Epic East Coast - Day 12

I am exhausted after today, as the National Mall is big and we more or less walked from one end to the other.  It was also hot and humid, which made the walk more difficult, though the two kids that were walking did fine.  Evan lagged a bit behind at times, but other than that, it was a good walk.

We first walked down the Mall towards the Washington Monument, stopping at a carousel so that we could all go for a ride.  At the Washington Monument, we stopped in the shade it was providing with a bunch of other tourists.  We didn't stop for long - it's just a big tower - though Sandra had us take a family picture with the Lincoln Memorial in the background.  The lady she stopped and asked to take the picture had no idea how to use an SLR (as usual), so we have crooked pictures of our family.

Another couple of blocks had us arrive at the the World War II Memorial, which is fairly new.  We walked down one side, viewed the reliefs and the fountains and then headed down the long multi-block path to the Lincoln Memorial.  By the time we got there, everyone was hot, tired and hungry, so we stopped for lunch at a little gift shop / cafe by the Vietnam War Memorial.  After eating, the younger boys ran through all the birds sitting around waiting for food to fall from the tables.  Then it was over to see Abe - the kids and Sandra all walked up the steps, while I found an elevator that took me up.  It was quite busy and we left after a little while.

The next stop was to try and find the White House, which is five or six blocks north of the Washington Monument, so we walked all the way back there and then headed north.  We eventually found Pennsylvania Avenue and walked down it to take a few pictures.  The street is blocked off with a lot of guards keeping watch over the crowd.  We walked the length of the White House and then headed back to the mall.  There are White House tours available, but only to American citizens.  Foreigners are not allowed.  We are allowed in the White House Visitors Center, which is a small museum related to life in the White House.  We joined all the other foreigners there and took the time to cool off in the nice air conditioning.

It was then time to walk home.  We walked down a different route which ended up taking us right beside the Canadian embassy, as I noticed a large Canadian flag flying from one of the buildings.   We arrived back at the condo, had supper and then relaxed in front of the TV all evening.  I believe tomorrow we are going to try and use the metro to find our way to the zoo.