Despite our less-than-restful sleep due to a couple of trucks pulling up next to us in the middle of the night and noisily transferring goods, we were up and ready to head to Washington DC today, a city we had been excited to visit for a while--it is the capital, after all! Lisette had been once on a work trip over a decade ago, and while she only had a day to explore the city on her own, she'd enjoyed the intellectual and cosmopolitan energy when she was there, such as eavesdropping on conversations from folks from all over the world, while she sat and ate ramen one night for dinner.
Unfortunately, our visit was somewhat marred by the US government shutdown, which meant that many places that we'd had on our list--such as the Smithsonian--the world's largest museum, education, and research complex, was closed. We were so, so bummed to miss out, and chatted about whether we'd have to return one day to experience the spate of activities and sights that we would undoubtedly miss.
We stopped first at Rock Creek Park, a 1,754 acre park on the outskirts of Washington DC, which was the third national park to be designated by the federal government. Because of the US government shutdown, nobody was working. in the park and the visitor center was closed, but we could still drive in and walk the trails. According to Atlas Obscura, the Capitol Stones were here, massive piles of stones from a 1958 renovation of the Capitol building, which were dumped by Congress and abandoned for 60 years. However, it seems that the stones have now been permanently removed, but the visit wasn't in complete vain as the park is really nice and a wonderful nature getaway we're sure for folks that live in DC. As we were leaving, a lady stopped us to ask for directions to some waterfalls, so I guess we weren't the only ones trying to find obscure park attractions!
Our next stop was the Washington National Cathedral, also in DC, but on the outskirts. It is an incredibly striking structure: the 2nd-largest church building in the country, and the 3rd-tallest building in DC. Built in a Neo-Gothic design, it towered above our heads, which was tough because we were trying to spot the Darth Vader grotesque somewhere in the northwest tower! In the 1980s, a children's competition was held for grotesques for the building. Christopher Rader won third-place, with his drawing of the "Star Wars" movie villain. The grotesque needs binoculars to easily spot, and it's not the only quirky grotesque that was constructed: other winning entries included a racoon on the north tower, and a girl with braces as well as a man holding an umbrella on the south tower.
It was very windy when we were there, and since it was also Halloween (and a Friday), there were a lot of kids running around, their costumes fluttering in the icy wind as we raced back to the RV for warmth!
Arriving in Washington DC
Since DC isn't particularly suburban, we weren't sure what the driving and parking situation would be for our RV, but we managed to find metered parking fairly easily next to the Heurich House Museum, a stunning Gilded Age mansion in Dupont Circle. The mansion was built in 1892-4 for German-American immigrant Christian Heurich, whose brewery was the largest in DC and a household name. The house remained in the Heurich family until 1956, when it was bequeathed to DC’s historical society. Today, tours are available to see the mansion interior, and visitors can sip a Senate Beer (a revival of the beer brand that once prevailed in DC) at the museum’s backyard biergarten.
We continued to walk along to The Mansion on O Street nearby, a luxury boutique hotel that's known for its quirky interior decor, including hidden doors, secret passages, and rooms in which all furnishings and fixtures are for sale. While we didn't go inside, the exterior was also really fun, with skeletons, an Alice in Wonderland statue, and plenty of flowers and pops of color for a mish-mash of Halloween and other eclectic decorations.
Guess the Flag at Embassy Row
We had driven down "Embassy Row" on our way into DC, the informal name for a section of the DC that's littered with embassies, diplomatic missions, and diplomatic residences. We were excited to see the embassies immediately, noting which country they represented by the flag waving in front of the building. Some embassies, like France and Turkey, had massive estates, with massive flags on the tall flagpoles or draped over the building itself, but it was also really delightful to see less populated and visited countries with prominent spots on Embassy Row--including Marshall Islands, Cote d'Ivoire, Kyrgyzstan and so many others!
As we were walking along, we passed the Kenyan embassy and greeted the man standing out the front. He invited us in, saying they had candy (which Lisette mistook for "curry", which was obviously very confusing). Lisette stepped in and they had a bowl with some candy and chocolates--and it was then that Lisette realized that they must have thought we were trick or treating! Since we were there on Halloween, it turns out that some embassies open their doors for university students to come in for candy, and Lisette was mistaken for a Georgetown University student! We weren't even dressed for the occasion, whoops!
We walked further up Embassy Row, but there were still many more embassies to see further up, and we had run out of time in our parking meter so had to head back. As we we were walking back, passing embassies like Haiti and others, we saw a bus drop off a whole load of Georgetown University students, adding to the dozen or so who we'd already seen in costumes. Interestingly, the youngest trick or treater in this part of DC was a university student--no toddlers or young teens around here!
Missing the Arboretum
We figured we'd explore more of downtown DC and the government buildings tomorrow, so we left the neighborhood and drove up United States National Arboretum, a collections-based research facility and public garden of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Arboretum also hosts the world’s first museum dedicated to the art of bonsai, which was established in 1976.
Unfortunately, however, due to the US government shutdown, unlike Rock Creek, we couldn't even enter the Arboretum grounds, as the black iron fence was clamped shut. What a bummer--we'd driven over 30 minutes and battled traffic to get here! It was getting late in the afternoon, so we decided to park just outside the Arboretum entrance, which was by a quiet, residential neighborhood.
That evening, we consoled ourselves with a trip to McDonald's (Michael), getting some fast food for him to eat while we watched an episode of Great British Bake Off (it was a Friday, after all). On the way there, we'd seen a couple of police cars outside the entrance of a local park, setting up for neighborhood Halloween celebrations (the cars were decorated with skeletons and music was starting to play). When we walked back, a cute little girl told us to come back because we were "early" and festivities would kick off at 6pm. But we were tired and skipped the party, although we did hear music playing well after midnight--Halloween is definitely a big celebration throughout the country!