Washington, DC for Memorial Day

Ronny and I took the opportunity while I was in our nation’s capital for work, to spend the Memorial Day weekend for some site-seeing and vacation time.

I was in DC Wednesday through Friday with meetings and had the afternoon of Friday to myself before Ronny arrived that evening. I took in the Newseum as I wasn’t sure Ronny would be too interested in it – and it was great! It takes you through how the media was able to communicate historic events and their impact on our society. Being an updated exhibit, it had some neat technology and interactive exhibits which I was all about! They have newspaper fronts from each state the the top story gives you a great view of the Capitol.

Ronny arrived that evening and it was cold – wah wah. I’m not complaining, but we were looking forward to seeing the monuments at night, but it was just too chilly to try that. Ronny however, got his first souvenir because of the cool weather!

On Saturday, we were able to meet up with Jess, a Seward-gal who works now with Senator Johanns’ office in DC. She gave us the “all-access” tour of the Capitol, and she knows her facts. Then she took us to an amazing burger place – Good Stuff. It was a great morning and we’re very appreciative of Jess and her time!

That afternoon, we started out with the Smithsonian Museum of American History. I was most excited to see the FOOD! exhibit about the history of food and agriculture. It was a little lacking in the agriculture, but still an impressive exhibit.

Later, we walked the monuments & memorials – talk about a lot of steps! (Just over 23,000 steps according to my pedometer). It was unfortunately really crowded – but I think Ronny really enjoyed them.

I’ve been to DC a few times before, but this was his first time, so it was a lot to take in. I did become good at finding park benches to sit on to “check out the sites” – but mostly to rest my pregnant-lady-swollen-ankles. It wasn’t too bad though, it was just hard for my body to keep up with my energy level to go, go, go!

Ronny was really looking forward to seeing the White House and when we jaunted over there – they had the perimeter fenced off. “Just the nature of the complex” so they said. Ronny was a little bummed, but we got a distanced view for pictures.

We walked to the downtown area to find a restaurant, then on our way back to the metro (Ronny’s first experience on a Subway btw and he is now better at maneuvering it than me!), we came upon the back side of the White House and they had taken away the fenced perimeter! So we were able to get a few more up-close pictures.

Sunday we set out early for Arlington National Cemetery. There were a lot of tour buses there, but we made our own route around the cemetery where there happened to be no people. It was so sobering and reflective to walk through the quiet monument and think about the impact that those who have lost their lives for our freedom, have had on our lives. The changing of the guard is always a neat thing to see. Ronny said we officially made our vacation a “Pope vacation” by visiting a cemetery – I loved it!

Just next to Arlington is the Pentagon and the new(ish) memorial for those who died in the 9/11 crash.

By this time, we were really tired of all the walking, and decided to head over to the Washington Nationals baseball stadium to see if we could get tickets to the game that afternoon. We did and it was so fun to watch a baseball game in different stadium on a nice, sunny day. My feet and Baby Pope thanked me as well for the rest.

That evening we decided to walk through the Air & Space Smithsonian (I was trying to get Ronny in there most of the weekend and he wasn’t too excited about the “museum” but I think he thought it was way cooler than what he expected. :) ) We then walked to a different area of downtown and found a fun pizza place for dinner. On the walk back, we enjoyed the nicer weather of the evening and the monuments by night. We could hear the Memorial Day concert on the Capitol steps – and watched it on TV when we got back to the hotel.

We flew home Monday morning and it was nice to have some restful time at home – and to hang out with Hank! – before starting up another busy week. It was a great vacation, “Baby Moon”, and time spent together on a reflective weekend.

View all of our trip pictures.

I certainly was remembering Memorial Day's past of running in the BolderBOULDER and remembering my Gramps!