The Capit(o/a)l

First stop on the road: Washington DC, a pleasant 4 hour drive or so south of New York. This was the only part of our journey where we had pre-booked a hotel (SEE how intrepid we are), which ended up something of a blessing given that James & Lucy’s timing (we’ll leave NYC by noon) proved a little on the [traditionally] optimistic side (left the island about 4….).

Things we loved about Washington?
Air and Space Museum. Totally insipring uber geeky fabulousness!!! With rockets!!!!Rockets!

The Capitol. Totally awesome building. So awesome it got an epic point from James.Capitol

The gadzillions of american flags and eagles we saw. DC is in the midst of a massive upheaval (job creation programmes anyone?), all of which clearly need some highly visual patriotic support.

Flags 1Flags 2

The White House (but also see below…..)

FDR and Martin Luther King memorials; neither of which we took photos of but we do have a lovely picture of James holding up the Washington Monument taken from just by the FDR memorial. Heaven only knows what’s happened to Washington Monument now he’s gone….

Atlas!

Bikes!! Absolutely the best way to get round DC. James’ notion of running everywhere is clearly daft. Not to mention making me sweat and go red in the face 🙁

Bikes

Art….despite a somewhat tragic looking James (or is that the bull??).

Bull

Last but definitively not least, the totally uber awesome robes in our hotel. RRROOOAAARRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Roaar!

Things we were less fond of?
Everywhere being under construction. This, believe ot or not, is the view down the famous reflecting pond. No reflections, no pond, no happy Lucy. Made up for slightly by HUNDREDS of large diggers 🙂

Reflecting pond

Food in the Air and Space Museum. McDonalds anyone? NYC I miss you already

Space museum food

Crowds at the White House. And the fact that this (we’re on a fairly hefty zoom here) is the closest you can get to it without months of forward planning and a large group tour. Humph.

White House

All in, we loved Washington and, remarkably, after 2 days there, we felt like we’d been on holiday for weeks. Still, you know, at the end of the day it’s a (albeit beautiful and inspiring) city like any other…My heart yearns for the open road…