Washington DC Part 2: Our taxidermy tour of the Nation's Capitol Continues.

One thing about Washington I really loved was how "grand" so much of the architecture was. You would just be walking along and BAM! Amazing columns and sculpture everywhere! Kind of surreal. After lunch we headed to the National Holocaust Museum, but I didn't take photos, obviously. Then we headed to the Museum of Natural History, aka taxidermy central. I think it had been extensively remodeled since my last visit because it didn't seem familiar to me at all.

By this time I was pretty tired of walking so we made a tour through the hall of mammals but skipped the dinosaurs and the Hope diamond.

I loved the display cases, how the animals were organized on these platforms. Teeny bats flying by a giant panda. That giraffe reaching through the wall!

Teeniest skull I've ever seen.

I was also excited to see several animals I've never even heard of! This is a Streaked Tenrec! It is an insectivore and teeny tiny! Like, an inch long! I looked them up when I got home and they are from Madagascar (of course) and they vibrate their quills and use the sound as a kind of echolocation to find bugs. Nature is cool.

You won't believe how many photos I took. Believe me, it was hard to par it down and decide what to post! I love natural history museums.

Another critter I'd never heard of! Crested rat! They are from Africa and I think they are very cute.

For dinner we headed to Woodlands Vegan Bistro. It is an all vegan soul food restaurant that was recommended to us on Instagram. I'm so glad because it was amazing!

We both got crispy "chicken" sandwiches that were so yummy. They reminded me of a Sonic chicken sandwiches, which used to be one of my favorites. We shared a side of fries and mac and cheese. They had vegan milk shakes, but I was too full to try one. Bummer. We ended by sharing a slice of cheesecake. It was perfect! The best vegan cheesecake I've ever had! Woodlands Bistro is a definite must if you're in DC.

After dinner we were pretty exhausted but we knew we couldn't visit DC without seeing at least a few monuments. We were tired of walking so we called our first Uber and got a ride to the Lincoln Memorial. Uber is great by the way, we used it in Philadelphia too. I love that you can see where the car is coming from so you get a real time idea of how long you'll be waiting. It was usually less than 5 minutes, unlike the terrible cabs in Nashville that might take 30 to 45 minutes.

So the Lincoln Memorial is pretty much what you expect. Big Lincoln. Columns. I bought postcards in their gift shop.

Big penny.

We were going to walk to the Jefferson Memorial. We made it to the newish MLK Jr. monument before deciding to call it a night.

The view of the Jefferson Memorial from the MLK memorial. You can either walk along a completely dark deserted path, or a looooong way around the lake by a busy road. Forget it! We called another Uber, went back to our rental and crashed! DC is exhausting!