He first booked the hotel, the Helix Hotel, which was in an area he felt would be convenient to walking to and from the fireworks and in a good area (Dupont Circle). The Helix is a Kimpton hotel, and having stayed at a Kimpton hotel before, I knew it would have a funky, boutique vibe. I was pleasantly surprised to find out the rate was only $111 a night, quite a bit cheaper than I was expecting for D.C.'s biggest holiday! We decided to stay for 3 nights - arriving on Wednesday, July 4 and departing on Saturday, July 7. Once the hotel was booked, I tried to no avail to get put on a Congressional/Senate guest list for a Bureau of Engraving & Printing tour, the one thing I've not had the opportunity to do in my two previous trips to the city. Each Senator and Congress person has a link on their personal website to request spots on the harder-to-get tours (White House, Capitol, etc.) Although it is possible to go stand in line and get one of the free tickets distributed every day for the "money factory," the website indicated the line begins forming as early as 6 or 7am. It's not that important to me. Unfortunately, only one of the 5 or 6 reps I contacted actually responded to me; I was informed her spots for the Bureau of Engraving & Printing tours were filled up through the middle of August. The drawbacks of a last minute trip, I suppose. The one last ahead-of-time thing I did was get our reserved tickets online to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a relatively new museum and the one I was perhaps most looking forward to visiting.
A couple days later, we decided the easiest thing to do would be for Sean to fly in to D.C., and I could take the Amtrak train down on Wednesday morning, then we could both take the train back to New York on Saturday morning and have the rest of the weekend together back at home. My Acela train departed Penn Station at 10am, and after only a few quick stops (Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore), I was pulling up to Union Station in D.C. a little before 1pm. My ticket had been in business class, which was so nice - plenty of empty seats and extra leg room. Sean was there to meet me at Union Station, and we grabbed a quick lunch in the station's food court before hopping in a cab to the hotel. It was a hot, hot day in D.C. - a heat wave was sweeping through the area and looked like it would be blanketing us for the duration of our trip. It was literally like walking into a wall of heat every time we stepped outside! Our hotel room was cute and built like an alcove studio apartment with the bed tucked away around a corner. The actual hotel was situated in the middle of a quiet block that appeared to be residential. We cooled down for a little bit and then headed back out on foot.
Our room at Hotel Helix:
The tourists were out in full force today - there were people, lots of people, everywhere! Although I've done the walk to all the monuments before, we ended up making our way to almost all of them, first heading to the White House, then to the Lincoln Memorial and the war memorials around it (this is approximately the time where we started to melt). We grabbed hot dogs (just being the best Americans we could be!) at a little stand near the Lincoln Memorial and continued to chug water - we were sweating it out as quickly as we could drink it in it seemed - and then decided to figure out the best spot to watch the fireworks from. We tried a couple spots (every building's lawn in the entire city was full of people, so there was no shortage of options), but ultimately we made the call that if we were going to do this, we were going to do it right, so headed up the hill to the Washington Monument and settled in right at the barricade for a couple hours before the fireworks began, cooling down and resting my poor feet (trapped in new sandals all day...ouch). Once the sun finally disappeared, approximately 8:45pm, the fireworks began. The fireworks were launched from the empty pool area between us and the Lincoln Memorial, so we had an incredible view, and I would recommend anyone who wants to brave the crowds and do D.C. on the 4th should watch from the Washington Monument. The fireworks were beautiful against the backdrop of the monuments that surrounded us:
Once the fireworks wrapped up 30 minutes later, we slowly made our way back to the hotel through the throngs of people flooding every inch of street and sidewalk and lawn in D.C. It took about half an hour to make the walk back through all the people. Showering felt soooo good when we finally made it back to the room!
The next morning, we made the half mile walk to the McPherson Square metro station and headed toward Ballston in Arlington, where we were meeting Sean's friend for lunch at the mall. We first made a pit stop in Clarendon, where Sean used to live, so he could show me his old apartment building and neighborhood. Clarendon was such a nice area, with lots of cute restaurants and bars and shiny, new buildings all over. Once we got to Ballston, it was just a short walk to the mall (Ballston Common). After lunch, we headed back into the city, getting off at the Smithsonian station this time, and headed to the National Museum of American History, a museum that had been under renovation the last time I had been in town. We spent a couple hours making our way through the massive museum; we saw lots of cool exhibits, spending the most time in the war exhibits partly because Sean is really fascinated by the military, and partly because it was just really well done, and of course checking out Dorothy's sequined red slippers and the rest of the pop culture room.
