Adventures with Abigail

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I went to Washington D.C. in March of 2022. This is my story.

This was a really short weekend trip, and I didn’t take many photos to help jog my memory of the details.

I flew in on a Friday night and Ubered to the hotel. The Uber driver slowed down so I could stare out the window at the Washington Monument. The nest morning I had some breakfast and set out the National Mall. Fun fact, its not a shopping mall, its the big green park-like area you see in the photos of the Washington Monument. On the way, we walked by the Capital building, pictured below

I then went to the Smithsonian Museum of History right when it opened. My main mission was to see the Declaration of Independence (and not steal it) with a side quest of the Constitution. The line at the Constitution/Bill of Rights was a lot less than the DoI, so I was able to take some time to try to read the Bill of Rights. It’s very faded and difficult to read. I also snuck a view of a copy of the Magna Carta (I later saw one of the other original copies in the British Museum). It’s quite a stroll to go from the Museum area to the Washington Monument and then over to the Lincoln Memorial, so I took my time and stopped to take some pictures along the way.

I spent a lot of time outside the Lincoln Memorial taking photos. I was really excited because this is where Forrest Gump gives his famous speech. I also went inside the Lincoln Memorial for an up-close look at the famous statue. There’s whole paragraphs of words on the walls to read, but that’s never shown in the tv and movies. The whole room is aggressively quiet, and filled with people so taking photos inside is difficult. here’s TONS of food trucks all around the Lincoln Memorial. I had a Taro Boba Milk Tea from one of them after lunch from another.

Let’s play a game. How many Abigails are in the following photo?? I’ll block out the answer key so you can see if you found them all. Hint, I’m wearing the same clothes as the Washington Monument photo above. The answer would have been more, but my photographer did not understand the assignment and changed the camera angle part of the way through.

The answer is Three! One on the right side in the grass, one way out back on the left by the water, just under the railing, and one just to the left of that by a tree. I’ll admit that last one isn’t fair, so if you said two, then congratulate yourself on a job well done.

After lunch, I went back to some museums. Unfortunately the Air and Space Museum was under construction and didn’t have any of the first planes out on display. That museum was by far the worst of the Smithsonian’s. It stunk pretty bad, the carpet was super gross to look at, and it was mostly a large room with a bunch of rocket displays. IDk, I’d been to Space Center Houston, and they have a better set up that’s not gross. Later that evening I walked into a nice restaurant that was reservation only except for their bar. I waited in the front by the door for about 20 minutes until a couple finished their meal and left. The food was really really good.

The next day was more museums and nice walks around the National Mall. T I went to the National Gallery of Art, and to a really cool temporary museums that was about advancements in technology. They had a screen with Minecraft that you could play with only your eyes! It was difficult to get used to, but I was finally finding my groove by the time a message popped up that said “you’ve been playing for a little while, maybe someone else is waiting to play?” I thought that was polite. They also had a Margaret Hamilton life size stack of code that she wrote. I think I must have been about her height, which is cool. Walked over to the Whitehouse, too, but I couldn’t see much of it because it was surrounded by large walls and some fence that makes for bad photos.

I pretty much Limed/Birded (aka scootered) and walked around the parts of D.C. that I went to, and that worked well. I stayed at a hotel near the airport the last night because my flight out was real early. I landed back in Houston around 7:30am and went into work that day.