"The Best of" Six days in Washington DC

Instead of giving you a blow by blow account of our trip back East, I thought I would just tell you of our favorites or "The Best Of ..."

"The Best Museum"

Since this is a city full of museums and we visited our fair share of them, it was quite a task to pick the best one. But all of us agreed that the new museum at Ford's Theater was very good and Preston chose this one as his favorite. The last time we were there the museum below the theater was in dire need to be updated and the new one is very nice. This is a picture of the booth Lincoln was sitting in when he was shot and not the museum but...

Garth's favorite museum was the Holocaust Museum and I don't have any pictures from there because pictures aren't allowed. While the Holocaust Museum is a great museum, I couldn't pick it as my favorite just because of the subject, you definitely don't come out of there happy.

Jason and I both picked the National Gallery of Art as "the Best Museum." With an extensive collection of Renaissance Art including a di Vinci, a nice gallery of Impressionist Art, a large collection Spanish armor and American art we all enjoyed this museum. The added bonus is that the building is beautiful with nice atriums for resting. Preston likes art museums because they always have lots of benches to sit on and study the artwork. Here is a Manet beggar with the boys trying to look poor - kind of hard to do when you have an ipod ear piece in your ear.

"Best Memorial or Monument"

Preston choose the new Korean memorial and it was a close second for Garth. The statues of these 19 soldiers is just a portion of this memorial. In fact, one day we got off the subway into the middle of the Mall and noticed all the flags were at half mast. Not having kept up with the news we wondered what had happened. Silly us, we didn't realize that July 27 is Koren armistice day (end of the Korean war) so there were wreaths and flowers all over this memorial.

Jason and I chose the Lincoln Monument; you can't help but be impressed with this stunning monument and Lincoln himself. In fact we did something related to Lincoln almost every day of our trip.

Garth's new favorite and my second choice is the new WWII memorial. The architect did an amazing job with the design and the symbolism he used throughout the memorial. I loved walking around, guessing what something symbolized and then find out if I was right or not. There are volunteers at many of the memorials who give little mini tours or answer questions.

"Best Building"

We had four "Best Buildings." A night time visit to the temple has to be a highlight to anyone who visits DC, even if they're not Mormon.

A close second was the Capitol and even though it was packed with people, it is a beautiful building and is full of amazing works of art. We just felt bad that they have restricted access to so much of the outside since 9-11.

Preston's favorite building was the Pentagon. We all thought is would be neat to tour the Pentagon but you can't take pictures and they don't show you anything other than where the plan hit it on 9-11. Preston enjoyed finding out that no movies are allowed to go on location there but you could pretend you were giving a news conference.

The Ford's Theater was also a family favorite. A man pretended to be a policeman in the audience the night Lincoln was shot and gave us a detailed description of what happened. It was another highlight of the trip.

"Best House"

Okay, you think we have to say the White House right? Not by a long shot. The tour they do is terrible now, you spend more time going though security practically. They just herd you through the rooms with no explanation of anything. Everyone felt like you can't go to DC and not go to the White House, but it was voted the best waste of time. It is beautiful but...

George's home, Mt. Vernon, is a beautiful place as well, but since there was a two hour wait to go through it we decided just to look at the grounds which are wonderful. Garth sat on the banks of the Potomac and watched bald eagles. The boys and I explored the grounds and had a great time making videos, swinging on vines in the trees and looking for Duke and Earl, the oxen that work the place today, who we never did find. The new museum was very good and we even got to see a set of George's false teeth.

Actually, we didn't have a favorite house. Arlington House (Robert E. Lee's home) was being renovated and there wasn't anything to see there and none of males in my family were to hip on looking at any houses.

"Best Things We Saw"

While it was very difficult to choose the best thing we saw because there was just too much, both boys chose the one shot pistol that John Wilkes Booth used to kill Lincoln.

Jason also liked the display of emeralds because they came from Colombia.

And I liked the guy protesting out in front of the While House. If you could read the sign, his anti-nuclear weapons group has been there since 1981, 24 hours a day every day of the year. I think they are making progress though, haven't you heard about them in the news?

"Best Celebrity Citing"

Who would have ever thought we would see Robin Williams in the Natural History Museum? We were surprised.

Actually, he is just wax was standing next to Teddy Roosevelt. The figures were there to promote the "Night at the Museum" movie that came out this summer. The Smithsonian had all kinds of exhibits and events related to the movie.

"Best 3-D Glasses"

Do you think they could have found any more attractive eye wear than these? We watched the 3-D movie "Deep Sea" and rested our legs and most of us also had a nap. I mean fish are fish.

"Best Joke"

Because we are the loving, kind family we are, we would never do anything that would embarrass a member of our family all day long right? Wrong! After leaving the Capitol where we had to wear these stickers the whole time we were there, everyone tried to stick them on each other's back without that person knowing. You have all played that game before. But someone got Preston good and he walked around the rest of the day with a sticker on his butt. Jason and I couldn't look at each other because we would start to laugh.

"The Best Tutorial"

As I said before, Preston had a great American history teacher last year and Jason claimed that two years in Colombia had made him forget everything he knew about American history (yeah right). Well, Preston took it upon himself to help bring his brother up to speed on what he was seeing and this was most apparent at the Vietnam Memorial. Preston's teacher had spent more than two weeks on the Vietnam War and Preston knew his stuff which he imparted to his elder brother.

"Best Places to Eat"

One of the boys' top priorities was eating, of course, and we found it difficult to find many places to eat later in the evening (everything seems to shut down early near the Mall) and while our hotel was conveniently located for subway riding there wasn't too much for dinning unless we made the 7 block walk to Georgetown. After a day of walking, 7 blocks just isn't too appealing, but if we wanted good food that is where we went. Plus, it is a great place to look around. Georgetown University has a beautiful campus and the harbor area has great views of the Potomac, the Kennedy Performing Arts Center and the Watergate complex.