Sunday, December 7, 2014

NY/DC Trip - Day 7

A lot of photos in this post, so it's kind of long.

I woke up at 7:00am on this morning, and got out of bed at 8:30.  We met Mom at 9:30 for breakfast, where I had the American breakfast again; this time with pork sausage and decaf coffee.

A view of Pinea, the hotel's restaurant where we had breakfast each morning
Breakfast tableau

We left the hotel at 10:30am.  It was bitterly cold again today; worse than the day before.  We walked south from the hotel and around the Tidal Basin to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.

The wind has really picked up today
Our first destination, the Jefferson Memorial
Hey, we were just over there
Bundled up
Mom at the top
Near and far
Mr. Jefferson
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."
Dome interior
A wider view

Then we continued on around the Tidal Basin to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (one of my favorites - it's stunning at night).

Looking back.  Who knew there was a downstairs area under the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials?
Fala the dog and FDR
Waterfalls





Roosevelt was first inaugurated into office in 1933 - the first of four terms as president
He held office from 1933 until 1945, when he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage

The next memorial on our path was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.

My goodness, we've walked a lot so far today
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Out of a mountain of despair, a stone of hope."

After the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial we walked to the Korean War Veterans Memorial.  On the way we watched two Osprey helicopters fly over.






The Korean War Veterans Memorial
Some of the Veterans Day wreaths located around the memorial, several of which were from students in South Korea
Ghostlike reflections double the 19 figures to 38, representing the 38th Parallel

Next came the Lincoln Memorial.

Looking down the reflecting pool before ascending to the top.  The Korean War Memorial is behind the trees on the right, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is behind the trees on the left.
The Lincoln Memor....Aaaah!  A bear!
They were still picking up from the Veterans Day activities.  Or something else.  Let me just widen the shot a little to see...
...there, that's better.  Now let's...Aaaah!  Bear!
Mr. Lincoln
Looking from the side of the Lincoln memorial, across the Potomac to Virginia and Arlington National Cemetery

After Lincoln we came to the last memorial on our agenda, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which I did not take any pictures of for some reason.  Here's a photo from the web:

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  Photo from starmontss.weebly.com.

By the time we finished with the monuments/memorials it was 1:30pm and we were cold and hungry.  We walked through Constitution Gardens and then north toward the White House to GCDC, a restaurant I had read about the night before.

My favorite photo from the trip

GCDC stands for Grilled Cheese DC and bills itself as a "grilled cheese bar".  I wanted some heat to offset the cold, so I ordered the buffalo blue cheese grilled cheese with tater tots and a ginger lemonade.  The grilled cheese and lemonade were excellent, while the tater tots where just pedestrian.
When we had finished eating the manager? brought over a complimentary banana pudding to try.  I believe it was a new product they were offering or thinking about offering and wanted to taste-test it, however he never came back to ask us what we thought (it was quite good).

GCDC interior.  Photo from thrilllist.com.
Sweet Tiffani's delights Gourmet banana pudding

We walked back to the hotel, however the Secret Service had some streets around the White House blocked off, so we had to go a few blocks out of our way.  This would happen a few times while we were there - one morning you could walk down this street, that afternoon you couldn't.  This day you could go here, the next you had to go around.

Do not cross the street.  Today.

Anyway, as we were walking down the street we passed a window where I saw a Christmas tree decorated with ornaments (for sale) and a train ornament caught my eye.  I stopped Todd and Mom who had continued walking ahead, and we went back to the entrance and inside.  It turned out to be the White House Historical Association gift shop.

In honor of Warren G. Harding.  Photo from shop.whitehousehistory.org


The train was the 2014 White House Christmas ornament.  They also had every White House ornament from 1981 to 2013 available for sale.  We bought the train ornament and a pewter pencil cup, then headed back to the hotel.  We relaxed at the hotel for 20-30 minutes before Todd and I headed out again.

Todd wanted to do another bus tour at night, so we walked several blocks to the "Washington Welcome Center" to buy tickets for the Old Town Trolley Tours's "Monuments by Moonlight" tour.  On our way we stopped in Starbucks and I got a venti decaf peppermint mocha which was just this side of warm.  As we were leaving I heard them call out someone's order for an eggnog latte which I would have greatly preferred, but wasn't listed on the menu.  So disappointing.

The welcome center looked like a tourist trap full of mostly tacky and kitschy souvenirs.  Funnily enough, they also had the 2014 White House ornament at almost double the price of what we had paid at the historical association shop.  There's a lesson there somewhere.

