Besides visiting museums, we also spent a lot of time in DC visiting monuments and national treasures. Everywhere you turn there’s something to see!

We headed over the Potomac River to the Arlington National Cemetery.

In specific older sections of the cemetery there are different styles of grave markers but in the newer sections they are all uniform.

The grounds are enormous (and we relied on the cemetery shuttle bus) so we only visited the most popular sights…

Of course the Kennedy Gravesites where President John F. Kennedy, his wife Jackie and two of their children are buried.

And the Tomb of the Unknowns where we also got to experience the Changing of the Guard.

Truly an amazing experience.

The one monument that was at the VERY top of my “to see” list was the Marine War Corps Memorial aka the Iwo Jima Memorial. I’ve seen it so many times on TV and in photos and it’s always taken my breath away.

It’s exactly the same in person. And SO much larger than I envisioned. We walked to it from the Cemetery and the approach is spectacular. I wish I had better pictures to share because it made my jaw drop. This is definitely a can’t miss memorial in my book.

Most of the other monuments are located in the city center and are easily accessible following a circular loop that’s roughly 3+ miles. One sunny afternoon we decided to walk all the monuments (it’s a looooong walk and I got sunburned!) and then on our last night we visited the same monuments again but via bike! Pics here are a combination of both days.

Here’s Rob before we set out on our bike ride. Hehe. We did the Monuments at Night tour with Bike and Roll. It was fantastic.

Our first sighting of the Washington Monument! Taken from the National Mall.

At the start of our monument walk/bike tour.

And at night! Stunning.

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Ok, picking up my trip report again. This time we’re heading to DC!

From NYC’s Penn Station we took Amtrak (the Northeast Regional route) straight to Union Station in DC. It was an easy breezy 3+ hours on the train. I highly recommend the train over a flight. No need to get to the station as early, no security and cheaper fares! TIP: TAKE ADVANTAGE of Amtrak’s Red Cap service if it’s available. There are Red Cap agents at many major stations that offer FREE baggage handling directly to the train platform AHEAD of general boarding. All you need to do is tip the agent. If we hadn’t used the service, we probably wouldn’t have gotten seats together.

For some reason, I only got this random pic of Rob & Cap on the train…

This was when we got to DC — the train was packed with commuters the whole way!

Union Station is so beautiful.

In this entry, I’m going to cover the museums we visited. Our first stop was the Smithsonian Castle.

It’s mostly an informational building so we didn’t linger too long before heading to the National Air and Space Museum.

This is tied for my favorite museum of the trip.

So happy! 🙂

Cap fits right in.

The Space Race exhibit featuring missiles and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in the back.

And the Apollo Lunar Module in the Exploring the Moon exhibit.

We walked through the entire first and second floors in a few hours – so fun!

We made the mistake of visiting the National Museum of Natural History on a Friday. AAAAHHHHH. SO MANY KIDS ON FIELD TRIPS. It was incredibly crowded (and this coming from someone who can deal with the crowds at Disneyland) so we basically walked in, saw the Hope Diamond, and high-tailed it outta there.

Before leaving I had to take a picture of the elephant in the rotunda. So iconic.

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