My favorite part of the museum, though, was getting to see the Star-Spangled Banner. I actually had no idea this flag existed, and it was almost an afterthought as we were walking toward the exit to jump in the long (but quickly-moving) line to see the flag. The line wound into a very dark room, and in front of us was the biggest, most beautiful American flag I think I've ever seen. Yes it was tattered and was becoming unwoven in places, but it was a breathtaking thing to see - such a powerful image of our nation's struggle in its beginning years, laying right there in front of us under protective glass and dim lights. On September 14, 1814, U.S. soldiers at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry raised a huge American flag to celebrate a crucial victory over British forces during the War of 1812. The sight of those “broad stripes and bright stars” inspired Francis Scott Key to write a song that eventually became the United States national anthem. And we were staring right at the flag! It was definitely my favorite part of the museum, and a perfect thing to get to experience on our 4th of July trip.
Photos were not allowed in the room with the flag (the flash would damage the material), so here's a web photo of what we saw:
After we made our way back to the hotel (just in time for the complimentary happy hour in the lobby - hello watermelon sangria!) and cleaned up, we hopped in a cab and headed out to another of Sean's friends' homes out in Arlington. Traffic was pretty bad (we were hitting it right at rush hour), but we were pulling up to this gorgeous home on a quiet, tree-filled block within half an hour or so. To live so close to the bustling downtown of D.C., this neighborhood was peaceful and seemed like a perfect slice of suburbia. We got the full tour of the home while the friend's wife put the two little babies to bed - complete with a sprawling, finished basement and a cute backyard with a small garden and enough space to build a pool. We grilled out steaks on the patio and sat inside (it was still a little warm!) and devoured the delicious meal. After killing several bottles of wine, we decided it was time to call it a night, so called a cab and made our way back to the Helix.
On Friday morning, we slept in and then walked around for a little bit until we settled on having a quick lunch at Panera Bread. After lunch, we made our way to the Holocaust Museum. The reserved tickets I had gotten online were convenient, in that you get a reserved time, but you can show up any time after that assigned time. We had tickets for 1:15pm and rolled perhaps half an hour later. After lots of laughing and smiling so far on this trip, we were immediately thrust into a very somber mood. Going through it, I did realize there isn't much I don't know about the Holocaust, but all the same the entire presentation was very powerful and heavy. I don't think we said a word for the entire hour plus it took us to walk through the entire museum. There were also a number of videos that were built into the walls in such a way that children (or at least people under a certain height) would be unable to see the graphic images being displayed on them. Scientific experiments being run on the Jews, etc...it was all very disturbing. Near the end, there were videos the first military who entered the concentration camps took of what they were seeing for the first time. Those videos were very emotional and it's all just so sad - the rest of world had basically ignored what was happening and had no idea how bad it had gotten. The looks on the faces of the liberated was just heart-breaking.
When we walked out of the museum, we were definitely "down," and just looked at each other and said, "okaaaay...." - it was difficult to walk out of there back into the real world and just continue along on our fun getaway! In keeping with the somberness of the day, we decided to then get on the metro and head out to Arlington National Cemetery. We arrived at approximately 3:30pm and immediately made our way toward the Tomb of the Unknowns / Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Although the cemetery was selling rides on their trolley that would take you around the cemetery, we decided to go at our own pace and go by foot. Our timing was impeccable, as we were walking up to the tomb right as the Changing of the Guard was about to begin. It should also be noted that the cemetery's trolley would have not been a bad idea at all. The hills in the cemetery were no joke, and combined with the sweltering heat, I'm not so sure that the exercise was really worth it! Getting to see the Changing of the Guard was really cool; everything was so precisely done, and it felt like we were getting a glimpse into a very special ceremony that these sentinels take incredibly seriously.
Guarding the tomb:
After the ceremony finished up, we started walking around. We first saw some of the memorials, particularly the three in honor of the astronauts killed in their own disasters, and then looking at the different gravestones throughout the ceremony, noticing some of the tiny differences indicating the religion of the person buried, commenting on the various ranks of people varied there, and dropping our jaws at some of the graves that were hundreds of years old. We made a long, uphill hike to Arlington House, Robert E. Lee's home overlooking the cemetery and the city of D.C. Charles L'Enfant's grave was also located in front of the house.
In the front yard of the house:
The Eternal Flame grave site:
On Saturday morning, we packed up and got a cab to take us back to Union Station, with our train departing at 8:10am. Our train back was the Northeast Regional (not the Acela), but didn't make much of a difference in time and had a big difference in price! We arrived back in New York just before noon and literally fell back asleep as soon as we got to my apartment. Neither of us is very good at 6am wake up calls. :)
My trip:
"Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave..." - Star-Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key
Miles Traveled Today: 454
Total Miles Traveled: 45,513
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