D.C. - Day 2

Woke up to a cloudyish day, but we were ready to tackle the city.

After a quick stop to Starbucks (for the husband), we were off and running.  The subway station was only 5 minutes down the road, so we parked the car and bought our passes for the day.  What a deal.....$7 each for all day travelling on the subway.  Off and on as many times as you want!

 

I love the D.C. subways.  They are so clean and archtecturally beautiful!

 

 

First stop was the Smithsonians Museum of American History.  The one museum I have wanted to see my whole life.  It was under rennovation the last trip to D.C., so we had to miss it......but not this time!  It's a huge museum and unfortunately......very popular!  Hard to see everything the way you want to see it because of so many people, but we did the best we could.

One of the greatest things we saw there was the original flag that flew at Fort McHenry.  Of course, it was in a darkened room to preserve it and there was absolutely no pictures allowed, but here is some that I found online to capture how magnificent it was.

It was really an awesome thing to see this flag.  I am so glad that I got the experience.  After spending over 2 hours at the museum (and still not seeing the whole thing), we decided to find something for lunch.  The best idea was to jump on the subway, get off a stop, come up from the underground, and see what was around you.

We followed that plan and ended up at Gordon Biersch.  We enjoyed a Blue Crab and Artichoke Dip, Garlic Fries, and a salad with some funky Jalapeno dressing.  While we ate, we plotted our next destination!

 

After walking around the town a bit, we ended up at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and National Museum of American Art.

These two museums are very interesting if you are interested in paintings and funky art.  We don't spend a lot of time looking at each piece, but we do enjoy looking at some of the items they have.

 

(* read the license plates in order *)

 

We were then on our way to the Crime and Punishment Museum.  Filled with crime information, criminals, and all kinds of interesting facts spanning 100 years of criminal mischief.

 

 

It was difficult to take pictures in there because we couldn't use the flash.  Unfortunately most of these were blurry :-(

 

 

By the time we were finished here, we dead dog tired and our feet hurt (and I was feeling a little blurry....see picture above).  But there wasn't time to go back to the hotel for a rest, so we found a warm place to sit a spell and Paul enjoyed a dish of ice cream while our feet recuperated.

Our next amusement was the one that Paul was looking forward to the most.  The Garbage concert in Silver Springs, MD.  The plan was to take the subway -- easy and fast.  This way we didn't have to deal with traffic or parking and we could just hop on the subway and head straight back to our hotel.

The concert was located at The Fillmore.  It was a standing room only concert (for us), so we had to stand in the middle of the floor for over 3 hours packed like sardines. 

 

The good part of the place was how close we were to the stage

 

 

After the concert, we jumped on the subway and headed back to our car in the parking lot.  Since it was so late (11:30pm), we just stopped at a 7-11 and grabbed a package of ham, bread, and chips and it was back to the room for our gourmet meal!  Another great day has come to an end........another fantastic day to look forward to tomorrow!