Day -2: Tourists in DC (1/2)

May 11, 2023

Museums and Bus tours

Washington, DC is hot. It was about 30°C out today, and the A/C in our hotel isn't the best. I misplaced my passport this morning so in the heat it was a bit stressful but we found it and all is good.

We were planning to head out to the Udvar Hazy Centre of the Air and Space museum but decided we'd save that till tomorrow since it's such a long trip out to there. We wandered down to the national mall around noon and got a time slot booked for entry into the main Air and Space museum. While waiting we popped over to a modern art museum which we'd love to spend some more time at tomorrow, but we only had about 20 minutes. After a wait in the queue in the hot sun we got into the Air & Space museum and got to see some amazing exhibits: lunar command modules, rovers, and the original Wright brothers Flyer.

Apollo lunar command module at Air & Space

We decided we were getting tired from all this walking around museums and we'd take a hop-on hop-off bus tour and see some of the famous sights of DC. We stopped at the Lincoln Memorial and saw the fabulous view down the Reflecting Pool towards Washington Monument.

He looks a lot bigger than I expected in person

The rush hour traffic started to set in so the bus was slowing down but we got off in the City Centre/Chinatown for some dinner. We found a lovely Thai place called Absolute Thai Restaurant that hit all our cravings. It felt nice to have some food that was completely familiar to us, instead of the American food that subtly different than anything at home.

We got back to the hotel around 7 to do some washing and relax. As we got nearby I noticed that they were flying the NZ flag on one of their many flagpoles with flags of other guests. It's a nice touch and we really appreciated it.

The NZ flag flying near the end of the row at our hotel

Hung a clothesline in the hotel so our merino doesn't shrink or rip in the dryer

Today was a good day, much more relaxed than the rest, we're enjoying having accommodation so close to everything we want to see. Tomorrow we aim to get out to see a space shuttle and some planes, and then make sure we're packed appropriately to kick off the biking on Saturday.

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Andrea BrownYou've probably seen more important American sights in the past few days than most Americans have! Folks in the West rarely travel to that end of the country, and you get to see it from coast-to-coast. May all treat you as the welcome guest that you are.
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1 year ago

Luke ParkinsonTo Andrea BrownThank you, Andrea. We sure feel like we're seeing a lot. I'm looking forward to seeing the national parks. Once I'm done with this trip I'll probably have seen more of the US than I have of NZ
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1 year ago