Since our road trip around America in 2019 – we have been waiting for the chance to go to our nation’s capital and we are so glad we did! We had such a FULL 4 days in the city and now we are ready to start our school year. This year the girls and I are studying 1850 to modern history so this was the perfect timing to come here. Brandon and I were children the last time we visited, Raymond went with my parents years ago, and the girls had never been!

We loved stepping from the metro and getting that first look at the mall and monument. The Rooks love some grass now! This was some great grass. 🤣

After a cloudy morning at the mall – we were SO grateful the skies cleared for our 12 pm time slot to go up in the Washington Monument. Make sure you book this experience online weeks in advance – it’s a MUST do when going to DC!

Not gonna lie the Museum of American History had a few cool things to see – but I think the Rookies are spoiled with all we’ve seen across the country. The Smithsonians weren’t that impressive to us at all 🫣🤭😱. We definitely still had fun and found some cool things but we’ve been to so many wow! factor places that these museums didn’t hit for us and we felt “meh”. Here are some highlights we did catch though:

The girls loved the doll house. I thought it was hilarious some things from my childhood now have their place in history. Like the wood panel Chrysler and parking meters we used to use at Rehoboth:

Some of our fave things from the entertainment exhibit – Mr Rogers sweater, Mouseketeers, Sesame Street characters, Kermit, Dorothy’s red slippers:

Thomas Jefferson’s desk where he wrote the Declaration! And Washington’s camp set up:

Tourist tip: skip the expensive food trucks and snack kiosk and order online for pick up or eat in at the National Gallery of Art Pavilion cafe. (We LOVED the gallery by the way ! More on this on a later post)

After lunch we headed to the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson building. 📚 Woops I somehow missed the memo that with a visit to the Library of Congress you don’t actually get to see or touch any books 🤣🫣. We wandered anywhere they’d let us and by accident even some places we weren’t supposed to – but there was not a book anywhere to be touched. The girls were 🙄🙄🙄. My bad! 🤭🤭🤭 It was a beautiful building though – from floor to ceiling. The girls and I dreamed of writing a book or article someday and needing to come here to research and actually get to touch and explore and learn.

DC really seems so quiet this week. It’s a great week to go! After the Library of Congress visit, we sat outside the Supreme Court for about 20 minutes and I think only 3 people passed us!

18,000 steps finished, we road the metro back to the campground (which wasn’t as gross or stressful as I expected haha):

Another tourist tip: get the physical cards and not the app. I put all 5 SmarTrip cards (every person needs their own card) on my phone and that ended up being a pain in the hiney.

It was a great first day! 👏🏻🇺🇸💕