My 6 state adventure

Most people get a one-week long spring break. This year, my spring break vacation was from Friday after school to the next Friday evening. Destination: Washington, D.C. It's a long story, so put your feet up and sit back in your chair.

Friday afternoon after my brother got home from school (I was already home because his school lets out later), my family and I hopped in our van and drove to a small town near Jacksonville and slept for the night. Bright and early the next morning we headed on up through Georgia, South Carolina, and into Cary, North Carolina. That's where my uncle lives, and because of traffic delays it was already time for supper. We ate and went to bed soon after.

Sunday morning would be a big day for us. My uncle joined us on our trip from this point on. That made our van cramped as we headed on up to Springfield, Virginia; a city a tad bit bigger than Tallahassee that's no more than 15 miles from Washington. Springfield had the hotel that we had reserved four nights in.

The next day we drove over to Mount Vernon, the estate where George Washington once lived. We waited until it opened and went inside and explored the estates. We went on a tour around the huge mansion and another limited-time tour of the basement and other sites. George's tomb where he was buried was also something that we saw. After lunch, we explored the gift shops and drove over to the nation's capital, Washington D. C. There, we drove around and got a glimpse of most of the well-known sites. Because of time, we were not able to go outside and tour anything.

But we did do that the next morning. It all started when we got on a metrorail, or a subway, and rode into Washington, D.C.

The first thing we wanted to do was go up in the Washington Monument. When we got there, we found out that you have to get there real early like 6:30 or 7:00 to reserve a time to go up in the towering monument. So, we had to just continue on.

The next thing to go to was the Lincoln Memorial. On the way we visited the World War II memorial. That was pretty nice, but it was really IMPRESSIVE to see the Lincoln Memorial. We walked around the huge columns and examined the statue of Lincoln.

After that we hiked all the way over to the Jefferson Memorial. Inside stood a giant statue of Thomas Jefferson. After that we went over to the cafeteria of a museum for lunch and explored the museum a little. I think it was the National Museum of Natural History, a Smithsonian museum.

After that, we had a look up close of the Capitol. It makes our Capitol seem tiny! Like the Washington Monument, you have to get there early. You actually have to ask a congressman for a tour of the Capitol. So, we could only look at it.

Next we went to the Air and Space Museum, another Smithsonian museum. We looked at everything and then went back on the metrorail home and ate supper and went to bed.

That day we had not experienced everything yet, so we went back and saw the National Cathedral. It was amazing to walk in a giant 100-year-old cathedral with lots of architectural features. As we moved on, we rode the subway over to the National Archives Building, home of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It was so neat to see the real actual documents that declared the original 13 colonies free!

We did many other things on our trip in Washington such as touch the Washington Monument (we couldn't go up in it, so why not just touch it and say we did it?) and see the actual house where President Lincoln died after being shot at the Ford Theatre.

My whole vacation was great, and I will look forward to going back to the U.S. capital again.