The after effects of the previous day of driving had hit hard and as a result we ended up oversleeping. Waking up to find the day half over, we headed out into the wilds of inner city DC in search of some indoor entertainment. We decided to head in the direction of the National Mall and go to the Museum of Natural History.
The museum is quite large and we only got through part of it before it closed (at 7:30pm). We took the scenic, and unintentionally long, route through the museum as it was closing and found entire sections on minerals, crystals, meteorites and volcanoes that we hadn’t seen on our way through before.
Afterwards we headed out for dinner, choosing to go to the other restaurant with a brewery we found a few days prior. Called the District Chop House, it serves delicious beer made right there in the shop.
The District Chop House easily has the best beer we’ve had in DC, and up there among the best we’ve had in the US. They do a really good Amber Ale which puts anything I’ve had in Australia to shame.
In stark contrast to the 24th, the 25th had an early start and something planned which gave us a reason to get up on time. I had booked a tour of the US Capitol building, the iconic building which lies in the centre of the city.
The building in the foreground of the photo immediately above is the Botanical Gardens. We would like to have visited this but just ran out of time, there is just too many things to do here especially if you want to explore everything properly.
We walked around from the side of the building facing the Mall to the front entrance side. To accommodate the large number of visitors, the government decided to build the aptly named Visitors Centre underground in front of the building. This is the gateway for all visitors to the Capitol Building and houses a ‘restaurant’ and museum. It is also the departure point for the guided tours which run very frequently.
We arrived quite ahead of time, with plans to browse the museum while waiting, but instead were offered an earlier time slot. Taking the opportunity to get the tour started, we accepted and joined the earlier group. The tour isn’t that long but it takes you through some interesting rooms including the old supreme court room, the rotunda underneath the dome, and one of the statuaries.
After the tour, we had some lunch and explored the museum. Aside from landmark moments in the history of congress, the museum had models showing the development of the area of DC immediately surrounding the Capitol building during it’s many stages of construction and reconstruction as they expanded the building and it’s connecting facilities. It also has a photo showing that many of the buildings are connected together with an automated subway system awesomely similar to the one in Fallout 3′s expansion Broken Steel.
We then took the underground link between the Capitol and the Library of Congress. Going outside is for suckers.
Most of the Library prohibits photography except for the main hall, where I took a few photos including one of the ceiling and one of the mosaic depicting Minerva.
After exploring the Library for a while, where we saw the main reading room and a number of interesting exhibits showcasing the unique collection the library has on the pre-colonial South and Central American culture, we headed back to the Mall to visit a few other sites that we hadn’t gotten around to yet.
We decided to make a trip down the Mall to the Washington Monument, then across to the White House, then back to the Mall for a trip down to the Lincoln Memorial and then finally a trip down the Potomac to the Jefferson Memorial.
This is also our last day in Washington DC. Tomorrow we are catching the Amtrak train to New York.