04/26/17 - Day 23 - Washington D.C.- The National Mall and Smithsonian Natural History Musuem

My first time visiting the nation's capital. I spent the entire first day in D.C touring the National Mall and surrounding monuments via bike.  Finally had a nice turn in the weather, partly sunny and pleasantly warm.  I started at the Washington Monument and headed down the mall to see the Lincoln Memorial


View of Lincoln Memorial from the Washington Monument






View of Washington Monument from Lincoln Memorial


I then headed over to the other side of the mall to check out the Capital building. 
View of the Capital from the Washington Monument.  The dome restoration looks great.






Finally, I had to go see Casa de Trump.  I don't think anyone was home, but you can't get near the place anymore.


The National Mall is really a great place to visit.  It was pretty surreal to see all the famous landmarks in person.  On top of that, everything is free (well, taxes...)  Having the bike really helped as getting around as the mall is a couple miles wide.  Long walk, short bike trip.


Smithsonian has several museums up and down the Mall.  I decided to stop at the Natural History Museum. 




This place has a smorgasbord of exhibits and it's huge.  I was there for over three hours and only saw about two thirds of it.  I was most interested in the gems, metals, minerals exhibits.  They have a pretty extensive diamond collection, including the famous hope diamond.
        

The also have this - a wall of gold ore


This place warrants a full day visit.  In fact, there way too much to see in Washington than you can do in a couple of days.

Comments

  1. Kyle LangfittMay 8, 2017 at 5:19 AM

    I am looking forward to exploring as much of Washington DC as possible while I'm there for graduate school.

    ReplyDelete

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