John and Kylee: Biking

The next morning we headed downtown to pick up the rental bikes. Rental bikes are such a great way to see the national mall. And bike rentals are everywhere including e-bikes. Unfortunately for families, e-bikes for children aren’t really a thing. And normal bike rentals often don’t accommodate families. We found one place that did have children’s bikes. And they even had a tagalong bike that Darcy could ride on the back of John’s bike. I was curious what she would think about it. Spoiler, she LOVED it. It was fantastic. John could actually feel her pedaling too, and sometimes she would pedal when he was trying to slow down. It was adorable.

Getting through the couple of blocks to the national mall felt a little iffy just because we wanted to make sure everyone crossed the road before the light changed, and no one was going in the road or going to hit a pedestrian on the sidewalk. By the end of the day though, it felt like no big deal, and we were all pros.

Biking around the monuments went better than I expected. The rental bikes obviously weren't as nice as our good bike at home that I was used to, but it was still great. We kept a pretty reasonable pace, and it was gorgeous. The sidewalks around the National Mall are really wide, and bikes are allowed on all of them.

We headed up to Capitol Hill first thing. We took photos in front of the Capitol Building, which was cool, but we definitely had mixed feelings about our government right then. Especially we were frustrated because the people inside those buildings were the reason our vacation got hijacked.

We learned that the flags over the Senate and House wings show if they are there. We saw the flag flying and couldn't help but wish they would pass the spending bill so we could see some museums.

We walked around to the back of the Capitol Building, passing the Library of Congress to the Supreme Court building.

Unfortunately the beautiful pillars were covered up with scaffolding. In addition to the bad timing of being in DC during a government shut down, we also came less than a year before a major anniversary--250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That meant there were major scaffolding everywhere with workers trying to get everything perfect for the big celebrations. Bad luck for us.

We still locked our bikes at the bike rack across the road and walked up to the big patio in front of the Supreme Court building. We sat on the benches until John mentioned that he thought there might be a museum inside the building that potentially was open. I couldn't believe it! Let's go see it! We asked the security guard that was at the entrance who said that yes, indeed, there was a museum that we could go see. But there were strict rules about having no food or water inside.

We were a family of six who was planning on biking around the whole day. We more than one whole backpack of food, snacks, and water. So we decided to divide and conquer. John, Eliza, and Holland went into the museum, while Miriam, Darcy, and I stayed outside with the backpacks. The plan was to switch when they were done.

The three of us stayed outside on the patio, playing jumping on the tiles, and giving Darcy all the attention. While we were hanging out, a group of teenagers (it looked like some kind of school group) came through and ate lunch on the patio. After they moved on, I saw there was a draw string bag under a bench that potentially looked like a student had gotten for free for their field trip. I didn't want anyone to panic (that's irony) so I told the security guard that there was an abandoned bag under the bench that looked like belonged to one of the teenagers that just left.

He didn't seem concerned. He thanked me and said he would look around for the owner. He asked the people in the close vicinity if it belonged to them. It didn't, obviously (because it belonged to one of the teenagers!). So he told someone else, who called someone. Pretty soon we were asked to move to the other side of the patio, "just to be cautious."

I am assuming more calls were made because more personnel showed. The officers that showed up were not so relaxed. They told us to move down to the street. I think this was the point that they evacuated the Supreme Court building. John had no idea that his wife was a fault for this. Just a couple of minutes later we were told to go to the other side of the street.

More and more security personnel were showing up--cars, SUVs, motorcycles, and even bicycles. Like all the varieties of officers! We decided to sit on a bench and eat our lunch until the situation was resolved so we could finish seeing the museum. We didn't even eat half our lunch before we were told that they were closing and evacuating the whole block, so we had to back up to the Capitol building. This was a bit of harder task because we had our food from Costco all spread out. We walked out to the new perimeter and left the food and the kids. But we still had to go get our rental bikes. We had to be escorted back to the bikes, and somewhat awkwardly tried to get all 5 bikes to the new location without all of our people moving them.

We heard other tourists wondering what happened. They wanted to see the museum too. The permitter officers told them that there had been an incident so they were closing things until it could be resolved. I wanted to interject that it wasn't an 'incident' it was a teenager being a typical teenager and forgetting something. There were some grumpy people!

We wanted to wait it out and see the museum, but we decided to move. We wanted to see all of the national mall, and we were burning daylight. We needed to get our rental bikes back. So we moved on with the plan of coming back another day.

