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!

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.