Last Day in DC

Today was our last day in DC, so we made the most out of it we could.  We went back down to the Mall so we could walk over and see the Jefferson Memorial, the FDR Memorial, and the MLK Memorial.  We also wanted to go back over by the Archives to see if we could get in today. When we were planning to go on Saturday the line to get inside was ridiculously long.  Today, it was perfect and didn't take us that long.

We started back over by the Washington Monument and walked around to the Jefferson. We missed the cherry blossoms around the Tidal Basin that surrounds the memorial. They bloomed early this year because of our crazy lack of winter.  Oh well; it was still really pretty and the memorial is awesome.  I can pretty safely say that the Jefferson is my favorite memorial in Washington, followed by the Lincoln and the FDR.

The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial is really nice and very thorough. It takes you through his political career and has lots of water features and quotes etched in stone. There are also several bronze statues and pieces of art. I was really impressed with it. On the way back around to the Mall we passed the Martin Luther King, Jr Memorial too. It's shorter than I thought it was, but still an impressive monument.

Seeing the archives was really neat.  The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights are all on display, right there under glass for you to see.  It's pretty amazing that those pieces of paper have survived all these years, although they are quite faded.  They don't allowed photography inside the Archives, which makes me sad although I understand. People don't know how to use their cameras properly and the flashes would ruin those documents. Oh, and for the record, the Declaration isn't displayed quite the same as depicted in National Treasure...nor would you be able to set off the alarm with your video camera because someone would stop you as soon as they saw the camera.

We walked over to the Navy Memorial which is situation behind the Archives. We had passed it the other day but I didn't get to see it then because we were headed to the Metro station right next to it.

On our way to lunch we walked past the south lawn of the White House (well across the street from it). The Easter Egg Roll was today so there were thousands of people on the lawn, but I still got some pictures of the back side of the White House.