So the rest of the story is that we had an opportunity the following Tuesday (that day was Friday) to try again about the Supreme Court building. So we went out of our way and walked up Capitol Hill. When we got there we were told that the Supreme Court building ran out of funding on Friday. My children thought this was enormously funny. They concluded that their mother (me) single handedly ran out the Supreme Court's funding because I reported the bag that 1,000 people were called out to deal with. I don't know what I thought would happen when I told the guards about it. Maybe they would call a bomb smelling dog, and the dog would let them know that there were no explosives, but no--they called out what felt like every branch of the armed forces to deal with it, and shut down Capitol Hill. Well, I didn't get to see the one museum that was open, but it was my kids' favorite part of the whole trip.
I learned a valuable lesson too--if you see something don't say anything until you have seen what you have come to see. This is contrary to everything I have ever been told, but sometimes you have to learn the hard way... I will now be reporting zero things ever again. The whole situation was so absurd.

Well, the rest of Friday was still delightful. I love riding bikes, and so did everyone else (mostly). Holland's legs got a little tired, but she pushed through.

We saw the Washington Monument but couldn't go inside, obviously. It was fun to be so close to it though, and look at how tall it is. From there we went over to the White House, which we definitely had mixed feelings about.

Getting near the White House was not happening. There was barricades everywhere including over the roads. Big fences, little fences, National Guard, Secret Service, and regular police officers. It was funny because shortly after this trip I substituted in Gospel Doctrine and studied about the time that Joseph Smith showed up at the White House and asked to see the president, and he was ushered in to a parlor on the second floor where President Van Buren was. That was quite the contrast to our experience where we could barely see the White House from where we were standing.

Next we explored the WWII monument which we had seen briefly the day before while we were doing the family photos. Our family photo is now one of the photographer's featured in her album. :) It was great to explore the monument better. There are so many amazing quotes in granite at these monuments. It was equally inspiring and heartbreaking because our country has had genuinely good leaders over the years, but in my opinion this is not one of those times.

Next up was the Lincoln Memorial, which was also partially covered by scaffolding. I hope that I was successfully strategic in keeping it out of photos. Ellie told us about how they studied Lincoln's second inaugural address in AP Language. It is exceptionally well written and noteworthy because of how he united his audience in his rhetoric. It's hard to imagine right now. I also thought it was cool to see the spot where Martin Luther King Jr spoke the "I Have a Dream" speech.

We rode our bikes down to the Martin Luther King Jr memorial next. I don't remember ever seeing that one before. Riding around the Tidal Basin was lovely. The light was perfect, and the Jefferson memorial was picturesque.

When we got to the Jefferson memorial we enjoyed the beautiful light and took a few fun photos. We eventually got a little crowded out by school groups and other tourists (I am surprised there were school groups at that time of the evening.)

From there we headed down to the DC waterfront on recommendation from a friend from pickleball. We decided to try getting dinner from Falafel Inc. It was just a little shop at the start of the waterfront. Man that was such a winner! It was maybe my favorite meal of the trip. That's why on "Remember DC day" during our Christmas advent, we ate a falafel salad with french fries with za'atar spices. It was delicious!

We rounded out our meal with some delicious milkshakes from Southwest Soda Pop Shop. We planned on buying three, but Ellie wanted her own. I don't know that our kids could have been more excited for those.

Walking along the DC waterfront was so pleasant. The light was lovely. The water sparkled with the setting sun. The cafe lights turned on. We could have walked for an hour there easily. But we had to return our bikes. So we headed back towards the National Mall. We couldn't resist stopping and taking photos of the National Mall lit up with the spot lights on the monuments. We made it back in time for our bike return which made us feel like a boss. What a delightful (and memorable) day!

I want to buy a tagalong bike for us at home!

In the Supreme Court museum that was not to be for half of us.

The scaffolding was a lot.

I am sorry, but that staircase!

Exiting the Supreme Court. I wish I had taken a photo of all of the security personnel outside.

Ulysses S. Grant memorial (252 ft long!)

It was a little less than two miles between the Capitol building and the Washington Monument. Tough for walking with kids, but just great for a bike ride.

Closed Smithsonian!

Crazy aspect ratio of the Washington Monument. We weren't allow to lock our bikes to the metal barricades that are everywhere. I think this is the only place we couldn't find something else to lock them to, so we took turns staying with the bikes.

Cutest kids ever

The relative security for the White House compared to any other building was insane. This is as close as we could get. We purposefully cropped out all of the security people.

The white house almost feels closer when we were further back and the fences were less in our face.

The WWII memorial really is majestic.

The Price of Freedom

Freedom Wall holds 4,048 gold stars. Each gold star represents one hundred American service personnel who died or remain missing in the war. The 405,399 American dead and missing from World War II are second only to the loss of more than 620,000 Americans during our Civil War.

The quotes were all amazing, "They have given their sons to the military services. They have stoked the furnaces and hurried the factory wheels. They have made the planes and welded the tanks riveted the the ships, and rolled the shells." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Vietnam War Memorial

Korean War Memorial - I was listening to a Kpop song as we listened to this. I wonder what our love for Korean entertainment would be without the sacrifice of these soldiers.