Little Red Fox
In the morning, we were up early to get some breakfast at Little Red Fox out in Northwest DC. We would be meeting with Nums’ friend Sherrie, who recently moved out there for work with her boyfriend…. Andrew? I don’t think I caught his name, but oh well. After breakfast, we would be heading back towards the heart of DC for some sightseeing, as per Joshua’s itinerary. In the evening, we were grabbing dinner with Nums’ friend Barbara and her family somewhere in Arlington.
It took us about an hour to get there from Leesburg, and about 10-15 minutes to find street parking. It’s a great looking neighborhood, but oh man, there ain’t no parking! We circled for a while, and finally caught a break, getting street parking a few storefronts away from the restaurant. It’s not a large place at all, but very quaint. Extremely limited seating — I’m talking two tables and a bunch of stools. We made it work, however, and eventually were all sitting down at one point or another, and finished breakfast.
We were soon off within the hour to the Mall. Again, once we reached the area near the Lincoln Memorial, we circled and circled as I kept taking the wrong turn and ending up on one highway, bridge, or traffic circle going away from the Mall area. Eventually after enough of this nonsense, we found parking at the Tidal Basin with a 3-hour time limit. If we had more time, and if there was nicer weather, we would have taken the paddle boats out on the Tidal Basin, but it was still a rainy day. We parked the car, and walked in the rain and through the mud to get to the Jefferson Memorial on the other side of the Basin.
We reached the Jefferson Memorial, and I was impressed with my first time here. I’d been to DC numerous times, but I’ve never seen most of the memorials. Today was going to be a great opportunity to see a lot of new places. We spent time walking around and reading, then taking the elevator down to the lower level with the restrooms and gift shop. The kids wanted a souvenir, and we didn’t want to spend an inordinate amount. We agreed on these cool token books that can be used to collect various tokens at the various memorials for $1 each. Now, instead of having one expensive souvenir, the kids were on a scavenger hunt to collect tokens. Joel is smart!
We continued to make our way around the Tidal Basin clockwise, visiting the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Both were great, even though it was still rainy. The rainfall dropped off, and we made our way to the Lincoln Memorial. After seeing Lincoln, we walked along the Mall to see the Korean War Veterans Memorial and the World War II Memorial. It was here that we ran into former senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole. He was here to meet with the many U.S. veterans visiting DC through Honor Flight. Pretty cool. The man is like 92 years old. It was shocking to run into him.
At the Lincoln Memorial
Dinner and dessert with the Eustace family
By the late afternoon, we wrapped up our sightseeing around the Mall at the Washington Monument. We didn’t have time to go up the obelisk, but maybe next time. We took a short break here to rest our legs, then I went to get the car before we earned a parking ticket. In the meantime, Nums took the kids to get snacks from some food trucks nearby. With all of our walking around, we didn’t even have time for lunch. Once we had regrouped in the car, we took a quick spin around town, then made our way to Virginia. We took a quick 30 minute break at an Arlington Starbucks, filled up the gas tank, and drove to Barb and John’s new home. After we hung out at their house (and got the tour, we drove over to the Peter Chang szechuan restaurant. Good food, but the young kids were sorta too tired for sitting around in a restaurant.
We eventually gave up on dinner, took the kinds for some running around outside on the sidewalk, as well as got them some milkshakes and ice cream at an Elevation Burger. At the end, even I was tired, so we said our farewells, and it was back to Leesburg for some rest and our last night. We would be going home on Sunday.
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