DC Cupcakes was the first stop. But first we have to find a place to park our Big RV, which is not an easy task in Georgetown. We found the Ohio Canal National Park and thought that we could park there, but NOPE . . . there is not a visitors center or parking place. Trying to navigate Dave through the oh so narrow streets was quite a challenge . . . . . good thing we are not any bigger than 26 feet. We finally pulling into an empty school parking lot and Dave went to ask if we could park there – thankfully they said “Sure, no problem” because it was spring break! The moral of the story is TAKE THE METRO, it’s much easier!!
Famous on TV for their amazing cupcakes, we had to stand in line for 20 minutes to get in the door. It was totally worth every minute because the cupcakes were YUMMY! Brittany got the Oreo cookie, Brooke got the chocolate mint, and Dave and I shared a chocolate coconut. We paid for 3 but oops we got an extra Oreo cookie one in our adorable pink box. I guess it was a birthday bonus for Brittany!! J
Then we walked down to the water front on the Potomac River. Georgetown is beautiful with all the old brick buildings and the adorable shops. All of a sudden we saw the presidents helicopter fly by – don’t know who was in it but it was exciting all the same for the kids.
We actually didn’t know it but we were walking straight towards the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As we walked up the street to the Kennedy Center we noticed the building to the left across the street that said Watergate building. We thought that it might be the actual building where Watergate happened during Nixon’s presidency. It turns out that we were right. The kids remembered that he was the first president to get impeached for the Watergate Scandal.
The Kennedy Center, which is right on Potomac River opened to the public in September 1971. But it really began 1958, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation creating a National Cultural Center. To honor Eisenhower's vision for such a facility, one of the Kennedy Center's theaters is named for him. The legislation said that the center will present a wide variety of both classical and contemporary performances, have an educational mission for the Center, and stated that the Center was to be an independent facility, self-sustaining and privately funded. As a result of this last stipulation, a mammoth fundraising campaign began immediately following the Act's passage into law. President John F. Kennedy was a lifelong supporter and promoter of the arts, and frequently steered the public’s eye toward what he called "our contribution to the human spirit." Kennedy took the lead in raising funds for the new National Cultural Center, holding special White House luncheons and receptions, appointing his wife Jacqueline and Mrs. Eisenhower as honorary co-chairwomen, and in other ways placing the prestige of his office firmly behind the project. Two months after President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Congress designated the National Cultural Center as a "living memorial" to Kennedy, and authorized $23 million to help build what was now known as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
We started in the Hall of States where the state flags are all lined up according to what year they joined America. Next we went to the top floor terrace to overlook all of DC. It was a beautiful view of the Potomac and DC.
Next we took a tour of the center and sat in the Concert Hall. This is the home of the Washington symphony and the acoustics are incredible in this room. The chandeliers were a gift from Denmark and they are on a wire that allows them to be pulled down to clean periodically – they were beautiful.
When we were finished with the Kennedy Center, we walked down the walkway on the Potomac River to the DC Capital Mall. That’s what they call the area between the Capital and the Lincoln Memorial. The pathway took us right to the Lincoln Memorial and the kids were in awe of the size of it!! Of course they remember many of the details of Washington DC from the movie National Treasure, including the scene at the Lincoln Memorial, but they loved seeing it in real life.
The Lincoln Memorial is a memorial built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln and it started construction in 1920. Commission president William H. Taft – who was then Chief Justice of the United States – dedicated the Memorial on May 30, 1922 and presented it to President Warren G. Harding, who accepted it on behalf of the American people. Lincoln's only remaining son, 79-year-old Robert Todd Lincoln, was in attendance.[ The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln which is 19 feet tall and wide, and it has inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address, on the walls next to the statue. The memorial has been the site of many famous speeches, including Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963 during the rally at the end of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. From 1959 to 2008, the Lincoln Memorial was shown on the reverse of the United States one cent coin, which has Lincoln's portrait on the front.. This was done to mark the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. The memorial also appears on the back of the U.S. five dollar bill, the front of which bears Lincoln's portrait.
The kids got the Capital Mall junior ranger book and after listening to a ranger talk, taking a ton of pictures and looking at everything on the memorial we walked to the Korean Memorial. They answered their junior ranger questions there and we moved on to the World War II Memorial and to the Washington Monument. The World War II Memorial honors the 16 million who served in the armed forces of the U.S., the more than 400,000 who died, and all who supported the war effort from home. The Second World War is the only 20th Century event commemorated on the National Mall’s central area.
The Washington Monument is an obelisk near the west end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to honor the first U.S. president, General George Washington. The monument, made of marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, is both the world's tallest stone structure and the world's tallest obelisk It stands 555 feet 51⁄8 inches tall. Taller monumental columns exist, but they are neither all stone nor true obelisks. Construction of the monument began in 1848, but was halted from 1854 to 1877, and finally completed in 1884. The completed monument was dedicated on February 21, 1885. The monument was damaged during the Virginia earthquake of August 23, 2011 and it unfortunately remains closed to the public indefinitely while the structure is assessed and repaired.[
Then directly over to the left of the Washington Memorial is the White House which looks directly at the memorial and beyond the Memorial to right is the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. The mall is all laid out so beautifully. The kids were incredibly excited to see the White House so we walked over to the lawn area to see where the annual Egg Roll took place today that we didn’t get picked for in the lottery of 10,000 people! Bummer! They were cleaning everything up from that today. I’m sure God had a reason for us not getting picked!!
We walked all the way back to RV (be prepared to walk everywhere in DC) that was parked graciously in free parking at the Kennedy Center, and then we found a yummy pizza place on the way home because that is what Brittany wanted for her birthday dinner. We ate, she opened her cards, and she had yummy coffee Gelato (homemade at the restaurant) for dessert and was completely happy about a fabulous day!
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