Trip to Washington DC

{6.30.12 - 7.1.12}

Kevin finally finished his first year medical school and his only year of book studying! From here on out, he'll be starting rotations and research.  To celebrate, we went to Washington DC this past weekend, during one of the hottest recorded days in history - 104 degrees! You think you could avoid some of the TX heat up in the NE!  Right before we left, I happened to read about the major blackouts caused by recent derechos in DC and was sorta worried that it would ruin our trip but thank God, it didn't really affect our travel plans.

Caution: This entry will be image heavy!

The drive took us approximately 4 hours (though according to Google, it should have been 4 hr and 35 min), probably because Kevin was basically going 80 the whole time. We were also lucky that traffic wasn't too bad.  We first arrived at National Harbor and most of the shops were closed because of the power outage.  Even the public restroom lights were out and it was super dark inside.

I didn't know there was another Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in DC along the Potomac River! I went to the one in TX this past winter to see the ice sculptures with my family.

Looking out onto the Potomac.

After walking around and looking at other shops, we shared a lunch at Baja Fresh and then drove to our hotel.

We stayed on the 12th floor of the Sheraton Crystal City Hotel.  Here is Kevin looking out of the window to see this.... 

Since parking is expensive in DC, we took the metro into the city.

They had cute posters in one part of the metro.

The first place we went was the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

The Apollo Lunar Lander!

We also watched an IMAX 3D shower about 3 "Rescuers" who went to Haiti after the recent earthquake to help look for people in the rubble and provide medical attention.  Kevin was really excited to buy this Spiderman shaped ice cream from a street vendor after we toured the museum.  

  We walked from the National Mall to the National Monument and my feet gave out because I wasn't wearing tennis shoes so we headed back to Crystal City for dinner.

 For dinner, we went to Good Stuff Eatery in Crystal City for $6 specialty burgers.  It was started by former Top Chef contestant and current Life After Top Chef star Spike Mendelsohn. If you guys are ever in DC, this place is definitely worth trying!

 The next day, we visited the Capitol. It was still super sunny/hot that day but luckily I put on sunscreen.

 We went to the National Botanic Garden hoping there would be AC inside its green house glass dome but there wasn't.  

So I snapped this shot of an Amaryllis flower... 

 And Kevin took a picture of me in their front pool...

 And we left to go to the Smithsonian National History Museum for some AC!  On the way, we passed the Folklife Festival, which was going on in the National Mall. It was really...festive haha.

The Smithosonian was my favorite part of the trip! It was like 8 museums in one.  Definitely an incredible and inspiring place to see and learn new things.

 Some animals from the Mammal Exhibit:

 This fox has the crazy eye!

 This hyena is smiling. =)

 This is such a cute Günther's dik-dik!

 I'm being eaten by a hippo! I forgot to mention that I watched Dual Survival in hotel (which is an awesome show btw) and learned that hippos are super territorial and are super aggressive.

 Giraffe at a watering hole!

 This tiger at the gift shop cost $700...

 We also went into the live butterfly exhibit...

 And I learned that butterflies are SCARY. ><  In the exhibit, butterflies are flying everywhere and you weren't supposed to touch them since they're really delicate.  But if they land on you, you're in the green.   I ended up getting chased by a butterfly that really wanted to land on me and although I really wanted a picture with one, I couldn't fight the instinct of standing still when there was something black flying in my face. I'm embarrassed to say that there was some screaming involved to.

 Here is the Hope Diamond.  It looks like the Heart of the Ocean in the Titanic movie!

 It's amazing the diversity of rocks there are out there... Even with something so insignificant as a rock, God shows how great a Creator He is, making stones of all different shapes and sizes, different colors and worth....so cooooll 

Here is Kevin again with a snow cone in front of the National History Museum.  Him and his ice creams! I forgot to mention that we watched another IMAX film on coral reefs, which described the biodiversity found in the Great Barrier Reef, Fiji Reefs and another reef and how global warming, overfishing, and sedimentation are killing them at an alarming rate.  

I could definitely spend days in the Smithsonian... but since we had to be back for my meeting on Monday we left around dinner time.  This is a pic of one of the murals in Crystal City before we left.

For dinner, we went to Hank's Oyster Bar and I tried my first lobster roll.

Even though it was really tiring and both Kevin and I got really dehydrated and probably suffered from heat stroke, I really enjoyed this first road trip to DC!