It has been too long since I have posted! The summer just flew by and we took so many trips this year! And now school is in full swing and we are busy!!! I’m getting back into a routine with balancing life, my family and my business and wanted to share one of the highlights from our summer. My husband had a conference in Washington DC in July so we decided to turn it into a vacation and had the BEST time!!! And we drove! 14 hours! (not straight through 🙂 ) Here are some of the highlights.
We drove from Mississippi to Tennessee and stopped at Ruby Falls which is a cave in Lookout Mountain. You walk through the cave at at the end you find a beautiful 145ft natural waterfall! It was spectacular!
After Ruby Falls we spent the night in TN. The next day we tracked on through Virginia and landed at the Gaylord National Harbor Hotel in the DC area for my husband’s conference. Some of my Shaklee friends may remember this beautiful hotel from our global conference in 2011.
We always have fun visiting our friends the Caruth’s when we visit DC. David and Brian went to pharmacy school together in Iowa! David was at his conference when we took this picture so he missed the fun.
Based off of our friend Karen’s suggestion, we drove out of the city aways near the Dulles airport to go to the Big Air and Space museum which I recommend if you have a car when visiting DC. It’s in this huge hanger and even has the space shuttle Discovery housed there which is bigger then I imagined it would be! It was HUGE and AMAZING!!
Even with the Capitol under renovation, it was still spectacular to visit and take a tour!
I think my favorite part of the trip was our monument tour. We set this up ahead of time through our Congressional office and it is done (very well!) through the Park Ranger service. We, along with another son and father group were picked up at 8:30am by van and taken all over Washington with up close and personal tours of the major monuments and memorials. It.Was.Fantastic!!!!
Jerry Hawn was our guide. He’s been with the Park Rangers for years and is in charge of these types of tours which are usually done by interns. We got lucky with Jerry as he knows everything about Washington! And even gave a private tour of the MLK to the Prime Minister of India last year and President Obama also joined them!!!
Our first stop was to the great Washington Monument, which you can see just about anywhere in Washington. It’s the tallest structure there and we were able to by-pass the lines and get right in the elevator to go straight to the top! I have been to DC two other times, but this was a first for me and so cool!
A view of the White House from the top of the Washington Monument.
I think my favorite from this tour was the World War II Memorial. It was really beautiful with so much detail.
The boys really loved the Jefferson Memorial.
I love this picture of Andrew touching the engraved names of soldiers lost in Vietnam.
The detail captured in the expressions of the soldiers at the Korean War Memorial is really something.
This was taken at the Roosevelt Monument.
Loved visiting the Lincoln Monument
We did a lot of walking!!
We did a lot of visiting at some of the Smithsonian museums. It is fantastic that they are all free! The Natural History and American History were our favorites. Here’s Andrew in front of the big vault at the American History museum. He loves money and old coins so he could have spent our entire vacation here looking!
along those lines we got up early one day to get tickets to see where they make the money! Here we are waiting for our tour!
You can’t take pictures inside but we were able to take this one before we went in. Yes, that is actually a million dollars in ten dollar bills! And they made it really clear that the box is set with an alarm. 🙂
We were bummed that we did not get the congressional white house tour. David and I took that tour in 2005 and it’s really neat. Although in hind sight it’s probably best as I didn’t want to be responsible for our kids breaking a 100 year old presidential vase or anything. 🙂 This is as close as we got because they had closed the entire grounds while we were there. Next time!
Like I said, we did a LOT of walking so one day we hired a pedal cab. I was afraid for my and my family’s life admittedly, but he got us to where we wanted to go in one piece so I guess we can’t complain. The boys loved it. Note: the driver in this picture is not the actual driver of the bike. He had trouble reaching the pedals. 😉
Per the suggestion of our friends Jason and Kristie (who also lent us their Metro cards so we could get around easily – thank you!) we had a fantastic and healthy lunch at the USDA cafeteria!
They were filming a cooking show while we were there. Loved it!
The last thing we did before leaving town was visit the largest Catholic Cathedral in the US – The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was really spectacular!
Looks pretty real, doesn’t it? The Pope really is going to visit here very soon so if you are in the area, what a once in a lifetime opportunity to see him!!
Mother Theresa
I hope you enjoyed taking a look at our family’s trip to DC! We really had a wonderful time. DC is very easy to get around and fun to visit. Our whole family enjoyed it.
Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day.
Rebecca
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