Washington D.C. continued

The next couple of days we continued riding the METRO and walking the streets of D.C. My niece almost didn't bring her tennis shoes and she was so glad she did!

We went to the Holocaust Museum and all I can say is Wow! Very sad!! We walked through this one exhibit that took over an hour to go through. There was a feeling of reverence as everyone was walking through. It was very quiet at times. I recommend this to anyone who gets out to D.C.


We also went to the International Spy Museum which was pretty cool. You got to see all the different things Spy's used and where they hid things and what they would do to let the "other" person know they had information like putting a piece of tape on a Blue Mailbox! Who would've known?

We saw the Washington monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, The Vietnam Memorial, and the Capitol. These are all a must see!







The Vietnam wall was amazing. There are 58,260 names of men and women that were killed or are still missing listed on this wall.


We went and saw the tomb of the unknown soldier and watched the changing of the guards. That was cool! We had to watch it twice to get a different view! Highly recommended!



Another great memorial is the Iwo Jima memorial! It was a lot bigger than I expected! Highly recommended also!




The only museum we went to at the Smithsonian was the Air and Space museum. A lot of neat things to look at and I would recommend it.



Because of my brothers work, we were able to go to the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA. That was fun! I spent most of my money there at the gift shop! :) We rode in a skid car that the agents in training use that teaches you about skid avoidance and teaches them to think proactively. It has wheels that extend out from the original wheels of the car and actually "lift" the original wheels off the ground. It was awesome! Of course we had a very experienced driver who has been teaching there for a long time! Sorry I don't have a picture of the car! Investigative stuff always intrigues me so I had fun!

This is what they call their make believe town where they can practice going into different buildings




We took a drive to see the Washington D.C. temple! It is beautiful! You drive along the freeway and wonder where it's at because there are so many trees. Then there is an opening in the forest of trees and Wow! There it is! Very pretty!






I had a blast on this trip and want to go again sometime. According to my niece, there wasn't a lot of "normal" food there. We saw several McDonalds and Subways, but even they were hit and miss. Lots of Cafe's and of course your hot dog stands on the corner. :) I think finding breakfast was the hardest! We finally found a grocery store our second to last night there and just ended up buying cereal and milk!

For your next trip to D.C.: wear comfortable shoes, no rental car needed. The subway takes you everywhere. Get to know the subway system! I was glad I had my brother there with me at the beginning because he knew what he was doing.

Many sights require tickets to get in that you need to wait in line for the morning of, or you might be able to get advance tickets throught he internet.