Washington DC!

The place Travis was most excited about on our trip was Washington DC. I had been before, but it was on a class trip in 8th grade and I don't remember much other than drama on the bus and staying in hotels without my parents. Ha! We stayed in the Lincoln Park area at this Air Bnb listing. (I will never stop singing the praises of Air Bnb! If you don't use it when you travel you are missing out!) It was the bottom floor in a historic row home. Here is the outside, I never took any photos of inside, but it was great. 

The good part about it was that it was just a short walk to a metro stop so we didn't have to worry about finding parking. Perfect.

We had a great time looking at all the houses decorated for Halloween on our walk.

All the metro stations looked awesome! It reminded me of the Men in Black ride at Universal.

Our first stop was the Washington Monument. We wanted to get tickets to go up inside it later in the day, but by 10 am they had no tickets left for the day. Dangit! Also, don't let the beautiful sky in this photo fool you, it was FREEZING! and WINDY! We hadn't really packed for cold weather and were pretty miserable for a little bit.

I have very specific interests when it comes to history. Travis loves all of it, especially American History and war stuff. I'm more into seeing Indiana Jone's jacket or part of a set from M*A*S*H. So obviously our first stop was the American History Museum. If you didn't know already, all the Smithsonian museums are FREE so you could spend a week in Washington, not spend a dime on entertainment and still not see everything.

Spoiler Alert: Half of the museum was closed for renovation and it seemed like all the cool pop culture stuff was off display. I swear I only pouted for a little bit, then went to an exhibit about America at war.

Travis loved it! I think he mostly likes seeing things like the mess kits they used, and survival stuff. That is his number one interest in life. Knives and tents and bug out bags.

We finally got to the WW1 section and I got to see who I was really interested in, Sgt. Stubby! He was the most decorated war dog from WW1. There is a great Slate article about him here. He comforted soldiers, warned them of poisoned gas, and captured a German soldier! After the war he was a celebrity in the US and now is on display in the Smithsonian.

In the same case was Cher Ami. He is one of 600 carrier pigeons used by the US Army during the war, and was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Palm for heroic service!

Another case I found interesting was full of items that girls back home used to support the war, like bullet lipsticks, liquid stockings, and a bunch of cute sweetheart pins! I love that no trespassing one!

Like I said, most of the pop culture stuff was no where to be seen, but the ruby slippers were there, and there was a great display of lunchboxes in the cafeteria! We barely made it through a quarter of the museum before heading to our next stop, the Postal Museum!

Why the postal museum? It was pretty neat, and it was fun looking through the cases of different kinds of stamps and stamp artwork. The main attraction for me was....

Owney the Railway Mail Service mascot! When we first walked in we asked where Owney was and the guy acted like we were weird for asking, but he is kind of the star of the museum! They sell all kinds of Owney souvenirs! He was a stray who wandered into the post office one day and ended up as their mascot. He would ride the trains around with bags of mail and it is said he wouldn't let anyone touch the bags but mail clerks. Post masters in different places would add tags to his little vest to show where he had been. He even went over seas! You can read more about him here. He met a sad end, was ill and old and bit a postal worker and was shot in Toledo. Other postal workers were so upset they didn't want him buried, they had him preserved and now he is a focal point of this museum. This end is not mentioned in the museum of course. Isn't Owney cute? It is said he collected over 1,000 tags while he traveled more than 143,000 miles! Quite a life for a little dog!

After the postal museum we were famished and walked to a place called Busboys and Poets.

I had one of my favorite cocktails ever! It was called a Dark and Handsome and is basically a Dark and Stormy (dark rum and ginger beer) with the addition of elderflower liquor! My favorite! It was yummy!

I also had a vegan pepperoni calzone and it was delicious. A perfect balance of fake cheese and peppers and onions and pepperoni.

Travis had a tempeh panini with sweet potato fries. He said it was great! We loved this place, we'd go back if we were back in town for sure.

Now I have to head off to work, I'll be back soon to tell you about the rest of our day in Washington.