Headed to the Capital

I'm so excited, I was able to pretty easily get Mike to agree to a trip to Washington, DC for Memorial Day weekend this year. I like doing these Memorial Day weekend trips, last year it was San Francisco, this year it's DC, wonder where we should go next year? This one was at least an easy sell, I saw a deal on Travel Zoo (one of my favorite websites, it makes me fantasize about all kinds of fun trips) for a hotel special in DC. If you prepaid and stayed over on Sunday night we were able to get the Marriott in Downtown DC for just $99 a night coming to $226 total for two nights with tax. For that price even Mike couldn't turn it down. We've both only been to to DC once when we were both in about 8th grade, my trip was only for the day so we didn't get to see much, I've been dying to go back since. Plus since it is not a terribly far drive from our house (as long as you don't hit traffic) it makes it a perfect weekend destination.

We're going to drop the little guy off at his country home, aka Mike's parents house, where he will be spoiled rotten for the weekend and then head down to DC on Saturday morning coming back on Monday afternoon. I am a little worried about the traffic since it is Memorial Day weekend but hopefully most of the traffic will be bound for more shore type destinations. One of the best parts of going to DC is that almost everything is free!!! I was shocked when I saw that, you don't have to pay for admission to any of the museums!

As of now the rough game plan is to get down to DC for about lunch time. I'm thinking we can grab lunch when we get there at Ben's Chili Bowl which is supposed to be really famous and of course really good! After that I have us signed up for a tour of the Capital at 2:30, which I've never seen before! Since the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court and the US Botanical Gardens are all right there next to each other I figure we can check those out too while we're right there, before we head back to the hotel and check in. I'm hoping for dinner that night we can head over to the Old Ebbit Grill and then maybe over to the POV Roof Terrace at the W Hotel for drinks after, since it's on the same block and all.

On Sunday I am thinking we will do a hop-on/hop-off bus tour since it will be able to drive us around to all the major attractions like all the memorials and museums. I know the two museums I would like to see the most at the National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space Museum. I figure if we do the bus tour we can catch all the other sites like The White House, Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson Memorials. After we're done with all our tours for the day I figure we can head back to the hotel and go to a restaurant near there that is supposed to be really good, Matchbox: Chinatown. And if we're up to it there is also a Memorial Day Concert at the Captial at 8pm we can check out if we want to. I also have a wine bar near the hotel that is supposed to be really good if we want to check that out as well, Proof Wine Bar.

For our final day in DC, I'm figuring we'll prob only stay till about lunch time so that leaves us the morning to go exploring. I figure we should leave after lunch since I'm not sure how the traffic will be since it's Memorial Day and we want to get back at a reasonable time, I just hope we don't hit all the traffic going back home. I know it's a very poignant and moving experience and can be very somber but I was thinking we might want to check out the Holocaust museum. I figure after that we can double back and see anything else we might have missed before we head out. If we feel like it maybe we'll stop by We, The Pizza for lunch before we get on the road.

I'm really excited for our trip, I think it is going to be a lot of fun, I'm glad we are going. I really want us to do more short weekend trips like this, now if only I could convince Mike! DC here we come!