Washington D.C., continued

Day four: It was rainy and windy all day. Luckily we only had to walk a block to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, and Rob even picked up hot chocolate for us to drink while we stood outside waiting for it to open. What a great museum—it's easy to see why it's the 2nd most visited in the United States. And on a Saturday morning, it was, as expected, packed. But after a quick peek and some of the lunar exhibits, we ducked into the first showing of the Legends of Flight movie at the IMAX theater, and it was awesome.

We left before lunch time, just as the crowds were reaching capacity.

We walked up the mall to the Capitol for our scheduled tour.

Overcast, but beautiful.

Thanks to the legislature for passing the budget at the very last minute. We were a little worried about what we'd do if the government shut down.

Every state has two statues, and here we are in front of Brigham Young. Our other statue is of Philo T. Farnsworth, who I'd always thought was from Idaho, but apparently he was born in Beaver, and lived many years in Utah.

After the tour we had lunch in the Capitol cafeteria, and were fortunate enough to be sitting next to a Ben Franklin impersonator. You know me. Of course we didn't pass up that photo op.

Next we went to the Library of Congress for a tour. It was by far the most beautiful building we saw.

You have to be at least 14 to get a library card and enter the reading room, so we didn't ditch Robbie, but how cool would it be to have a library card to the Library of Congress?

They did have a cool interactive "Passport to Knowledge", and Robbie saved different collections on his, which he can now access online. Rob and I coveted Thomas Jefferson's library, set up, as he always wished, on bookshelves in a circle, so you are surrounded by books. No photos allowed, but you can see it online here.

We had hoped to tour the Supreme Court as well, but ran out of time. Next trip.

We stopped by Union Station. Traveling used to be so romantic. It almost made me wish we could hop on the Orient Express or some equivalent.

On our walk back to the hotel:

We picked up some Potbelly sandwiches for dinner, and some Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast on Sunday morning, and called it a night. It was another great day.