Epic East Coast - Day 16

This was our last full day in Washington DC.  Tomorrow afternoon we board an overnight train to Kissimmee, Florida.  I expect that I will do a single two day post Monday night, since it will be just one long day for us.

We took the metro out to Chinatown this morning, which is in walking distance, but we had extra money on our cards, so we decided to cut out some walking.  Our destination was the International Spy Museum.  It was a very interesting museum, though it was also very busy.  It is more or less separated into three areas.  The first area deals with spy gear and how spies operate.  The second area deals with historical spies, from the Trojan Horse and ninjas all the way to the French Resistance in WWII and what is known about any modern spy operations.  The third area deals with James Bond, so it takes a bit of a move away from reality.

The first part was probably the most interesting, though it was also the most busy and the most difficult to see things.  There were toys, purses and other items with cameras or radios hidden in them, examples of bugs and other listening devices, and a overhead air duct you could crawl through while trying to be as quiet as possible.  The kids went through that three times and I followed them the first two times, after which I got tired and sent Alex to keep track of them.

Once we finished with the museum, we walked around the corner to Ford's Theatre, where President Lincoln was shot.  You have to arrive early to get a free ticket if you want to go in, but it really didn't fit into our plans today, especially as the line up to get into the house across the street (where the president died) was over a block long.  We then found lunch at small commercial area attached to the Verizon Center (where the Washington Capitals play).  The McDonald's had about 6 tables, so we took the kids' food to go and ate beside a small outdoor creperie where Sandra and I ordered our lunch.

The reason we were there was because there was a movie theatre and we wanted to take the kids to see the Secret Life of Pets, as a simple family fun thing to do after all the museums.  The movie was pretty good, and the kids loved it - they have amassed a large number of stuffed animals as Happy Meal toys.  Our final stop was a place called Rita's for some Italian ice, which was something that my wife was looking forward to.  It was a good cool thing to eat during the hot walk back home - we walked instead of taking the metro since Alex wanted to buy something at the Air and Space Museum gift shop that he had seen on Monday, but which had not been out at the hangar.

Back at the condo, we had supper and baths and then packed everything up for our long train trip tomorrow.  Our next stop is Florida!