When I decided to join TJ in DC for a work trip, I figured it would be easy enough to make travel plans. But for some reason, we had difficulty finding a hotel for a reasonable price. It wasn't until we arrived in the capital that we realized that was because we were competing with some big events, including the 20th anniversary of the
Million Man March. Knowing that it would be packed, we avoided the Mall, but we still happened to run into participants in the
Army 10-Miler (left) as we explored the new
Long Bridge Park, named after the railway bridge that crosses the Potomac River toward the Washington Monument (right).
From the park we headed to one of the few non-Smithsonian museums in the city: the
National Geographic Museum, which was featuring an
Indiana Jones exhibit. We arrived there early enough to avoid most of the crowds. The next day, despite arriving just after its opening, Mount Vernon was already busy, perhaps because it was a beautiful fall day (left).
I have visited the estate a few times before, so to make this a fresh experience, I picked up some glasses to view the
3-D pictures scattered throughout the grounds (right).
One totally new DC experience for me was a trip to the
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Space Center, part of the
National Air and Space Museum. We headed there at 4 p.m., when parking becomes free, to squeeze in a quick visit before it closed at 5:30 p.m. We headed straight to the
Observation Tower, from which we could see the beginnings of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the south (left) and the control tower of Dulles airport to the north (right).
Even with limited time, we were able to quickly walk through the hangars to see some of the top exhibits, including the
Concorde -- the first supersonic jetliner, which made its last trans-Atlantic flight in 2003 (left) -- and the
Enola Gay -- the B-29 bomber used to drop the first atomic weapon, on Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II (right).
But by far, the highlight for me was seeing the space shuttle
Discovery, the workhorse of the U.S. space program for three decades (left). Up close, I was amazed by the wear and tear on its tiles, and I was surprised that it didn't seem as big as I thought it would be (right). After all, it was small enough to be
delivered to the museum on the back of a Boeing 747 jet.
Whenever I get back to DC, I'm on a mission to eat at new restaurants. TJ's sister was hankering for some cured Spanish meats, so we headed down the street from the National Geographic Museum to some post-brunch snacks at
Boqueria (left). Later in the week, after scarfing down burgers and fries, TJ and I topped off our meal at
Good Stuff Eatery with some milkshakes (right).
Also on our trajectory was
Hellbender Brewing Company, one of the newer beer outlets in DC (left). During a tour, one co-owner described the Belgian filtration system the company bought to make its brewing more environmentally friendly by reducing the amount of water use (right). Sustainability aside, the beers were good; after the tour, I tried pints of
Grampus smoked nut brown ale and
Compass coffee stout, while TJ had the
Red, White & Gluten farmhouse ale and
Red Line amber ale, then we shared a tasting sample of the
Southern Torrent saison.
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