More of Day Two ~ Afternoon and Evening

 

September 12, 2022 ~ By Jarret

We walked out into glorious afternoon air and collapsed onto some nearby benches. Next, we had to figure out dinner and how far away our tour bus starting point would be. We had excellent fortune in that: The boys and I had promised the girls for 3 years straight that we’d take them to a fabulous pizza place called “&pizza”. We found that the location was literally next to the bus tour office, within 1/2 mile of the museum! We used our tired feet again, stopping to enjoy photo opps with the incredible architecture and buying sweatshirts from a street vendor. 

Tabi, Nori, and Toni, up in a niche in some important building

Abel modeling his awesome hoodie purchased from a street vendor

Lachlan looking cool

Nori bought a nice hoodie too.

Sweet sisters

Soon, we were waiting for the promised pizza and quirky-flavored soft drinks. As we were getting very short on time, Kenj thought to check if we could take pizza on the bus, and we were in luck once again.

Jarret and Kendra, at &Pizza

 We lined up to wait for our bus while we were still chomping delicious pizza. Our family grabbed elevated seats at the very back of the bus and enjoyed the warm evening air through the tall open bus windows. As Kendra and I had experienced on our previous trips, the tour guide was both knowledgeable, interesting and had a great sense of humor. Must come with the territory, or we’re just lucky. What we hadn’t experienced was that this narrator was also the driver, and she had to remember a CRAZY number of facts while aggressively navigating through traffic (we’ve learned that smooth-but-aggressive driving is the only way to drive in DC). The tour was every bit as wonderful as we remembered, with the war memorials and monuments to national leaders being lit in such an indescribably neat way. Unfortunately, this also meant that photos were hard to get, because the architects favored subtle, classy lighting over garish, commercially-bright lighting. The experience is far better than photos can convey.

Kids waiting for pizza

 

Pizza worth waiting for!

Kids in the back of the tour bus

The Capitol dome, with some scaffolding for a renovation project

Our Nation's Capitol, luminous against the night sky 

The Washington Monument, standing tall against gathering clouds in the night sky

The Washington Monument, reflecting in the Tidal Basin

Reflections on the Tidal Basin.  A Marine One helicopter flying over

The Lincoln Memorial

Abraham Lincoln

Heavily cloaked figures and an etched wall make up the Korean War Memorial

Korean War Memorial

World War II Memorial

Fountain in the middle of World War II Memorial

The tour ended at 10:00 pm, and the driver dropped us right at a Metro station. The trip back to the hotel was smooth and easy, though I could tell we were all about as tired as any reader who has made it this far is bound to be. After confirming what time we’d need to arise for the next day’s adventures, we all gratefully went to bed. Thus ended a day that had MUCH more wonderful adventure packed into it than I ever thought possible.