Ok, so round two of sightseeing brings us to the National Gallery of Art. Wow. Probably my favorite part of the whole trip :)
So it started off on a high note cause I was wearing my I heart CB shirt and the security gaurds were these two funny guys and one instantly asked: "what's CB stand for- Charles Barkley? I'm just joking. I'm just joking!" (he thought he was pretty funny) and the other one was all: "you know that everyone is going to be trying to figure out what that shirt means right?" Then he noticed Cody's byu shirt and said: "BYU! great basketball team-that one guy got kicked off, high standards, high standards" it was so funny and I could have easily slipped anything in in my purse that I wanted the way we had them joking with us and eating out of the palm of our hands with our shirts, haha. Anywho, the building is SPECTACULAR and really sets the tone for your visit. We got lil headsets so when you come across one of the "director's picks" it has a number you dial in and can hear more about the particular piece. So I would say some of the highlights for me were works by: Winslow Homer, Whistler, Monet, Manet, Picasso, Pollock, Rothco, Cassatt, Eakins, and I'm sure there were many others but they just don't come to mind at the moment.
(the pics of police on horses was cause they were all out in force that morning for a stroll I guess so I took a few pics)
After the National Gallery of Art we went to the SPY museum which has all sorts of hands on and historical information about...well...spies throughout the ages from weapons to covers to how they eventually got caught. It was interesting cause we had just recently seen a movie about Hansen-who was caught for sending info to the russians over a very long period of time and he was just caught recently. Crazy stuff-sorry though, no photos were allowed inside.
The next day we took a break from the downtown scene and took a trip out to Mt. Vernon on the Patomac. It was really beautiful and fun to imagine how it must have been like back in the day-similar view I'm sure since they haven't developed the otherside of the river at all. We went on a little National Treasure tour where they showed where they filmed the night time party scene in the second national treasure movie where he traps the president in the secret tunnel in the basement of mt. vernon etc. As it turns out there is no secret tunnel in the basement-we went down there, but there is a secret tunnel connected to a deep well used for an ice house to keep it cool in the summer that apparently inspired the filmmakers. It was fun and I was really impressed with how much information they had about the site as well as George Washington's life. We saw not only the house, but also the grounds and farm land that they try to keep like it was with even the 16 sided barn and people dressed up in period clothing.
Today, our final day sightseeing, we couldn't leave DC without visiting the hallowed grounds of the IRS building and taking some pics for frank :) and managed to go up to the top of the Washington Monument where there were some spectacular views in each direction. We also viewed the Dec of Independence, Constitution, and the Bill of Rights in the national archives-pretty cool stuff. We were going to go to the Newseum-we've heard rave reviews from everyone but we were tired and the thought of over twenty a person was a bit much for us. I'm sure we missed out but we got to go home earlier, relax, clean up a little, do some laundry, go for a walk, get some icecream, and make a quick run to the grocery store-shrug, worth it in my book :) Plus we didn't want to do EVERYTHING in case we come back some day. All and all it was a great trip and we had a lot of fun!
More to come soon as we prepare to travel to Kentucky/Indiana tomorrow to spend time with our good friends Heather & Ben as well as my brothers!
