Thursday's signature event was dinner at the Chart House along the Potomac waterfront in Old Town, Alexandria. We walked the 17 blocks from the King Street Metro station down to the waterfront (and back) in order to see all the shops and buildings along the way.
Friday's main activity was the Old Town Trolley Tour. We took the "orange loop" through the Mall and Monuments area. As our conductor said, "this city will monument you to death." We then took the "green loop" through residential and business areas in northwest Washington. I forgot to take a picture of the trolley, but where we loaded is just a block from my office, so maybe I'll walk over and take one some afternoon.I did, however, remember to memorialize this picture while we awaited the trolley: the historic Ford's Theatre is now immediately next door to the Hard Rock Cafe and across the street from a variety of tacky souvenir stands. I've always found that so odd. We skipped Hard Rock and headed to the Capitol City Brewery for a tasty lunch. Later we took the Metro to Arlington Cemetery where rode the 40-minute Tourmobile loop through the cemetery.
Saturday's fun started at the Air & Space Museum, where we also saw the Treasures of the American History Museum (closed for the 2nd of a 3 year renovation). To kill the three hours until our dinner reservation, we walked through the Mall to see the Kite Festival, did a lap around the White House to see protestors, and did a photo op at McPherson Square!
(Side note on McPherson Square: we saw it on our green loop tour, and the conductor told us that General McPherson was so often having his last name mispronounced as "Mc-Fear-son" that he coined the response, "There's no fear in McPherson." We laughed out loud at that one, since we assumed someone in McPherson, Kansas, came up with that slogan! Every young bullpup learns it early in life!)I almost forgot our other stop: The National Geographic Society Museum. They had a display called Frogs! that has been advertised on posters in the Metro cars and we were in the neighborhood, so we swung by. We were actually quite impressed with all of the different frogs in their habitats. Some were so exotic looking that we thought they were ceramic or glass at first!
