirting with anyone who would look at her. This girl pulled out her camera and took a picture of BBJ. She now has a proud place in someones Youth Conference in Washington DC scrapbook. A proud, proud day.)

As we approached the Washington Monument, I told BBJ that we were going to go up the stairs and see a "big, big man." Of course, BBJ then turned around to a complete stranger and announced, "I'm going upstairs to see the Big Man." The world better watch out for this girl!

Our final stop of the day - the Vietnam War Memorial, and this statue nearby. I'm not sure what it was called, but it depicted three female soldiers caring for a wounded male soldier. It was beautiful.

Come back tomorrow for our last day in DC, and *dum dum dum* my first in-real-life blogger meet up! Underground subways, brilliant moves in the senate, history lessons, chili and a really, really rude start to the day. You don't wanna miss it.