We bought our tour tickets then walked back to the hotel.

The Willard hotel, which is around the corner from ours.  Looks nice.
Home again

Back at the hotel we arranged for a late checkout on Saturday, then went to the room to relax for an hour.

Symmetry - the cd that was in the cd player in our room.  The mix of music was excellent and we listened to it whenever we were in the room.  This shrink-wrapped copy was available for purchase for $15 in the "Munchie Box" in our room.
Tracklist.  The cd was curated by the W's "Global Music Director" and is "designed to recreate the vibe of the W experience."  I don't know about all that, but we wanted it, so I guess there was something to it.

We left the hotel at 5:00pm and walked to the Metro Center station to take the red line subway to Union Station.  It was freezing cold now; the temperature shows to be 39, but it really felt like it was in the low teens, even with my three layers of clothes, hat and scarf.

We got to Union Station and found the bus stop, then had about a 15 minute wait before boarding the 6 o'clock bus.

Columbus statue and fountain outside Union Station.  Just behind that low wall a bunch of homeless people were bedding down for the night.
Interior detail

The top of the bus is all large windows covered by heavy plastic sheets that can be rolled up and fastened for an unobstructed view.  They were all in the down position when we boarded.

Notice the windows.  Photo from doctors.us.

Our driver, Jason, was very good and informative.  We started off the tour by driving around the Capitol, which had scaffolding covering the dome.  Jason asked if people wanted to roll up the windows to take pictures, and most people excitedly said yes (looking back at my notes for today, I wrote "Fools" beside this entry).  So he pulled over and everyone stood up and rolled up the windows.  We were back on the road 5 minutes later, and it was now unbearably cold.  Mom, who was sitting in front of us, almost immediately said she wanted the window back down but you can't really do that while the bus is moving, so we had to wait.

Looks like it's wrapped in bubble wrap.

We continued driving around DC, then made the first stop at the Korean War and Lincoln memorials. On this tour, you had 15-20 minutes at each stop to disembark the bus and look around.  Mom did not want to get off, so she stayed on the bus.  Todd and I got out and visited both  memorials, spending 5 minutes in the tiny-but-very-warm museum underneath the Lincoln Memorial.  We made a quick stop in the bathroom where the floor was completely covered in water and ick from a rapidly overflowing urinal.  It was pouring out like a waterfall, and there was a man just sort of standing there with a panicked "what do I do?" look on his face.  We left him there to his catastrophe and got back on the bus.

Imagine what it must have been like to be there
Lincoln illuminated
Omg it was so cold
The Great Emancipator
Lincoln's view of Washington
Scale

Jason the driver had put all the windows back down and no one raised them again for the rest of the trip.  We continued on the tour and drove across the Potomac River to Virginia and the 2nd stop, which was the US Marine Corp War Memorial.  It's commonly referred to as the Iwo Jima Memorial. Several more people stayed on the bus, but the 3 of us got out.  The driver walked us over and gave a brief history of the famous photo upon which the statue is based, then we took another 10 minutes walking around and taking photos before eagerly getting back on the bus.

US Marine Corp War Memorial
Re-raising the flag at Iwo Jima
Omg it was so cold

The tour continued on to the 3rd and last stop which was the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.  Even more people stayed on the bus this time.  We only stayed about 10 minutes, including a quick pit stop in the restroom, then boarded the bus again.  After that, the best part of the tour happened.

...a stone of hope

The tour bus was supposed to return to its point of origin, Union Station.  However our driver Jason accommodated everyone by letting one girl off on the VA side of the river so she could catch her train, then driving back to Union Station, then continuing on to a nearby street to drop some people off at their car, then driving to China Town so people could catch direct trains instead of having to make a couple of switches, then driving us directly to our hotel.  We made sure to leave him a nice tip.

It was now 9:30pm, but we were hungry so we walked over to Old Ebbitt Grill again.  The place was packed!  It was a 30 minute wait, but while we stood there Todd used Open Table to make a reservation and we were seated in 15 minutes.  I had fish and chips and an autumn spiced cheesecake.  I thought about ordering an Irish coffee, but decided against the cost.

The fish was good, but nothing special.  The fries were also good, but what really stood out was the coleslaw.  Normally I detest coleslaw, but decided to taste this one on a vacation whim.  It was delicious and wasn't drowned in some awful sauce - it just had a slight sweet vinegar flavor that made it so refreshing.  I wolfed down every bite and wished there was more.  By the time dinner was over I was still not completely warm.  We got back to the hotel for the night at 11:11pm.

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