After a LONG first day and night in DC we finally had some time to spend together and with the family. Ryan's cousin Jason, his girlfriend, and two sons were also in town for the shows so we met up with them for some tourist action! Our first stop was the Washington Monument, an easy place to meet because you literally CAN NOT MISS IT! I tried to play tour guide and Google fun facts about each of the places we stopped at so, for the Washington Monument, I was super surprised to learn that construction of the obelisk halted for 23 years because they didn't have the money to finish it!!! If you look closely you can see the difference in the shading of the marble - it turns out 23 years later they couldn't find the same marble! HA! History is so cool!
Next stop - OF COURSE - was the White House. I don't even have any pictures of the White House because it was so depressing to me. I remember being there when I was a kid (that's probably one of the only things I remember about going to DC) and I have a vivid image in my head of me standing at the iron gates and peering through to get an unobstructed view. Unfortunately, times have changed A LOT and there are a ton of barricades so you can't even get close to the gates. PLUS, behind those barricades are Secret Service guards with semi-automatic weapons (the guys in the group said they were AR-15s but I wouldn't know for sure!) about every 10 feet. I couldn't wait to move on to the memorial of my favorite President, Abraham Lincoln. I honestly started to cry when we got there ... after a long walk past the World War II Memorial and Reflecting Pool. It was crazy to think about not only how much has changed since he was the President, but also how much we have gone backwards recently. Hopefully everyone got out and VOTED this week so we can HOPEFULLY move forward in a more positive direction! The Democrats took the house and the Republicans picked up Senate seats - whatever your political persuasion may be, I hope that we an all be inspired by the high voter turnout and consider it an overall win for our country and for democracy!
It's always so nice to spend time with family when we're on tour! Especially when we can sightsee AND be silly together!
xoxo. Alexandra
PS: One of my other favorite places we stopped at was the Albert Einstein Memorial. I got to stand in the center of the universe - a map made of black granite with over two thousand steel studs representing the planets, sun, moon, stars, and other celestial bodies - and have a nice talk with Albert while we were there. It was such a moving experience to hear the echoing of all of my sentiments in the somewhat empty "universe," since it was just me and Ryan and we were uninterrupted by tourists! You should definitely try it out if you haven't already!
