Itinerary

We're so excited to be sitting at home waiting for our pizza.

Today is Friday, March 26 - and all 5 girls are here at our house. Tomorrow morning we hope to be on the expressway by 6:30am. We will drive just over 12 hours (so says TomTom) to the house on Orchid Street - just 7 miles north of the White House.

Sunday we have a quiet day planned around the house - settling in and getting comfortable... gearing up for the week. Peter and I will do some grocery shopping, and we should then be all set for a full week of touring.

Sunday night (hopefully the rain stops by then), we will head out the the Memorials area - near the reflecting pool - between the Lincoln Monument (which gets lit up at night) and the Washington Monument.

Monday morning, we will be in that same area again - our paddleboat reservation on the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial is for 10am. From here we should have a great view of the best concentration of cherry blossoms in the city. I'm told by the owner of the house that the blossoms have already started to bloom. The website says they're due to peak while we are there - maybe on Thursday.

After our paddleboat tour on the Tidal Basin, we have an appointment at the National Archives at 12:15pm. There we can see things like the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. From there, we will head to Arlington Cemetery for some hours, before we head to the Pentagon to see the 9-11 memorial.

Tuesday is a very busy day! We start early at 8am at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing - where they print the money! Then we will look to have a tour of the Library of Congress at 10:30am. If there is time, the Folger Shakespeare Library is right near there - with the world's largest collection of Shakespeare's works. There is a tour of the Supreme Court at noon - including a lecture about how the Courtroom works. Our congressman - Representative Bill Foster - has passes reserved for us to view both the House of Representatives and the Senate Galleries. We have a tour of the Capitol building at 3:10PM, and can visit the Botanical Gardens right after - as they don't close til 5:30pm. I think we will sleep well on Tuesday night!

Wednesday morning, we have passes to view the Terra Cotta Warriors from China - on the last day that they will be in U.S. From there - before lunch - we will visit the Washington Cathedral - the 6th largest Cathedral in the world. After lunch, we will visit the museum of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the White House Visitors Center. At 4:35pm, the girls have passes to perform as spies at the Spy Museum - in a program called Operation Spy - where they (for one hour) work to avoid that nuclear weapon materials fall into the hands of a rogue nation.

Thursday morning, we will start our attempt at the Museums at the Smithsonian. We will begin with my favorite - the Museum of American History (where the First Ladies exhibit is!) In the afternoon, we have our reservations for the U.S. Holocaust Museum. After that, the National Air and Space Museum is open til 7:30pm

Friday, we plan to hit the Museum of Natural History in the morning. After lunch - as Friday promises some very nice weather - we hope to attend the National Zoo. The Art Museum and Portrait Galleries at the Smithsonian are open til 7pm.

Saturday, we hope to be on the road early, by maybe 8am. We will have a better idea as we're on the road as to our return time - but we're hoping for 7 or 8pm.

We will be flexible as we need to be - things may move around, and we will try to update this blog throughout the week. It may be that while we are there we are able to secure passes for the Washington Monument... those passes were all full and unable to be secured in advance, but they release a daily batch of tickets every day at 8:30am. So we will see if that is something that we can do.

I think I already informed everyone that our request for a White House tour was denied - even though we put in our request almost the full 6 months in advance. Also, the Pentagon was not accepting groups our size. But the 9-11 memorial is open to all, 24 hours a day.

I think I should be able to figure out how to post some photos here. I will start by trying to upload the map I have of D.C.

Okay - time to eat the pizza!

~Jennifer