Over Memorial Day weekend, my boyfriend JJs cousin was getting married just outside of DC, so for a couple months we’ve been planning on spending the long weekend in DC. JJ drove up Thursday with his mom, but I hitched a ride with his awesome cousins on Friday and arrived late Friday evening after a 6 1/2 hour drive from Columbus. Because the wedding was Sunday, that meant we had one day to see everything there is to see in DC. This was my second trip, my first trip being about 4 years ago when my friend Lexi was visiting from England, and I had about a day on that trip too, so there were a lot of things on my to-do list. JJs cousins had never visited, so we were in good company of people eager to see everything there is to see. Luckily, being a pretty savvy traveler (if I do say so myself) and knowing a couple months back that we were going to be in DC I was able to book reservations to visit the White House and also the Capital. Now, if you are wanting to do the same, make sure that you request a tour as soon in advance of your trip as you can. To do so, you must contact your local member of Congress. Go to this website to find out who your representative is:
http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ When I contacted my representative, after a couple of days I was contacted by a staff member who asked me when I was visiting, how many people were coming, and after that did most of the work for me. A couple weeks later, I received confirmation for a visit to the Capital Building, and instructions on how to obtain a reservation to the White House, for which we had to fill out of a security clearance form (basically giving our social security numbers and other information). I waited almost two months to hear that we scored our reservation to visit the White House, but I was excited when it came! I’ve visited government officials of other countries, including the ambassador of Burkina Faso and taken a tour of Buckingham Palace, so I figured it was about time for me to visit our nations most important house.
Because JJ had arrived Thursday with his mama, they did a bit of reconnaissance work for us before we arrived. They checked out a couple Smithsonian museums but even more important (okay, doubtful more important HISTORICALLY) but super helpful for us and hopefully for any readers who are going to be using this advice, he was told about a FREE parking lot that is right along the best walking path if you have only a short time in DC like us but want to see IT ALL! So check out the map below, or find the map online
here.
The spot is pretty much across the street from the Jefferson Memorial, which makes it pretty easy to find if you are driving in with a GPS, and if you look on the map it is parking area A. We got here at about 9am and there were LOADS of spots left, but when we left around 4 people were fighting over the spots- so moral of the story is: arrive early! Yeah- that’s easy enough right?
Because JJ and his mom had parked here yesterday they forewarned us that it was quite a hike, and I’ll let you know now (SPOILER ALERT) our day in DC ended a bit early because of some aching feet, but I didn’t think it was bad at all, very doable in a day if you are motivated to see it all. We also didn’t go into any of the museums, but as you can see from the map, if you have a longer amount of t ime to spend in DC, you could park here every day for FREE and have fairly quick access to all the hot spots in DC. My last trip to DC we used the metro to get around, and a lot of the hotels (at least in my experience) provide shuttles to a metro station, but my complaint about the metro- and it may have been caused because of my lack of experience with this particular system or knowledge of the area- was that the stops were few and fair between and it took a fairly long time for the subway to even arrive- so because of our quick time frame- this parking spot was the bomb!’
Okay, enough about parking already! So we arrived and decided that we would head northwest on our route, first passing by the George Mason memorial:
Then, we crossed a bridge and we got our first unobstructed view of the Washington memorial
From there we went to the Franklin Delano Roosevelt memorial. At first glance we were thinking that it was a pretty sparse memorial but if you go in and explore there was so much to see: fountains, wall waterfalls, statues of Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor and lots of quotes on the walls
After the Roosevelt memorial we walked to the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial. While the Roosevelt memorial is full of brown granite walls, this memorial is white granite and includes quotes that Martin Luther King Jr is famous for having said.
Next on our walking tour was the Korean War Veterans Memorial. This memorial, like the two memorials previously mentioned, I had never seen before, and this was absolutely stunning and very poignant. The memorial is set in a triangle, and in that triangle are 19 slightly larger-than-life statues of soldiers. Along a sidewalk is a 164-foot-long black granite wall with images sandblasted into it depicting soldiers during the war. It is an extremely touching spot.
Just after departing the Korean War Veterans memorial we were across from the Lincoln Memorial, the beautiful Greek temple style building which was also the spot of Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have A Dream” speech.
And as I’m sure everyone knows, inside the Lincoln Memorial is a giant statue of the man himself, and inscribed in the walls are two of his famous speeches, the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural speech.
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| Me with JJs family on top of the steps of the Lincoln Memorial |
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| How can one resist the ole O-H-I-O photo op with the Washington Monument? |
After the Lincoln Memorial we started worrying that we would be late for our White House tour so we started walking a bit faster along the Reflexion Pool, going towards Washington Monument.
Look at the little duck family and its ducklings we passed, so many babies!
Next site was the World War II memorial with its granite columns for each state, and several fountains and sculptures.
Finally we made it to the White House; we tried showing up earlier than our reservation time hoping they’d let us in early so we could also make it to the Capital for our tour, since they were only an hour and a half apart, but there was a small queue waiting for their time and we were told to show up 15 minutes early, no sooner than that.
To pass the time we went to the White House museum just around the corner. It’s admission is free and there were loads of artifacts, pictures and facts about the construction of the White House (did you know the original plans were for it to be much larger? And many presidents have proposed to have it altered or expanded but only Roosevelt has really succeeded when he added the West Wing). This museum was definitely worth a quick visit.
Next was the visit to the White House, which requires visitors to go through several security checkpoints (and you are not allowed to bring bags or purses into the White House, nor is there a luggage check). There are no pictures allowed inside (or even that close to the door I found out when I got yelled at) and there’s only about 8 rooms you can into, but I loved visiting it just the same; just walking up the staircase and holding onto the bannister made me wonder who else had touched that exact some spot (probably JFK or someone else fabulous).
We had to rush the White House a bit to make it in time for our reservations to the capital because were told we had to arrrive 45 minutes early to be allowed in. We had started walking briskly towards the Capital in total despair fearing we would never make it in time before we passed a row of taxis and decided to split into two groups and catch a ride to the Capital building. We made it just in time, stopping for a quick picture in front of the Supreme Court building.
The Capital building’s dome is currently undergoing construction both on the outside and inside, giving visitors this view:
Inside the Capital it wasn’t as crowded as we feared and we didn’t have to stand in line at all. Every state in the US has two statues that they have submitted into the hall of statues, and they are located throughout the building, though especially in one room. There is also a very large model of the statue that’s on the top of the dome.
When it was time for our tour we were lead into a room where we watched a short film about the history of the capital, and then we were given headsets by our tour guide and led around the building (the tour used to be self-led but visitors no longer have that option)
After the Capital building tour we were told that there is a underground tunnel that leads to the Library of Congress. Many people stated that this was the most beautiful building in all of Washington DC, and it was easy to tell why- the Library is so bright and colorful with mosiacs all over the place. Our bellies were rumbling so we didn’t spend too much time wandering around- but it’s on my to-do list for the next trip.
Because of the state of some of our groups feet and legs we started out trying to walk back to the car but gave up and took a taxi to the Jefferson Memorial.
That was our last stop on our day in Washington DC, and I was very pleased with everything that we accomplished. Hopefully I’ve given you a couple good ideas for what to do or see on your next trip to DC!
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