A Trip to Washington DC with Naomi

Naomi outside the White House...

We’ve just returned from a four day trip to our nation’s capital with our 12 year old granddaughter, Naomi, to celebrate her graduation from lower school.  (She actually graduated last year, but we were simply unable to schedule the trip any sooner: between school, skiing, soccer, sports club, and theatre camp, her calendar was just too full.)  As it turned out, the trip was brief and exhausting – but it was absolutely wonderful and we all had a great time.

We traveled back and forth by train on Amtrak – a much more efficient and civilized way to get from NY to Washington than flying, what with the added time it would have taken to travel to and from airports in both cities – and we stayed at the Embassy Suites Washington Convention Center.  Our choice of a hotel worked out perfectly:  our two room suite was spacious and well appointed; the hotel was very child friendly; and we were located within walking distance of both

...and at the Lincoln Memorial

the Mall and of Ford’s Theatre.  A large free breakfast buffet was provided daily, fortifying us for the long days of sightseeing ahead of us.  And at the end of the day a free manager’s reception (wine, cheese, chips, crudités, etc.) took the edge off our appetites before dinner.  Add to that the swimming pool, hot tub and fitness center (all of which Naomi somehow found time to fit into our busy schedule) and we really couldn’t have asked for anything more.

During our four days stay, we managed to get to the Air and Space Museum, the American Indian Museum, and the Natural History Museum on the Mall.  We saw the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial,  the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and the National Archives (one really can’t go to Washington without seeing the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights).  We saw the White House (but only from the outside; unfortunately tours of the White House have been cancelled due to the sequester.)

,,,and in front of the Washington Monument

But while we weren’t able to tour the White House, we were able to tour Congress and to snag passes to the Visitors Gallery in the House of Representatives.  We visited the museum at Ford’s Theatre and saw One Destiny, a play about the Lincoln assassination at the theatre (I’ll be posting a brief review of the play in a day or two).  We also visited the John F. Kennedy Center and saw the long-running comedy Shear Madness there (I’ll be posting a brief review of that play in a day or two as well).  And we took the quirky DC Ducks Tour – a tour of the city in an amphibian bus that is just at home on the city’s streets as it is in the Potomac River.

In short, we all had a grand time.  When I asked Naomi what she most enjoyed, these were her choices:

Third Place:  The DC Ducks Tour.

Second Place: The Visitors Gallery of the House of Representatives.

First Place: Shear Madness at the Kennedy Center (I’ll have more to say about that in a future post).