We began our day with Breakfast at Edgar, the restaurant at the hotel where J. Edgar Hoover supposedly ate lunch nearly every day for 20 years.
After breakfast, we walked just over a mile to the Washington Monument. We were very lucky to be able to get tickets to go to the top. The security rivaled airport security, with the addition of big old metal blast doors to keep out the riff raff.
The trip to the top is fast (70 seconds) which is amazing compared to the original elevator which took something like 12-20 minutes, depending on who you believe. No walking back down the stairs…that option hasn’t been available since 1976.
The views were incredible.
The elevator ride down is a bit more leisurely and you get to see some of the commemorative stones that were purchased to honor Washington, including the one dingus (John Force) who bought a stone and just put his own name on it.
After the Washington Monument, we walked to the International Spy Museum, where we spent 3.5 hours and could have spent more. It’s a great, interactive modern museum full of stories of spies and cool spy gear. There were deadly pencils, cameras in pens, shoes with listening devices in the heels and you get your own spy ID and mission to complete. The most memorable piece of, er, equipment was the false scrotum complete with gnarly hair designed to hide a radio. It was meant to be used by pilots in case they were downed and captured, banking on enemy soldiers not wanting to check too carefully.
As is our habit, we hadn’t eaten since a late breakfast so food was a necessity. We hopped on a Circulator to Union Station and walked to Present Company Public House for dinner. We highly recommend the burnt ends appetizer. We each had a delicious cheeseburger. Shannon had pimiento tater tots with a sriracha ketchup. There was nothing wrong with those.
Then we hurried back to the hotel (thank you, Uber) in order to take our nighttime tour of the monuments. Make no mistake, though it’s a bus tour, there is still a lot of walking. The monuments were gorgeous. The Korean War Monument is amazing at night. We wish we had made it to The Vietnam Memorial Wall during the day because it is harder to see at night. We are glad that we got to see MLK from the air as well as from the ground, as it really cemented the “out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope” theme. We loved the way Lincoln is lighted at night and wish Thomas Jefferson was as well. And of course, the Washington Monument was always present.
We saw so much, but there’s so much more to see. We are already looking forward to a return trip.
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