Day 4 DC 4/19/18

A funny thing happened last night.  We looked up kid-friendly places to eat in DC and found a place called The Diner, which serves breakfast all day and sounded good.  It was too far to walk and there wasn't a convenient metro stop nearby so we took a cab.  As soon as we went inside, Zoe, Dave, and I recognized it as one of our favorites from the last time we were here!  Our B and B from last time was just around the corner.  We had a good meal and came back to the condo for showers before bedtime.

This morning it was raining and a bit on the cold side so we donned our sweatshirts and raincoats and walked our .8 of a mile to the metro stop.  We decided on the way, that city people have great opportunities for exercise.  We went to the Museum of American History first and had a great time looking at the exhibits.  We saw Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street and Bill Nye, the science guy's lab coat.

We went to a room called the Spark!Lab, where the kids made a tactile map for the blind and invented a device for transporting animals.  They enjoyed the creativity.

There was an old gramaphone in the hallway and Nathaniel got to wind it up.  I got to choose the record and I chose Caruso (a very early recording) as my father always had his music on the record player when I was growing up.  It brought back fond memories for me.

After we explored both wings of the first floor, we went to lunch in the cafeteria.  There was a Statue of Liberty made entirely of Legos as we entered - quite cool!

After lunch we went to the second floor.  There is an entire house here.  It was in Ipswich, MA - built in the 1760's.  The exhibit detailed five families that lived in the house over 200 years.  It started as a fashionable house for a fairly well-to-do family and a hundred years later with the advent of industry in the area, was converted to apartments for factory workers.  The kids enjoyed following the families through the years and were especially interested in the ration books and victory gardens during the war years.  We also viewed an exhibit called Many Voices, One Nation, which talked about the various immigrants that make up our country.  We ended up in the American Democracy Hall where the kids found the inkwell used by Abraham Lincoln to sign the Emancipation Proclamation (see photo).  This was one of their items on the scavenger list.

We went up to the third floor to see the Gunboat Philadelphia which sank in Lake Champlain during the Revolutionary War.  As we exited the museum we walked by some wonderful cherry trees in blossom so we all stopped to take pictures.  We walked by the Washington Monument (under renovation so you can't go in) and walked along the reflecting pool stopping to take a photo of the White House before visiting the Lincoln Memorial.  The kids stood on the spot where Martin Luther King gave his famous I have a dream speech and did a good job finishing their questions about the memorial.  

The wind had picked up after we left the History Museum and the walk to the Lincoln Memorial was pretty challenging - even Dave was staggered a bit by the buffeting.  We decided to take a cab back to the condo and take a short break before dressing up and going out to our "fancy dinner".