Washington D.C.: Day 1

This morning we headed into Washington DC. We parked the car at the University of Maryland metro stop and cruised into town the easy way. I knew that we did not want to tackle driving in the city.

A couple weeks ago I'd purchased hop on-hop off double-decker bus tickets. When I'd visited New York and London I found these busses to be an easy way to hit the tourist spots. It was a good choice for DC as well.

We caught the bus at Union Station and took it to Ford's Theater/Peterson House. When I visited DC in 1987, the theater was closed for a special performance. Guess what? Right now it's closed for renovations. So I still haven't seen where President Lincoln was shot. We did tour Peterson house, so the stop wasn't a complete bust.

Our next stop was the White House Visitor's Center. That's another big change since 1987. On that trip people lined up to get tickets to tour some of the rooms of the White House. Now you have to make do with a video tour. We walked over to see the mansion through the fence and had to work our way through a maze of barricades. What we could see of the house and grounds is still beautiful, but the extra distance, really saddens me.

For lunch we went to Georgetown. I really love the atmosphere. It's sort of the Anti-DC. We ate at Martin's Tavern. It was excellent and then we wandered down to the Old Stone House. It's the oldest home in the city, built in the 18th Century.

After lunch we hopped back on the bus and headed to the monuments. We started at the Lincoln Memorial and walked to the Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial (Today is Korean War Armistace Day), the World War II Memorial and the Washington Monument.