Well, it’s my turn to write the blog. My wife says it’s about time too. We spent a day looking around for a car in our price range. Warrenton and Mannassas have quite a few yards but not a lot to choose from. Eventually we gave up and headed home, about 100 metres from our hotel we spotted a tiny yard and drove in on the off chance there was something. They had a forest greed Grand Jeep Cherokee for $1750 with a broken air-con. After a test-drive and safety check she was ours, we fixed the air-con and made the purchase. Leo has named the jeep Louie.
Our day looking through Washington DC started early but it was not a great start to the day. I woke up, in our little motel room to find that a nice big crap, had escaped LEO’s nappy during the night and I had been lying in it. It was all over my clothes but he had nothing on himself. A fantastic start to the day. After packing our stuff and loading the car, I tried to start the car only to find her dead as a door nail. I immediately assumed it was a flat battery and went to ask the motel manager for some jumper cables. I had to work fast because we needed to drop the rent a car off and get on with seeing Washington DC and all her wonders.
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| Leo with his pilot wings from flight to Washington DC |
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| Big brother love |
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| Diner breakfast |
Kath has already by this time asked me 20 questions which I have patiently answered. Got the jumpers, hooked them up to Louie and the rent a car, let it charge for few sec but no luck. We need a new battery. Load the family up into the rent a car, answer a few more questions from wife as to what needs to happen and we go buy a battery from a block up. I don’t have any spanners so I borrow from the auto part store. We head back and I try to get the old battery off. I soon establish that the only spanner missing from his set it the one I need. We need to return his set, and go buy our own complete set. 45 min later we are back with a spanner set and I get the battery changed. Wow, this day just keeps on getting better.
Louie now has a new name "Last Legs Louie"
We load up the kids in the rent a car with Kath and I drive Louis to Dulles to return our rent a car. It is about 11am by the time we have completed this little chore, checked into a hotel and got back into the car to drive to the nearest metro train station. All day Metro passes for adults are $9 and kids under 5 are free. We were again pleased to find that the Washington DC Metro also had AC in every carriage because it was 38 degrees outside and we were suffering. We got off at Madison Square stop and immediately looked for somewhere to have lunch and a cold bud. No luck, we paid twice what we should have for lunch and they had no beer.
We walked 10 minutes to the MALL as they commonly call it. They mean where the Whitehouse, Lincoln Memorial, Reflection Pond and Smithsonian museums can be found. We started with the Whitehouse. It was exactly like in the movies except with some new vegetable gardens which I understand is a Michelle Obama addition to the family. We seemed to be the only non-American visitors. Kath noticed a few buff looking guys jogging around in the mid-day heat….obviously FBI wannabes not far from the J. Edgar Hoover Building. There is loads more to see in Washington if you have the time (thanks to Louie we didn’t). Some of them are the Pentagon, the National Air and Space Museum, the house where Lincold died, Arlington Cemetery (including grave of JFK) and the Albert Einstein Memorial.
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| Leo in front of his favourite car - a police one! |
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| Obama's residence |
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| Leo and Spence at Washington monument |
We then walked over to the George Washington Monument which stands tall in the middle with about 100 American flags at the bottom. Apparently it has an elevator inside it too. We were keen to get a view of the Reflection pool with the Lincoln Memorial at the end of it but bad luck always comes in threes and we were really disappointed to find that they had emptied the entire pool to work on it so it was just a muddy hole. Kath was especially was gutted as she had expected to see the pool reminiscent of Forrest Gump’s reunion with his Jenny. We decided to walk to the Abe Lincoln memorial which was quite a nice walk under trees and Leo and Spencer were fascinated by some police on horseback whom we followed most of the way. The National World War II memorial which was lovely and had beautiful pools and fountains. Justin’s Grandfather TomTom flew in this war so he liked seeing that.
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| Reflecting pool and Lincolm memorial...WIP |
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| Peek a boo! |
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| View of Reflecting pool back to Washington monument |
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| World War II memorial |
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| Abe Lincolm memorial |
It’s summer break here so it was very busy but the Lincoln memorial is quite something to see. We got the obligatory shot standing next to Abe Lincoln and looking down the mall to the Washington memorial....again with no reflection pool. Boo. It was so hot that we were literally buying bottles of water and pouring them over the kids and ourselves.
Next on our mission was the museums, the Smithsonian Quarter has two museums; The American History Museum and the Natural History Museum the latter is the one where Ben Stiller’s movie “The Night at the Museum” was filmed. The queue outside the American History one was really long so we decided to go to the Natural History Museum because Leo was especially interested in the dinosaurs. Entry is free and it was great, amazing to see the dinosaur bones up close, they had quite a selection. There were fantastic exhibits and a highlight for Leo was the big Grizzly Bear, Spencer loved the butterflies (live exhibit) and Kath had a photo with an Easter Island statue, about as close to Easter Island as she will ever get.
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| T-Rex |
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| Bear shot |
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| Easter Island shot |
It was quite late in the day by the time we had finished thanks to our late start so we made our way back to Louie the jeep in the hope that he would start first time. By the way, Washington DC has a tube stop named Foggy Bottom. Just saying.
Louie didn’t let us down and got us back safely but because of the time we stopped at a pizza joint and were robbed of another $30. We must have walked about 12k’s with those pushchairs and were knackered so it was home james and to bed. All in all a bit of a rollercoaster of a day, but everything seems to have worked out.
Back at the hotel I saw a F250 Ford Truck with raised suspension, check out the photo and bear in mind that I’m over 6 foot tall. This is a standard vehicle that we see often on the freeways here, HUGE. We also had our first Diner meal, cheap as chips and very greasy but it was worth it to experience it. It’s exactly as you would imagine, right down to the old guys that come in to sit at their regular seats and yarn the morning away. We had the pleasure of hearing a grandfather talking to his mates about how his father educated him on the facts of life. “All my dad did was take me to a special kind of bar, buys me a beer and introduces me to 2 young ladies, when I struck out with the both of them, he bought me another two buds and introduced me to 2 nurses who took pity on me and well now….here I am”. Gotta love these Americans.
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| My dream truck |
Over and out.
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