Next up on our walking that first day: the Old Post Office Building, where I heard you can have excellent views of the city.
Yes, excellent 360 degree views--but marred by all those little bars!
However, we figured out that cell phone cameras are tiny enough to capture the view between the bars, if held up right against the glass.
The view of the Capitol Building.
Playing with how much I could zoom in to see the Capitol, without losing quality.
Not too shabby!
Next stop: the National Archives.
I didn't get any pictures inside the Archives, since they don't allow photography in the most famous space that houses the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution & Bill of Rights and other important founding documents. But this was a very quiet, if pivotal moment for me. We stayed in that dim, cool space for a good 30 minutes, looking at everything and soaking it in. When we first arrived there was a small school group there, so I sat down on the floor at the far edge of the small rotunda and watched my children engaging with this iconic American history experience. And I cried. I cried because the homeschool mom in me was happy. Because the history geek in me was ecstatic. But my tears were also of relief; I hadn't even realized all the energy I had been expending towards this part of our road trip. We came on our Epic American Homeschool Road Trip Adventure because of a wedding in Alabama (that was the pebble that started the avalanche). But taking my kids to Washington, D.C. was the main goal of the whole road trip--everything else we were doing, all the other places we were seeing and the fun we were having, all that was bonus. This was the main destination, and sitting there in the Archives in the presence of those documents, I felt all the pressure of making this destination come to the surface and be washed away by my thankful tears. I felt completely liberated from any pressure (self-imposed, the last of any lingering idealism), knowing that at this moment I had done Enough. I had gotten us here (with help and encouragement from others!) and this was going to be a great experience in the capitol.
There are so many more things one could stop and see and learn about at the Archives, and this was one place I would have ideally lingered in for much longer--for example, that museum exhibit on Vietnam would have been really great to see--but we were on the highlights tour this morning, so off we went!
By now we were definitely "behind schedule"--because everything we had done so far this morning I had timed for us to see before the Smithsonians opened at 10! But after my moment in the archives rotunda, I had a renewed perspective on what we "had to" see and do that day--whatever we did was going to be great, and good enough. And I told my idealistic, on-a-mission homeschool mom brain--hey, look at all the fun learning we've done, and it's not even noon! : ) Whoo-hoo!
And then we were off to our next destinations--museums on the mall!
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