With 2022 winding down, as well as our time living on the East Coast, Misha and I decided we needed to make a family trip to Washington, D.C., while we still could. We decided to make the trip a Christmas surprise for the kids and squeeze it in before New Year festivities. We had the opportunity to see and learn many things, blessed the entire time with better weather than could ever be fairly expected in late December.
Of course, the kids always struggle with long drives, so we broke up the trip down with stops at the Flight 93 Memorial and Antietam Battlefield. In hindsight, it seems a little depressing to have two stops focused on tough historical events with such great loss of life, but we learned a lot and had extra time to talk and reflect during the driving portions of the trip.
One of the biggest highlights for the kids was using the Metro transportation system. We stayed at an Airbnb in Capitol Heights and, two days in a row, had a 15-minute underground ride to the National Mall area, trying to soak in all we could – the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Botanic Garden, three of the Smithsonian Museums, and many other things in between. We adults wore our feet out, and the kids even appreciated little things like fat squirrels and pigeons, and hot dogs from a food truck.
On our return trip, we stopped by one more Smithsonian museum dedicated to air and space travel. Jerod, especially, enjoyed seeing so many planes, helicopters, and space exploration equipment up close and personal.
Happy New Year!
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