Why it took me two hours to walk six blocks..or just another day in DC

O.K. Let me explain.

When I got up Tuesday I was tired and had the world's worst blister on my right foot so I decided to take it easy. As you can tell, the big white building at the top of the picture is the Capitol, but if you look on the left at the clump of trees the first building closest to you is The Newseum. It is a museum dedicated to our First Amendment right to a free press, and it is wonderful! There are a lot of great exhibits there and many of them are interactive so you walk through them slowly, stop often, and sit down. Perfect if you are tired and have a blister! I am going to encourage anyone who comes to see me to go there because I think they will really like it. I spent about two hours there and didn't see everything so I really want my guests to go so that I can go back :)

Anyway, just 6 blocks from there is the Old Post Office with a great bell tower from which to see the city (and to take this picture). My guidebook said it was worth going to, and since it was only 6 blocks away it wouldn't hurt my blister too much. So I started walking. If you look on the left in the picture again and see another indention with green space you might also notice that there are two white poles sticking up. This is part of the Navy Memorial! I have never seen it before and since my grandfather was in the Navy I decided to stop for a minute (more about that in another blog). Behind the memorial is 8th street, and I spotted a drug store a couple of blocks away so I started walking up the street just far enough to stop and get a few things, but there was a really cool building at the end of the street, and I was curious to see what it was. I found out it was the Portrait Gallery! One of my favorite places in DC! I had to go there for just a few minutes (more about that in a later blog, too).

After spending some time in the Portrait Gallery I came back down the street, past the drug store, to the Navy Memorial and continued down the street to the Old Post Office where I did go up into the bell tower, see the view, and take pictures. It only took me two hours to get there!

Tami