Washington, DC Trip – Day 2 – 4.9.10

For Day 1 of the trip, click here. The second day of our Washington, DC trip tested our feet. DC has great transportation but you want to be able to walk around a lot as well. I’m not sure I did as much walking as I did in Dublin, Ireland last year but it’s definitely up there. Each night we had to just massage our feet and just stay off of them for the night. Soaking them in hot water also helped as well. But besides that, we managed to do a lot of stuff around the National Mall area.

The day started off very cloudy and about 40 degrees colder than the previous day. Good thing we brought warm enough clothes. Grabbed something to eat near our hotel, and then Kristen and I headed down by the White House. The sky was started to open up to gorgeous blue skies, which was perfect for photography. Nice puffy clouds here and there too. While we were at the White House, we managed to see Bo the dog being walked by guards. My girlfriend obviously loved that, and was the highlight of the trip for her.

After that, we walked to the Washington Monument and headed to the Holocaust Museum. We saw a huge line forming around the buildings. So we got on the line, thinking this was just to go right inside. NOPE! That was the line to get a ticket, to go back later to the museum. So 45 minutes go by, we get a ticket for 1pm. So we had to kill some time before going back there.

We ended up going to the American History Museum, which was pretty cool but extremely crowded. The entire weekend was just way too crowded for me and my patience ran thin for misbehaved kids and long lines. There was a few long lines inside the museum but I wasn’t going to find out what that stuff was. After that, Kristen and I ventured off to the WWII Memorial, which was by the Washington Monument. Very nice memorial, and I loved the water fountains. We decided to just keep going and walked to the Lincoln Memorial, which is always crowded with people. The Vietnam War Memorial is something I’ll always remember. You remember it because of all the names on the wall, but seeing people coming out of the walkway crying their eyes out. It’s a sad thing to see and still relevantly recent war.

It was time to return to the Holocaust Museum once again. What we found at the entrance was more..you guessed it, more lines! This time its to get through the airport style security. Why don’t they just let us walk naked through the museum and be done with it. Seems like that’s where things are heading. I just don’t see the point of waiting on line for under an hour and wasting valuable time, and then returning again for another 20 minute wait. You should be able to reserve a time online or by phone like MOMA does in NYC for special exhibits. Just doesn’t make sense to do it that way.

I thought the Holocaust Museum was good, but it needs a lot of work. For one, don’t have so much reading! The first section of the museum is backed up for at least a half hour because everyone is god damn reading! It really holds things up. What the museum needs is either scheduled tours with guides or audio headset guides where you can bypass the reading and let famous people tell you what you’re seeing. Eastern State Penn does a brilliant job with that. Get someone like Tom Hanks or Liam Neeson narrate.

Pretty much after that, we went back to our hotel to nap again and to rest up. Then it was off to Georgetown again, this time we had some Indian food. Very yummy!

The Entire Gallery

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Tags: 50mm f1.4, 70-200mm f2.8, American History Museum, circular polorizer, DC, historic photography, Holocaust Museum, landscape, Lincoln Memorial, National Mall, nikon d300, Photography, reflecting pool, travel photography, vacation, Washington DC, Washington Monument, WWII Memorial