July 4th on the National Mall

Day 40
Monday July 4th

This was one of our LONGEST days of the trip by a long shot!  We were able to enjoy a somewhat leisurely morning (read, not having to wake up by 7am and drive somewhere) and also take in the great mountain area where our condo was located.

After the laid back, albeit brief, morning-we had a LONG day ahead of us.  Next step, pack up everything we needed for the day and drive to the National Mall to enjoy the 4th of July celebrations and fireworks.  We had high expectation for the day, especially for the amount of time it was going to take to get there.  Since Washington DC has pretty much NO condos in the suburban sprawl, the condos we were staying at were over 90 minutes away.  And that doesn't cover how long it took to drive back and forth with traffic.  We had to drive in to a train station and then ride that train (their version of public transit like NYC subways) in to the Mall area.  Then walk a long ways to the actual Mall area!

We knew we had to do something to fill the time and along the way we stopped at the White House Visitor's Center where the kids had fun making beeswax candles (which were pretty much a melted, squashed mess by the end of the day)

 and pretending to sign the Declaration of Independence.....well, except Gregory who thought it was waaaay too silly for him to put the hat on and pretend!

 After stepping back outside and walking a bit, we soon realized that even though it was overcast, the heat and humidity were still pretty darn intense.  A cool down session was needed!

 Next stop, an air conditioned Smithsonian Museum of Natural History...and bathrooms!  It was a welcome respite from the heat and humidity.  Lots of other folks felt the same, it was pretty busy!

On this, our first visit of the many visits to come, we decided to visit the rocks and gems wing.  I have never seen SO many darn rocks, geodes, hunks of precious stones, hunks of other rocks......and after about 30 minutes, they all looked the same to me!

Laurel was obsessed with all these rocks!  The glow in the dark ones were pretty amazing, I'll admit that.

Couldn't leave without seeing the Hope Diamond, set in its original setting-

We found our way out of the museum and made our way to the Mall early enough that there were plenty of grassy areas to choose from. I think I had anticipated there being no spaces available! We quickly found out that our thoughts of there being lots of food booths out and about to purchase food from were WRONG!  Unless we wanted to pay $4 for a hot dog (and nothing else) that is.  So, Bill and 2 boys laid tracks for a McDonald's that wasn't too far away while the rest of us held down our spot.  I think we had the harder job!  Can you find us there in the middle?

 The totally ironic thing was that a friend from the twins club was visiting DC with her family and we made plans to meet up and enjoy the fireworks together.  Between her phone and my phone unable to find service, we barely found each other, but I thought it was just so fun to share such a unique experience with friends!!  Bill made it back with dinner just about the same time I located Gina and her family.

 And then, well heck, we only had another 2 hours to kill!  We were extremely blessed with an overcast day so we weren't burning up, and the chance of rain turned into no rain.  We had come prepared with plenty of ponchos though.

Finally, the show started a little after 9pm.  Unfortunately, because we chose to sit farther out of all the crowds and closer to the subway station, we were unable to hear the music that was playing during the display.  You sure would think they could plug some speakers in across the entire mall area so the THOUSANDS of people that had shown up to see the fireworks (and had been sitting for hours waiting) could actually enjoy the whole experience.  Too much to ask for I suppose.

There was absolutely NO breeze that evening either so the smoke cloud from the fireworks just hung in the air, eventually blocking out a lot of the fireworks themselves.  We still got some great pictures though-

 The most fun of the evening came AFTER the show I think.  We quickly gathered our stuff up and hightailed it to the closest subway station only to find out that the station wasn't going to open to passengers until 10pm......another 20 minutes!  There were probably 300 people in a mob in front of us waiting to get into the station and many more behind us.  Luckily we had Gina and her family to talk to, the kids were crazy as ever like they had just indulged in a 5 hour energy drink!

 By the time we packed ourselves into the subway cars like a bunch of sardines and then stayed put until we got to our stop, it was nearly 11pm.

 And then.  Well, then we had to drive the 90 miles back to our condo.  And the brilliant folks in cahrge of road construction decided that this was the night to close down one lane of the freeway we had to drive out of town.  Agonizing......we needed toothpicks like Mr. Bean did in Mr. Bean's Vacation! It was a very, very late night and once again we let the kids sleep in their clothes and forget about brushing their teeth!  1:30am arrival time!

 All in all, while it certainly was a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate the 4th of July in our nation's capitol, we all felt the long long day was not worth it.  We thought the fireworks show would knock our socks off and leave us breathless.  Eh, not so much.  I think if we ever have the chance again, we'll try for Boston or NYC on the 4th.