DC Day 3

Today we woke up early 7:30 here, but 4:30AM CA time... we were BEAT!

We took the Metro

over to the "Smithsonian" stop where we got off and high-tailed it over to the Washington Monument for our 9:30 ticket time.

We rode the elevator up to the top and spent quite a bit of time admiring and understanding the view (getting out bearings).

We then toured the whole National Mall area on foot: Lincoln Memorial, Korean Monument, Vietnam Memorial, WW II monument.

We walked quite a ways (trying to stick to shady tree-lined paths) over to the paddle boats across from the Jefferson Memorial. (We did not visit this memorial yet, but we paddled near it :)

We had to buy an hour of paddling, but actually paddled only about 20 minutes... then we walked to the "waterfront" area in search of lunch.

Um... there were only sea food places with no air-conditioning... this was not going to fly.

At this point we figured we had walked about 5+ miles and were hot & hungry.

We spotted a guy with a McDonald's bag and practically JUMPED him!

He pointed the way to an underground "mall" (the promenade, maybe?) and found an Au Bon Pain and had yummy sandwiches and desserts.

Refueled, we hopped the Metro again and rode out to the Pentagon for another tour arranged by our Congressperson.

Sadly, we had a backpack with us that they would not hold and would not let in so I was going to stay out with it, but Lando volunteered to.

So we all - minus Lando - toured the Pentagon.

On a side note, TONS of other people in our group had backpacks with them.

VERY frustrating!!!!!

Hot & tired, we eventually made our way back to the hotel where we sit now, cooling off and resting.

The kids want to see "Transformers 2" tonight???